Some One Dropped The Ball In New Orleans., page 2

1. The Federal Government.

FEMA ran a disaster drill on a computer back in 1993 to simulate what would happen if a Cat 3 had hit NOLA. Engineers had been saying for years prior to Katrina that a hurricane would flood the city eventually. These warnings went unheeded for years until the grim realization last year. To there surprise the levees did what the engineers said they would do during a storm, and that was flood the city.Millions were put into the fund for reconstructing the levee system. Those millions have obviously went to something other than rebuilding the levees in New Orleans. Yes, Hurricane Andrew did pose a threat to New Orleans back in 1992, but the only thing it did was flood the streets of the French Quarter. The levees were first built after the Great Mississppi floods of the 1920s and the 1930s. Also the response of the government after the storm hit hampered efforts even more. The plan was for the City of New Olreans and surrounding communities to be evacuated by bus. Did they know that over half of the school bus and public bus drivers would flee before the storm? They did not take that into their minds and think of it actually happening. That is another thing that the government did not plan for in the evacuation readiness plan.

2. The State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans

The State of Louisiana did little, if anything, to help people the poor people of New Orleans evacuate. Yes, they had buses in place to be used to help with the evacuation. They did not believe that the drivers would be ones to evacuate also. This is where the railroads SHOULD HAVE been brought in to help instead. Did the State of Louisiana have the contracts with Amtrak signed and in effect as of last year? No, and neither did the City of New Orleans of Orleans and Jefferson Parishes et al. What should have been done, and I've been preaching this all along, used the trains for a massive evacuation instead of the buses. Don't believe that the contracts where already in place before the storm??? CNN's very own Anderson Cooper, whose grandmother was the wife of a one Cornelius Vanderbuilt, even said that the contracts with Amtrak and other railroads were in place but they HAD NOT been signed before the storm hit!!! Cornelius Vanderbuilt was the founder of the Accessory Transit Company, which later on became New York Central.

I believe that the evacuations via rail should have went like this to the very same extent. That is shut down all freight traffic so that only the evacuation trains could use the rails. Another thing is that, the railroads like; CSX and Norfolk Southern and K.C.S. and B.N.S.F. and Canadian National, should have been required, not asked, to have sent their office car fleets to help with the evacuations. Amtrak should have also rounded up as many cars that they have in their pool service and sent them on down to New Orleans. Why wasn't this thought of and put into action before Katrina hit the Gulf Coast? Not only could they have used the extra trains, but they could have added about fifteen or so extra cars to the Sunset Limited, the City of New Orleans, and the Cresent to help with the evacuation. Known the railroads like Amtrak and the others, they would have charged normal price for tickets to ride the trains. What they should have done was given people a free ride out of the sity on the train. If someone wanted to give a donation, like money or something else, that would have worked also. Now, what the F.R.A. should do is make it a REQUIREMENT that the railroads must participate in an evacuation of an area of good size. If they don't comply to the regulation, fine them two million dollars every six hours for non-compliance.

Brownie is not the only one to blame for this, there's a lot more than who has been said.