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Sure you can, and the resources to do it are in the city. Moreover there was in fact a plan to do just that (see the first post in this thread).

Well if they had a plan to get every single person out of New Orleans, having a plan on a piece of paper to do it, and it actually being possible are different things. When they were talking about evacuating New Orleans before they hurricane, when they were still claiming to be trying to bus most of the poor people out of town, they made an exception for tourists for the evacuation. They just didn't think it was realistic to get all those people out. Not to mention that even after the hurricane, where there were health concerns about people staying in New Orleans. Some people still refused to leave their houses.

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It takes a while to bring in out-of-state buses, though not that long. The governor could have sent some in-state buses from less than 100 miles away and done the whole job in a day.

It's not just buses. FEMA, at the point people were stuck in the convention center, was already delivering food to other places in the city. They just never got food to the convention center and Cherloff's excuse was that he didn't know they were there. Even though I knew they were there because I saw it on television. And yeah, you can say that if the locals would have just bused them out there would have been no problem. You could say that about the whole catastrophe. But, the locals didn't bus them out, and even after FEMA was on scene and working, FEMA was no more organized than the locals. As is presented in that NPR story I linked to above.

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The reports of rapes at the convention center appear to have been false. There were a lot of problems, but when the center was evacuated no one said they had been raped, nor did anyone say they had seen it or had seen evidence of it. It appears to have been urban legend.

Well, it's urban legend that made the New York Times:

From http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/national/nationalspecial/11response.html?pagewanted=1

"Capt. Winn said armed groups of 15 to 25 men terrorized the others, stealing cash and jewelry. He said policemen patrolling the center told him that a number of women had been dragged off by groups of men and gang-raped - and that murders were occurring."

Did you have some reference saying it never happened I can look at?

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Bingo - that's exactly what their plan told them to do. Sadly, the local officials ignored their prepared plan and did nothing.

And, as that story says, FEMA didn't prepare for the catastrophe as well as they prepared for catastrophe's in the past either.

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After the Galveston'1900 hurricane every surviving building was raised 8 to 10 feet. I don't think it's unreasonable to require that structures rebuilt with federal money be on stilts or raised in some way that the ground floor is at least 8 feet above sea level.


No, I don't think it's unreasonable either. I just don't think there's the same scandal about the buildings getting knocked down as there is about the people not getting evacuated and/or rescued efficiently.