on unclebob's diary, there was a comment that expressed an opinion i've seen elsewhere. here it is, followed by my response:

Hey UB, remember the New Orleans mayor who was screaming for the 'government' to get off their gd asses and 'do somethin??? Why didn't he use these busses to evacuate the city BEFORE the storm hit - see picture here.

hey westburian, the reason the NOLA mayor didn't use the buses was because there weren't enough trained people to drive them. also, they wouldn't have been that much help anyway, since, given the terrible traffic heading out of NOLA, each bus would have only been able to make one trip out--they wouldn't have been able to get back in. the NOLA city government *did* make plans for its citizens, not to evacuate those without transportation (because gov't evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people is impractical/impossible), but to create a safe place for them to take refuge: the Superdome. it's not NOLA's mayor's fault that the roof blew off. and the plan worked, mostly. there are tens of thousands of people who are alive and safe now, because they went to the Superdome, that may not have made it if NOLA hadn't had that plan in place. there are, of course, things that the NOLA gov't could have done better, e.g. planning on using the Convention Center as well as the Superdome, so it would have had security and supplies. but i'd say that the NOLA gov't did a pretty damn good job, all things considered. i'd argue that the same thing cannot be said of the federal government.