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There have been some discussions on exactly how easy/hard it would have been to evacuate New Orleans prior to the hurricane hitting or even right after. It appeared to me that no one had planned for doing such a thing prior to the hurricane hitting. Let's actually figure out what it would take.
I'm going to guess there were 100,000 people left in NO when the hurricane hit, including those in shelters. Let's say the average bus (transit, tour, school) can hold about 40 people and a little luggage. That's 2,500 busloads.
Houston, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio are all within about 500 miles of New Orleans. Call it about a 10 hour drive. With backup drivers, each bus employed could be taking its second load of people out of the city by the end of 24 hours. So that's 1,250 busses required.
So here's where I need help - how many buses were there in New Orleans at the time of the hurricane? How feasible would it have been to press 1,250 into service on Saturday? On any given weekday in September, pretty much all of the school buses and all of the transit buses would be operating. Making them operate on a Saturday would not be that difficult.
Naturally, once you evacuate the people, the buses and drivers would stay in Texas, on alert, to go back and pick up stragglers. 10,000 stragglers at a time would require 250 buses.
This sort of bus convoy coordination is not all that difficult to pull off. The service academies bus their entire student bodies and staff to the Army/Navy game every year. That's roughly 4,000 people in each convoy.
I'm going to guess there were 100,000 people left in NO when the hurricane hit, including those in shelters. Let's say the average bus (transit, tour, school) can hold about 40 people and a little luggage. That's 2,500 busloads.
Houston, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio are all within about 500 miles of New Orleans. Call it about a 10 hour drive. With backup drivers, each bus employed could be taking its second load of people out of the city by the end of 24 hours. So that's 1,250 busses required.
So here's where I need help - how many buses were there in New Orleans at the time of the hurricane? How feasible would it have been to press 1,250 into service on Saturday? On any given weekday in September, pretty much all of the school buses and all of the transit buses would be operating. Making them operate on a Saturday would not be that difficult.
Naturally, once you evacuate the people, the buses and drivers would stay in Texas, on alert, to go back and pick up stragglers. 10,000 stragglers at a time would require 250 buses.
This sort of bus convoy coordination is not all that difficult to pull off. The service academies bus their entire student bodies and staff to the Army/Navy game every year. That's roughly 4,000 people in each convoy.
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