.

Considering there were about 500,000 people in Louisiana according and ¼ fall into poverty there is about 125,000 who could not leave the city because they could not afford it. There were 700 public buses and if we give them each a capacity of 25 people we can get 17,500 people on buses and out of New Orleans in one fleet. Let us assume to evacuate people by bus is 6 hours round trip. At 5 AM on August 27th Katrina was a Category 3 Hurricane and later in the day the issue was escalated to a Federal Emergency. Katrina hit on 7AM of August 29th. If we believe that 4 trips could be fit in (24 hours plus time for rest and crowd control) then there are 70,000 people who could be evacuated. That is half of those who would not be able to exit because of financial issues. Now also consider there were actually 30,000 people in the Superdome. THis calls into question how many really needed to be moved out."

Sorry sir but your math is flawed. Each bus can hold 40 people (there are 20 seats in a school bus and each seat holds 2 people). At 700 buses containing 40 each, that total is 28000. If each bus made 4 trips the total would be 112000 people. Not 70K.

Well my bus seats 20... So I used that number instead. Forgive me

Well my bus seats 20... So I used that number instead. Forgive me

What is it one of the smaller buses? A full size american school bus holds 40. No biggie to me. Just a big difference in overall numbers. Using you numbers then you're correct. But the 700 were all full size. Here's a link to an overhead shot of a New Orleans school bus yard.

Link

The cost of rebiulding New Orleans isn't just houses, either. All the efforts thus far go into the cost. Then the city has to be drained and the levees rebuilt. Then, the infrastructure has to be rebuilt. Once you have safe, usable land to build on, only THEN can you rebild all those houses.

I agree to a point. I think it would be cheaper to re-integrate many into other communities and build around the unusable parts of New Orleans. I don't think you can equate it all to building housing, though, even if you do take that attitude. There's a lot more to a city than houses.

And I have never seen a school bus that only held 20 people, unless you are talking about the "short bus" kind of buses. If they counted seating at one student per seat, it would be immensely wasteful, and you'd have twice as many buses as you need. In a sitiation where people are going to be bussed out or die, it is even worse.