Blanco Administration Kaiboshed Bus-Hunt

Blame FEMA:

Two days after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, thousands of people were trapped in the city without food, water and medical care and growing increasingly desperate for rescue. But a top aide to Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco sent out an e-mail informing his colleagues that his staff had stopped calling for the buses needed to evacuate people from the Superdome and other places of refuge.

"NO MORE CALLS FOR BUSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Ty Bromell wrote on Wednesday morning, Aug. 31. "My people are not calling for buses now."

Bromell, who heads Blanco's Office of Rural Development, said he had gotten the word from Leonard Kleinpeter, a special assistant to the governor who was spearheading the effort to wrangle buses from school boards, churches and other groups, that the vehicles were no longer needed.

The understanding, Bromell said, was that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had enough buses on the way, while the military would also airlift people out of the Superdome on Chinook helicopters. His staff for the next several hours instead turned their attention to other matters, such as trying to get generators for the local emergency centers hit by the storm.

As George Bush might say, that Ty Bromell was doing "a heck of a job."