The stones Cry Out.

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Friends, Rail fans, Countrymen, Lend me your ears. We have been fooled! Mineta is not at fault for the evacuation from the hurricanes. This mistruth has been spreading like wild fire, allow me to open you eyes. While Mineta may be in charge of transportation, the City of New Orleans had an evacuation plan. However Mayor Ray Nagin decided not to follow it, this lies wholly on his shoulders, not Mineta’s .

Look at an excerpt form a report in the Houston Chronicle.
The mayor’s mandatory evacuation order was issued 20 hours before the storm struck the Louisiana coast, less than half the time researchers determined would be needed to get everyone out.

City officials had 550 municipal buses and hundreds of additional school buses at their disposal but made no plans to use them to get people out of New Orleans before the storm, said Chester Wilmot, a civil engineering professor at Louisiana State University and an expert in transportation planning, who helped the city put together its evacuation plan.

Louisiana disaster plan, pg 13, para 5 , dated 01/00

‘The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating’…

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin explains in a radio interview why he didn’t use the hundreds of his city’s school buses to evacuate residents:
“I need 500 buses, man,” he told WWL. “One of the briefings we had they were talking about getting, you know, public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out of here.”

Is it Mineta’s fault that these busses, planned t

2

This way, Secretary Mineta can show how ineffective AMTK is. Makes it just a bit easier to kill.

3

Huh! Are you dure you don’t mean Nagin, the one who prevented people from getting on the train, NOT MINETA?

4

Funny, I heard they had hundreds of busses, but no drivers.

5

As if in an emergency a regular cop, or person couldn’t drive one! Give me a break. Besides, it isn’t Mineta’s job to make sure there are drivers that would be Mr. Nagin’s as well.

6

…Believe it’s a moot point now.

7

SOP after a disaster like this. Everybody in government is pointing to the other guy to assign blame. If Chester Wilmot helped put the plan together, did he notice the flaw in the plan at the time it was written? Why did he wait until AFTER the hurricaine to report this problem to the media? He is supposed to be an “expert in transportation planning.”

That’s just grabbing one example from the above.

There’s LOTS of blame to go around, the ball was dropped on so many levels. Wouldn’t be surprised if somebody tries to blame the forum readers on here for something related to this disaster.

8

I thought this was going to be about Mick and the boys man…

"I saw her today at a reception
A glass of wine in her hand
I knew she would meet her connection
At her feet was her footloose man

No, you can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
And if you try sometime you find
You get what you need …"

9

Pearls before swine, Lotus, pearls before swine.

10

As to who is to blame, it is just conjecture both ways. Of course you don’t have any proof that the federal government dropped the ball. It seems to me the feds saved Mr. Nagin and Governor Blanco’s butt. If we had left it up to them nothing would have been done. They were less decisive than General McClellan.

11

That’s what the investigation is for. Hope it turns out to be more a “lessons learned” than a witch hunt.

12

Actually, McClellan wasn’t so indecisive…just a lousy solider.
He did make a great saddle, I own three from the Civil war, two 14" inch and one 12".

I thought this thread would be about getting “Satisfaction”…

Ed

13

Yep.

My grandfather’s name was George B. McClellan Strawbridge.

He dropped the McClellan when he named my father, who was just George B. Strawbridge.

Fortunately, my own father and mother decided on “Ken”. And that’s who I am.

They were all democrats, an I’m not. Thanks dad, for the new name.

14

He must have been a big guy…I mean to make one saddle out of him would be good…but three is mighty impressive…

“…pleased to meet you, won’t you guess my name…”

15

Well, there is a very decent new book out about the Emancipation.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743221826/qid=1132115449/sr=2-3/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_3/002-4653776-6807255?v=glance&s=books

It goes through what Lincoln had to go through. Getiing slavery outlawed in Washington, DC, even after the southern congressmen had left, was quite a challenge.

In the book it is proposed that McClellan was a racist who knew that a Union victorty would mean the end of slavery, so he wasn’t trying to win. Lincoln finally fired him for good and then beat him in the 1864 Presidential Election.

Some of you may joke about this, but I see Devine Interventiion in the form of Abraham Lincoln. When He took a bullet in the brain it set back the US of A for a hundred years.

16

What did Lincoln see in him to begin with?

17

I guess I have to take back some of my terrible things I said about Lotus. His strong defense of Norman Mineta, the only Democrat in the Bush Cabinet, clearly show that he is not, as it might appear,biased in his political thinking.

18

Thank you, jeaton.

19

He was a competent general. Which was not real common.

He just didn’t believe in a war that would free the slaves.

I wasn’t a general, I was a lieutenant. But one of the first things you worry about is supply. If your guys are going to march all day they have to eat a good breakfast… And you gotta’ have that for them. You can’t make 'em do what they can’t do.

McClellan knew how to orgainaize an Army. That’s what Lincoln saw. That McClellan wouldn’t use the instument he was givien, because of his racist beliefs, was unknown.

At least, that’s what the book says.

20

James, I have never blamed Mineta for dropping the ball on the evacuation of New Orleans. It is no more his fault than if an Amtrak train is late. The job of coordinating the evacuation has to fall on local and state officials. The federal government has no authorization to get involved, until the governor of the state requests help. This thing was bungled on so many levels, but in all fairness to everyone involved, nothing of this magnitude had ever been attempted previously.

Now, the firing of David Gunn is a different story. Mr Bush has an agenda which is spelled out very clearly in his budget proposal of $0 for Amtrak. Mr Mineta is the secretary that he appointed and congress confirmed. Congress is acting against the wishes of the president by funding Amtrak with about $1.3 billion. Mr Bush wants Amtrak to fail (not sure why), and if he can’t do it by way of funding, he will have it managed to death. Whether Mr Mineta was directly involved or not, his job stands between the president and the Amtrak board. The house subcommittee met today to get answers, but I haven’t heard the outcome yet.