Ray Nagin: School Buses Not Good Enough
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NewsMax, Sept. 8
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin garnered a ton of publicity with a profanity-laced interview he gave to WWL radio last Thursday, where he blasted President Bush and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco for not coming to rescue his city in time.
However, Nagin’s most newsworthy comments—where he explained why he didn’t use hundreds of city school buses to evacuate his city’s flood victims—went almost unnoticed.
Turns out, Nagin turned his nose up at the yellow buses, demanding more comfortable Greyhound coaches instead.
“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.”
Nagin described his response:
“I’m like—you’ve got to be kidding me. This is a natural disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans.”
While Nagin was waiting for his Greyhound fleet, Katrina’s floodwaters swamped his school buses, rendering them unusable.
(Posted on September 8, 2005)