NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Experts on disasters and transportation are questioning why New Orleans apparently strayed from its own disaster plan as Hurricane Katrina bore down.
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, told the Houston Chronicle the city had 550 municipal buses and hundreds of school buses at their disposal but made no plans to use them to get people out before the storm.
About 8 p.m. Saturday, the newspaper said Mayor Ray Nagin took an unusual, personal call at home from Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, who wanted to be sure Nagin knew what was coming.
Former Kemah, Texas, Mayor Bill King, who has spent years trying to boost organization for hurricane-planning in the Houston-Galveston area, said Nagin's decision to wait to order people out compounded the tragedy.
"To call an evacuation on Sunday morning when the storm was going to hit on Monday morning at 6 a.m. is just ... negligence," King said.
