Afternoon August 29, 2005: FEMA Announces Plan to Send 500 Buses to Evacuate Stranded Residents in New Orleans

Around this time, FEMA announces a plan to send 500 commercial buses into New Orleans to rescue the thousands of people still stranded there. Louisiana Governor Blanco will later recall that when FEMA Director Michael Brown personally notifies her of FEMA’s plan, she assumes that the buses are pre-staged near New Orleans. “I assumed that FEMA had staged their buses in near proximity,” she said. “I expected them to be out of the storm’s way but accessible in one day’s time,” Blanco will later recall. [Advocate (Baton Rouge), 9/18/2005]