Seven years ago, ahead of Katrina, the emergency evacuation plan said school buses were to be used, but the mayor and his emergency manager neglected to read their emergency plan even though they had days of warning before Katrina killed 1800 of his people. The buses were there, but they neglected to tell the drivers. They had no call tree like the National Guard units use to alert members of a call-up.
In a call tree, someone calls the commanding officer, who in turn calls three others, who in turn call three others, and so on until the entire unit is notified. Redundancy is built into the tree to cover anyone not notified; in other words, people will be called several times to make sure everyone is called.
Instead, the bus drivers had been busy getting their own family out and didn't know they were supposed to be driving others. Over 250 buses were flooded and useless.
One bus was "unofficial appropriated" by a kid, who stopped by the Superdome, picked up a load and drove them to Houston. He was fifteen and had no drivers license. I hope someone kept track of this kid and helped him later to succeed. He is an amazing kid who outperformed the mayor and his staff.
The mayor was re-elected, but I never heard whether he replaced his emergency manager. This manager was offered 1000 free seats by Amtrak the night before Katrina hit, but turned them down as unneeded. Of course, both these happenings were later denied. I don't blame them for the denial (How many of the 1800 would have come through?).
