Sierra Faith

This post pertains to many empty trains, both literal and figurative.

Many remember this great song by Arlo Guthrie.

Well, Amtrak offered to help evacuate New Orleans but was told No.

Both Instapundit and Little Green Footballs point this out (emphasis added):

“The only thing I can say to them is I hope they have a hotel room, and it’s a least on the third floor and up,” Nagin said [to tourists on Saturday before Katrina hit]. “Unfortunately, unless they can rent a car to get out of town, which I doubt they can at this point, they’re probably in the position of riding the storm out.”

In fact, while the last regularly scheduled train out of town had left a few hours earlier, Amtrak had decided to run a “dead-head” train that evening to move equipment out of the city. It was headed for high ground in Macomb, Miss., and it had room for several hundred passengers. “We offered the city the opportunity to take evacuees out of harm’s way,” said Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black. “The city declined.”

So the ghost train left New Orleans at 8:30 p.m., with no passengers on board.

More from Brendan Loy who defines SNAFU.

Captain Ed Morrissey passes along a failing grade given to Louisiana, no, not from Karl Rove, but from the State of Florida (who knows a thing or two about hurricanes) [But, but, hasn't Rove assimilated Jeb Bush too? -- Ed. Uh, No.]

Tom Maguire and Captain Ed ask why The New York Times fails to tell its readers about the flooded buses.

Now to seal the Bush Derangement Syndrome deal, Michelle Malkin reveals how many Legacy Media types, rabid in their attempts to make Hurricane Katrina all W’s fault are hyperventilating over W’s friends making money off the disaster, well, (purposefully?) miss a minor fact (again, emphasis added since this is simply too rich):

The Shaw Group, a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate, is headed by Jim Bernhard, the current chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party.

The Anchoress is none too pleased with the knee-jerk Bush Derangement Syndrome either, and takes the Fourth Estate out to the woodshed.

Last, and certainly the least in oh so many respects, we have the empty Senator Landrieu via both Instapundit and PowerLine, and The Political Teen has the video showing Landrieu off the tracks with no crane for her brain in sight.

And so it goes. . . .

And all the towns and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
And the steel rails still ain’t heard the news.
The conductor sings his song again,
The passengers will please refrain
This train’s got the disappearing railroad blues.

Good night, America, how are you?
Don’t you know me I’m your native son,
I’m the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I’ll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 12th, 2005 at 2:11 am and is filed under Public Square. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.