Looting a Bus to Get Out.

[LostAngeles]

Or that's how one news organization called it. Check it.

HOUSTON -- Thousands of refugees of Hurricane Katrina were transported to the Astrodome in Houston this week. In an extreme act of looting, one group actually stole a bus to escape ravaged areas in Louisiana.

...

Eighteen-year-old Jabbor Gibson jumped aboard the bus as it sat abandoned on a street in New Orleans and took control.

"I just took the bus and drove all the way here...seven hours straight,' Gibson admitted. "I hadn't ever drove a bus."

...

Authorities eventually allowed the renegade passengers inside the dome. But the 18-year-old who ensured their safety could find himself in a world of trouble for stealing the school bus.

"I dont care if I get blamed for it ," Gibson said, "as long as I saved my people."

...

Here's the Houston Chronicle's article on it.

...
Jabbar Gibson, 20, said police in New Orleans told him and others to take the school bus and try to get out of the flooded city.

Gibson drove the bus from the flooded Crescent City, picking up stranded people, some of them infants, along the way. Some of those on board had been in the Superdome, among those who were supposed to be evacuated to Houston on more than 400 buses Wednesday and today. They couldn't wait.

The group of mostly teenagers and young adults pooled what little money they had to buy diapers for the babies and fuel for the bus.

...

They looked as bedraggled as their grueling ride would suggest: 13 hours on the commandeered bus driven by a 20-year-old man. Watching bodies float by as they tried to escape the drowning city. Picking up people along the way. Three stops for fuel. Chugging into Reliant Park, only to be told initially that they could not spend the night.

...

Here's the U.K. Times story.

...
A NEW Orleans teenager saved dozens of people from the stricken city after commandeering a 70-seat school bus and driving it on a harrowing 300-mile journey to Houston.

Jabbar Gibson, who was reported by an American television channel to be just 15, was determined to leave New Orleans after two days wading alone through the filthy waters of the former red-light district of Storyville. Although he had never driven a bus in his life, he broke into a school and made off with the bright yellow vehicle.

What began as an act of sheer panic turned into what has been called a “magnificent journey” that placed Gibson among the heroes emerging from the horrors of Hurricane Katrina.

“I knew how to get over the fence, and where the keys were, so I felt it was worth the chance,” said Gibson, whose age was given by another channel as 18.

Although he had only eight passengers on board when he set off on Highway 10 towards Texas, Gibson picked up many more, young and old, stranded beside the road during the eight-hour journey.

“By the time we gotten here we had all kinds of folk on board, from mothers with young babies to people in their seventies and eighties,” said Gibson, speaking from Houston. “And when we ran out of gas we had a whip-round and everyone gave me enough cents to fill up and get here.”

The young driver, who was still looking for some of his friends and family, said he was not worried about the legal repercussions of driving without a licence.

“I don’t care if I get blame for it so long as I saved my people,” he said. “If we had stayed there, we would still have been waiting.”

...

I won't bold the inconsistancies in his age or the time the trip took.

Jabbar Gibson took a bus, had never driven one before, and luckily managed to safely take these people to Texas. Granted, that was a potentially dangerous thing to do. One of the pictures show what looks like a fully packed and cramped bus at unsafe levels. If the bus had flipped, crashed...

Would I call it looting? Looting implies greed to me. They wanted to get out of New Orleans and to safer, dryer ground with food and water. Hell, they, like everyone else, needed to.

No jury's going to convict this kid and that's fine. I think the usual driving without a liscence punishments should come down the line though, just in the interest of maintaining law and order.

He did a potentially risky thing, possibly a stupid thing, but it came out good.

 

[clarsct]

Hell, I would've.

Yeah..the inconsistancies are a bit...humorous.

Makes ya wonder about the whole Christ bit, donnit?


But yeah, I'd have done it. If a jury convicts this guy, we need to shoot the jury.


ETA: Good catch!

 

[Zep]

He was driving either at 50mph or 25mph, depending on the story. I'd suggest the latter given the conditions and notes stops ,etc. Which would suggest he wasn't speeding anywhere, and was probably fairly safe from a road incident (relatively).

He turned the bus over when he got there, and came quite clean with what he had done. Under the circumstances, no-one's going to press any charges ever. He could even be given official recognition for his act. And I bet he has learned a lesson in self-respect and self-empowerment too. More power to him, I say.

I'll also bet this won't be the last such story that will surface.

 

[The Fool]

He seemed to me to have initiative, courage and an understanding of what was required...If America is looking for heroes to decorate after all this then they could do a lot worse than picking the many people who acted like this kid....

well done....

 

[Beady]

I think the usual driving without a liscence punishments should come down the line though, just in the interest of maintaining law and order.

I wouldn't give a fig for the bureaucrat's career who tried to stick this kid with a fine or jail time (the "usual punishments"). As far as law and order, these were extraordinary circumstances almost certainly not envisioned by legislators or other authorities, and there's an entire busload of people thankful that they encountered someone who could operate effectively within those conditions.

Reminds me of a story about three French Foreign Legionaires in Indochina (Vietnam) who had "field modified" a jeep(?) by installing an air conditioner. They came under attack by a company(?) of Viet Minh but successfully fought them off. The French army gave them each the Croix de Guerre, then court-martiled them for unauthorized alteration of government property.

He did a potentially risky thing, possibly a stupid thing, but it came out good.

Risky? Stupid? He and all these other people were already at risk. And there's a difference between stupidity and desperation. Without Katrina, it would have been stupid; with Katrina, it was desperate and heroic.

 

[LostAngeles]

Re: Re: Looting a Bus to Get Out.

I wouldn't give a fig for the bureaucrat's career who tried to stick this kid with a fine or jail time (the "usual punishments"). As far as law and order, these were extraordinary circumstances almost certainly not envisioned by legislators or other authorities, and there's an entire busload of people thankful that they encountered someone who could operate effectively within those conditions.

Reminds me of a story about three French Foreign Legionaires in Indochina (Vietnam) who had "field modified" a jeep(?) by installing an air conditioner. They came under attack by a company(?) of Viet Minh but successfully fought them off. The French army gave them each the Croix de Guerre, then court-martiled them for unauthorized alteration of government property.



Risky? Stupid? He and all these other people were already at risk. And there's a difference between stupidity and desperation. Without Katrina, it would have been stupid; with Katrina, it was desperate and heroic.

It was still a risk driving such a huge vehicle. The kid is a goddamned hero no question. Heroism isn't always doing the smart or the safe thing, it's doing the right thing. I was trying to step back from just cheering and evaluate what he did.

He took a risk driving that bus and saved a whole mess of people. It's A Good Thing.

 

[Beady]

Re: Re: Re: Looting a Bus to Get Out.

It was still a risk driving such a huge vehicle.

He and his passengers traded one risk for another. Which of the two risks was, err..., riskier, I have no idea how to evaluate (although I'm sure someone here is going to try, and then insist that they're right).

 

[LostAngeles]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Looting a Bus to Get Out.

He and his passengers traded one risk for another. Which of the two risks was, err..., riskier, I have no idea how to evaluate (although I'm sure someone here is going to try, and then insist that they're right).

...

Well...

To be entirely honest...

I'd vote for staying in New Orleans without food, water, etc. But that's just an opinion, really.

And I'm right. Totally.

 

[Mycroft]

Here are some more busses that could have been "looted."

JunkyardBlog: Less than a mile from the Dome

 

[hammegk]

I didn't bother to count 'em, but 400 buses x 50/bus =20000 less in harm's way, days ago.

The problem with this scenario is that a 400 bus convoy (organized by gov't -- lights sirens etc) would have been one more major road-block on already overcrowded roads needed for pre-Katrina evacuation. Pre-levee breaks, maybe roads out of town could have been cleared quickly enough for such a convoy.

Hello mayor & governor ....

If the 400 had individually joined the pre-K traffic jams, that would not have been quite such a traffic problem, imo. I.E. 400 car thieves needed -- please apply one at a time.

 

[davefoc]

The local city fathers are sitting around bashing Bush for his inaction, but were they sitting on hundreds of buses that could have been used to relieve the situation if they had taken a break from their Bush bashing to organize something?

 

[The Fool]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Looting a Bus to Get Out.

...

Well...

To be entirely honest...

I'd vote for staying in New Orleans without food, water, etc. But that's just an opinion, really.

And I'm right. Totally.

well....you would not have been totally without water. There would have been plenty of small pools around full of water and various nasties and parasites....all of which you would have been gulping down in no time due to the temperature.. Forget about food...nobody is going to starve to death in a week or so, lack of water is a same day death service if you have the right temperatures ....are you real sure you would not have left?

 

[LostAngeles]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Looting a Bus to Get Out.

well....you would not have been totally without water. There would have been plenty of small pools around full of water and various nasties and parasites....all of which you would have been gulping down in no time due to the temperature.. Forget about food...nobody is going to starve to death in a week or so, lack of water is a same day death service if you have the right temperatures ....are you real sure you would not have left?

As the bigger risk, I meant.

 

[nightwind]

Looted bus

I just wonder, if the lad who looted the bus, had been of the white race, the story would have been spun of him being a hero, which he was in my book.

 

[LostAngeles]

Re: Looted bus

I just wonder, if the lad who looted the bus, had been of the white race, the story would have been spun of him being a hero, which he was in my book.

Most of the other news reports are reporting him as a hero, rather than a looter. Only the first one, which is the first one I found, called it "an extreme act of looting."

Of course, I could be wrong, but that's what I found. So most of them are spinning him as a hero, which frankly, isn't much of a spin at all.

 

[Mona]

Re: Looted bus

I just wonder, if the lad who looted the bus, had been of the white race, the story would have been spun of him being a hero, which he was in my book.

Oh, OF COURSE he is a hero, and no way was he "looting." No one is going to prosecute that lad, trust me . (I am a lawyer.) He has the purest necessity defense imagineable, and all he'd have to do is call one witness after another of the people he rescued, and the jury would be ready to lynch the prosecutor.

Ain't gonna happen.

There were many, many rapes and murders before the evacuation got underway. Just maybe those should take a priority in the prosecution queu, duh? (Altho some of the scumbags were shot dead on the spot.)

 

[Zep]

The local city fathers are sitting around bashing Bush for his inaction, but were they sitting on hundreds of buses that could have been used to relieve the situation if they had taken a break from their Bush bashing to organize something?

Yep, I can see the meeting now: Top floor of the Superdome, city fathers meeting, and they are hot, sweaty, hungry, thirsty, dirty and very tired. There's chaos down below, and shots in the night. First item on the agenda: How To Bash Bush With This One.

And we're quite sure those buses are all roadworthy and fueled up after being covered for days in water? Or that there's fuel available for them? And that that are not currently sitting in 10 feet of water up to the roofline? Hmm?

 

[Mycroft]

And we're quite sure those buses are all roadworthy and fueled up after being covered for days in water? Or that there's fuel available for them? And that that are not currently sitting in 10 feet of water up to the roofline? Hmm?

If they're covered with water now, you can be sure they were not before the huricane hit.

 

[Mycroft]

The local city fathers are sitting around bashing Bush for his inaction, but were they sitting on hundreds of buses that could have been used to relieve the situation if they had taken a break from their Bush bashing to organize something?

Yeah, check out this article too:

Katrina medical help held up by red tape

 

[Zep]

If they're covered with water now, you can be sure they were not before the huricane hit.

Good point.

Another butt due for a good kicking...