Ground Zero, USA

Heard on the news this morning that New Orleans officials were baffled when their "driving buses around the city to evacuate people without transporation" plan didn't work during Katrina. According to Fox News, the plan "would have worked" but the bus drivers refused to stay in the city in the face of a Category 5 hurricane. Go figure. But how many people would have been standing out on the street corners, anyway?

Back in the early 80s (height of the Cold War and all that), I lived in Omaha, Nebraska, aka Ground Zero USA, because of nearby Offutt Air Force Base and SAC (Strategic Air Command) Headquarters. As you may remember, after 9/11, the President was whisked off to SAC to protect him from possible terrorist attack. That plan had been in place and widely known, at least in Omaha, for decades, although the news media seem to have either been ignorant or conveniently forgotten this fact during the "Where is the President?!" phase of the 9/11 coverage.

Anyway, I bring this up because Omaha was one of the first places the Soviets would have nuked. Our city's disaster plan was just like New Orleans's--if you have no transportation out of the city, stand on a nearby street corner and a bus will come to pick you up and take you to safety. Riiiiiggghht. The nukes are coming and I'm going to go stand outside on a street corner. NOT!