I wish I had paid more attention when that whole Katrina thing went down. I remember the NRA did an article or two in their American Rifleman magazine about a gun toting civilian or two who used their guns lawfully to chase off ne'er-do-wells so they could get out of NOLA. I wish I had kept those magazines are clipped out the articles. Well, I probably still have the magazines but wouldn't even know where to start looking.
anywhooo...considering how heavily subsidized Amtrak is, I have to wonder why the NOLA residents weren't just put on trains and take out of NOLA.
Might have been a several reasons.
1. Were the rail lines intact/
2. Was there enough capacity to handle the evacuation in the time frame as it developed?
3. Who orders the engineers to man trains going into a major disaster area? The folks who were at the stadium refused to evacuate till it was too late.
4. Even if they did manage to find engineers and had the capacity, they would need to find communities willing/able to absorb the influx when they might have been stretched already.
I did read unfavorable stories about those who were eventually moved to Houston, but I do not know if the incidents related were true....but if they were, it would be a deterrent to any community to try to assist them.