[meyer]

Excuse me?? A tourist, once having heard what was coming, SHOULD HAVE left even BEFORE the evac order - once THAT was issued, there is absolutely no excuse - they had money and means and should have used it. Now they are treated just as everyone else is being treated - rightly so.

It's a pretty big assumption that all tourists even heard what was coming, let alone got a reasonable explanation of what it meant from locals. Really, Friday evening was when things became pretty apparent that this storm would be a problem. By mid-day Saturday, there were no rental cars and many flights had already been cancelled as airlines worked to get their planes out of harm's way.

But the school busses remained untouched.

[Paleo Conservative]

Excuse me?? A tourist, once having heard what was coming, SHOULD HAVE left even BEFORE the evac order - once THAT was issued, there is absolutely no excuse - they had money and means and should have used it. Now they are treated just as everyone else is being treated - rightly so

Considering NO is a major tourist destination there should have been contingency plans to evacuate tourists. I think a few chartered 777's would work. I'd cancel all the normal flights and just have charter flights to major hub airports like DFW, IAH, and ATL. That way they could catch flights to anywhere from those hubs. Return flights from those airports could be used to fly in additional high value emergency supplies so they could be prepositioned and ready to go to deal with the aftermath of the storm.