The further Hurricane Katrina gets in the rearview mirror, the uglier the picture becomes of the governments effort to organize the evacuation of New Orleans.

The Chicago Tribune may have said it best in an investigative piece it published the other day.

"The story of the bus evacuation of New Orleans is partly one of heroism by a handful of people who, when called upon to help, acted quickly and improvised deftly in the face of desperate need.

"But the story also underscores a critical failure in the disaster plan: the inability of government to provide even the most rudimentary transportation to take people out of harm's way."

When Katrina's storm surge breached New Orleans' levees, putting much of the city under water, it became the responsibility of state officials and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to oversee the gigantic evacuation. But they, like the city, were unprepared.

Though it was well-known New Orleans would flood in a major hurricane, FEMA had no emergency management plan for evacuating the city. So what did the bureaucrats at FEMA do when it became painfully obvious the city had to be evacuated?

They turned to a trucking logistics firm.

Landstar Express America held a federal contract worth up to $100 million annually for disaster transportation. However, Landstar was as ill equipped as FEMA to move tens of thousands of people.

But being smart business people, executives at Landstar did what any sixth grader would do, they went on the Internet and found Carey Limousine, whose Web site touted its ability to move large groups of people.

Carey in turn tapped Transportation Management Services of Vienna, Va., which specializes in arranging buses for large events, to help fill an initial order for 300 coaches.

While all this was happening, the presidents of the United Motorcoach Association and the American Bus Association were beating on FEMAs door, trying to offer help. But, of course, no one was home at FEMA. Or, when they did respond, they provided bad information.

Finally, two days after the hurricane hit, Victor Parra of UMA and Peter Pantuso of ABA linked up with Carey and others . . . and the wheels started turning.