Chron (again) misses HISD editorial opportunity
Yesterday a Chronicle editorial praised some individual efforts during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Singled out for kudos were T. Boone Pickens for flying a planeload of dogs out of Baton Rouge to animal shelters on the West Coast, former Rocket Kenny Smith's benefit basketball game, and former VP Al Gore for arranging to get almost 300 ill patients out of New Orleans.
One of our complaints with Chron editorials is how often the editorial board misses a chance to go local, and yesterday's editorial was a good example. Instead of writing about Gore's efforts (if there was a limit of three things to praise) the Houston Chronicle could have given the editorial a Texas-focus and highlighted what HISD and a large group of its employees did:
More than 300 Houston Independent School District bus drivers, police, and support personnel volunteered to give up their Labor Day weekend to go to the New Orleans area to help in the rescue effort. Departing from Houston between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. Saturday, they drove 142 HISD school buses to New Orleans overnight after an emergency appeal from Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco.
[snip]
HISD’s General Manager of Transportation Services Bonnie Russell said the school district decided to send a number of buses with wheelchair lifts because of news reports from the New Orleans area showing many wheelchair-bound individuals struggling to board regular buses. District officials reported Sunday morning that several buses, filled with wheelchair-bound survivors, were on their way to safety.
Russell reported that one large group of HISD buses was at a docks facility in New Orleans loading survivors from boats and taking them to the New Orleans airport to be flown out of the area.
[snip]
HISD's Assistant General Manager for Transportation Services Phillip Smith reports that he was with a group of buses that picked up evacuees from ferries across the river from New Orleans and took them to the airport. All of them had been stranded in their homes. Some had severe sunburns. Smith said evacuees and the military officials running the evacuations were very glad to see the HISD buses. Officials told Smith that the buses arrived just in time allowing them to evacuate more survivors.
[snip]
District buses were also used to take military troops from an airfield into five parishes in the New Orleans area.
HISD Police reported that several HISD buses took loads of evacuees to Kenner, Louisiana, and also evacuated a nursing home.
It is beyond ridiculous that the editorial board refuses to acknowledge the contributions HISD has made to aid those affected by Katrina -- which includes taking in almost 3,500 displaced Louisiana students with no mechanism in place yet for reimbursement. It has become apparent that there is an undercurrent of petty hostility (based on who knows what) that drives the Chronicle's attitude toward HISD, and that hostility does a disservice to the Chronicle's readers.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 09/14/05 10:17 AM | Houston Chronicle | Print | Comments (0)
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