Info Sought on Converting School Buses for Relief Efforts

Ryan Gray | Senior Editor

WACO, Texas — Last fall, after Hurricane Katrina blasted New Orleans and the Alabama Gulf Coast, Texas played a huge part by sending hundreds of school buses to aid in evacuation efforts.

Houston ISD alone chipped in with 300 drivers and 142 buses to make a nine-hour trek to the Superdome. Then a month later Hurricane Rita descended on the Houston area and wreaked havoc.

In March, Texas Gov. Rick Perry directed via executive order “that all necessary measures, both public and private … be implemented to meet the disaster.” According to Charley Kennington, the program administrator for the Texas DPS School Bus Safety Program, this means the state’s school buses could be used in all future hurricane relief efforts. School bus officials there are now scrambling to ensure the yellow vehicles are prepared for storms this year that meteorologists have predicted could be every bit as bad as last.

“They’re predicting another Category 5 in same place as Katrina,” Kennington said in mid-May.

He is working through NASDPTS to gather information on how to best modify track-seating school buses to litter- or stretcher-carrying buses for evacuating the elderly, disabled, sick and injured. He added preliminary discussions have been held with C.E. White, and he was seeking information from IMMI as well.

“The question is coming up now, if we have buses with track seating, is there a system that bolts right back into place for gurneys?”

At this writing Kennington said he had received some piecemeal information, but much still had to be organized and analyzed.

Bob Sands, an engineer with C.E. White, said the company continues to look into the issue and will include securement manufacturers like Q’Straint in the discussions.
Randy Boatman, program administrator of the Texas Education Agency’s Transportation Funding Unit, said Gov. Perry’s plan through the state’s disaster management team is to reimburse school districts for any costs incurred while modifying school buses for evacuations. But he said he has not yet seen a specific disaster relief plan or an accompanying funding model, and so far at least, school district reimbursements would not come from the TEA.

Source: School Transportation News, July 2006. All rights reserved.