From the Houston Chronicle

Photo Credit - Carlos Antonio Rios / Chronicle

The first busload of New Orleans refugees to reach the Reliant Astrodome overnight was a group of people who commandeered a school bus in the city ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and drove to Houston looking for shelter.

Jabbar Gibson, 20, said police in New Orleans told him and others to take the school bus and try to get out of the flooded city.

Gibson drove the bus from the flooded Crescent City, picking up stranded people, some of them infants, along the way. Some of those on board had been in the Superdome, among those who were supposed to be evacuated to Houston on more than 400 buses Wednesday and today. They couldn’t wait.

The group of mostly teenagers and young adults pooled what little money they had to buy diapers for the babies and fuel for the bus.

SALATHEIA BRYANT and CYNTHIA LEONOR GARZA

This kid went to a yard full of school buses, found the keys, started it up and got 70 or 80 other refugees out of there. He didn’t wait for the help that wasn’t coming. He didn’t go looting. He went and helped his fellow Americans, the old, the young, the sick and injured. He did it.

Leave a Reply