In the end, the bus companies did their best without FEMA's help. In the days that followed the hurricane and the disastrous flooding of New Orleans, said Pantuso, the bus association and its members quickly put together spreadsheets of companies with available buses and dispatched them to the storm zone as quickly as they could.

Even then, FEMA's response was slow and confusing, according to accounts of the evacuation reported in a special edition of Destinations Magazine, the in-house publication of the American Bus Association.

One company, Toby Travel and Tours Inc., of Louisville, Ky., sent two motor coaches and four drivers to New Orleans. Once there, "drivers had to wait, bus by bus, for clearance to unload their passengers while ground crews completed necessary paperwork for each passenger," Destinations reported. "Some buses that arrived in the same convoy on Saturday night had to keep their passengers on board until Monday morning."

Another company, Spirit Tours in Glen Allen, Va., called federal authorities after learning that New Orleans needed buses to help evacuate people stranded by the hurricane but "heard nothing for several days." Then, after getting an "urgent plea for help," Spirit sent two buses and three drivers to New Orleans, "where they sat and waited with many other eager drivers and empty motor coaches."

Finally, the Spirit buses moved 110 people to Dallas, where they were told by authorities to continue to San Antonio, 300 miles away, because the city's shelters were full. "During the nine days Spirit participated in the effort, its two buses carried passengers on only one 550-mile run, but the buses, as per the authority's ever-changing instructions, traveled 3,700 miles," Destinations reported.

None of these accounts mentioned a word about Landstar. In an interview, Pantuso could not recall Landstar playing any role in his discussions with FEMA or its subcontractors.

Yet according to Landstar's October earning statement, the Florida company "was not only able to source the necessary capacity required for the disaster relief efforts but was also able to source sufficient capacity to support a 9.5 percent increase in revenue." Landstar President and CEO Henry Gerkens was "very pleased" with that increase, which he called "the highest quarterly revenue in Landstar history."

FEMA's record during Katrina contrasts sharply with how Texas handled Hurricane Rita, which hit the Gulf region shortly after Katrina.

About a day before Rita's landfall, Pantuso said, he received a call from the Texas Office of Procurement asking how they could direct buses during and after the storm. The bus association, using the spreadsheets it put together during Katrina, did a "blast e-mail" to companies in about 14 states and "within an hour and a half had heard from 30 to 40 companies." As a result, that evacuation went smoothly.

According to Barnes, the IG press officer, the government audit is focusing less on the turmoil and lack of organization of the evacuation of New Orleans and more on Landstar's billing practices and the FAA's auditing record. The IG's upcoming report will make recommendations to the FAA so "before next hurricane season the agency can find a baseline for these services," he said.

FEMA's contracting-out of the management of its emergency services apparently started after 9/11, when the agency was folded into the Department of Homeland Security, Barnes said.

The IG's office explained its audit in a "Management Advisory" issued Oct. 12. Specifically, it said the IG was auditing the ordering and payment system of the FAA's Southern Region near Atlanta, which holds the FEMA hurricane evacuation contract. DOT inspectors, it said, had discovered major discrepancies—with estimates ranging from $60 million to over $200 million—between the FAA's recorded "obligations" to Landstar and the "taskings" received from FEMA and issued to Landstar for providing logistics services during Katrina and other recent hurricanes.

Originally published in the January 21/22, 2006 issue of Counterpunch. Copyright © 2006 by Tim Shorrock. Reprinted with permission.