Jabbor Gibson, American Hero

Hooray, a sign that somebody understood the importance of getting the hell out of New Orleans, even if it meant liberating some of the publically-owned rolling stock city officials inexplicably opted to leave idle. Eighteen-year-old Jabbor Gibson claimed an abandoned school bus and drove about 100 people nonstop, for seven hours, to Houston.

Ninety-nine more clear thinkers do that and 10,000 people are out of the worst of conditions, not a bad tally. Governmental efforts to get people out of the city simply were not effective and ended far, far too soon. Single-direction traffic out of New Orleans was halted at 4:00pm on Sunday, hours before the storm's Monday morning landfall.

Katrina's Lesson: It is always easier and safer to move people away from a bad place than it is to get good things to people in a bad place.