The first bus full of refugees from New Orleans to arrive at the Reliant Astrodome in Houston was not the result of FEMA work... but the work of an 18- or 20-year-old man (the stories are somewhat conflicting) named Jabbar Gibson. It was covered both in the Houston Chronicle and by Houston's Newschannel 5, (Update: that page has been removed, possibly out of standard expiration policies, so I have set up a mirror) but there is quite a remarkable difference in tone between the two. Although described as "renegade refugees" by the Houston Chronicle, the survivors are otherwise treated sympathetically by the article... but their escape was described as "an extreme act of looting" by Newschannel 5, which then went on to point out:

It then went on to imply that Jabbar Gibson (spelled "Jabbor Gibson" by Newschannel 5) could be arrested for his rescue:

This was followed up by an entry on Main St. USA claiming that information had come from a lawyer listserve that Jabbar actually is going to be charged (and will definitely get a pro-bono lawyer). This meme has been repeated in a number of other places,
but I have yet to see anyone confirm that he was, in fact, charged. While I find it difficult to believe that anyone would be stupid enough to do such a thing (particularly since he claims New Orleans police told him to go ahead and take the bus), stupidity has been running rampant throughout this disaster, so it's probably well worth keeping an eye out for his name, just in case he does end up needing help.

Slight Clutter has a Flickr image gallery up including a number of shots he took when the bus arrived, and more information from his firsthand experience, including the fact that most of the passengers were children. Most interesting to me was this one, where he notes that one of the questions that the children had upon arrival was, "Does anyone know what happened to the other bus?"

That's a really good question, since nobody seems to have mentioned another bus.

Local 6 in Florida has yet another slant on the issue, noting that three other buses were similarly taken, but stopped in Port Allen and the evacuees transferred to other buses going to shelters in Texas. I hope the "other bus" referred to above was one of these, and not that there's a bus that simply didn't make it out.

It's worth noting that New Orleans had hundreds of buses like these available before the storm, none of which were made available to assist with evacuations before it hit, and the majority of which now appear to be underwater. While the federal dismantling of FEMA and transfer of funds, personnel, and equipment away from flood control and disaster management may have greatly exacerbated the damage done to the city, there appears to be a matter of gross local mismanagement that has greatly exacerbated the risk to the populace. New Orleans isn't full of people who wanted to stay; it's full of people who wanted to get out, but couldn't. If the buses from that photograph alone were used, over ten thousand people could have been brought to safety.