BISD School Bus Fires Revisited~What Did the Inspectors Find?

Photo by Miguel Roberts, Brownsville Herald

This past October two BISD school buses caught fire in separate incidents.  On October 4, 2013, bus #528 caught fire near E. 14th Street and Frontage Road with 29 Porter High School students safely evacuated.  

One week later, October 11, 30 Rivera High School students were aboard bus #447 when it caught fire. Again, quick action by the bus driver removed those students from harm's way.

Brownsville Firefighters Fighting Blaze
Photo by Miguel Roberts, Brownsville Herald

In what may be a logical fallacy or simply a coincidence, both buses catching fire were manufactured by the International Corporation. International quickly flew in an inspection team from Chicago to examine the buses to determine the cause or causes of the fires.

BISD Superintendent Dr. Carl Montoya also called for an independent investigation.  To our knowledge the results of the two inspections have not been made public.

Cata Presas-Garcia

That did not stop BISD from acting quickly to protect their students with the focus seemingly on the particular manufacturer of the buses that caught fire. BISD  Trustee Cata Presas-Garcia commented:  "We have to face the battles, but we overcame that. We all understood it was Thomas buses and Thomas buses were purchased. So International buses were not purchased this time around. We want whats best for our students and safety is priority for our district."

Quickly, BISD ordered 72 buses for the district at a cost of $6,400,000.  As Ms. Presas-Garcia stated above, they were ordered, not from International, but from Thomas Built.  

BISD Superintendent Dr. Carl Montoya

But, does this focus on the brand of school bus ordered correct the problem?  We've heard recently from an anonymous source, that it may not.  We've been told that the cause of the fires may not have been a manufacturing defect but a maintenance problem within BISD.  If that is the case, purchasing new buses may only be a temporary fix.

So far BISD has been silent on the results of either the manufacturer's inspection or that of the independent inspector hired by the district.  Neither has there been any indication of a lawsuit initiated by the district to recover monies spent on buses with defective workmanship.

We've filed a Public Information request with BISD requesting copies of both inspector reports.  We will publish that information in a followup story as soon as it is received.