That was exactly the direction I was thinking.

Listen to National Geographic articles from one year ago.

http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/

I think it's worth noting that almost all of the problems described are occuring almost exclusively within the NO metro area. In NO you have people who wanted to leave but were abandoned by their mayor as well as the "oh so newsworthy" looters, thugs and crybabies. In the other equally hard hit areas of Louisana and Mississippi, the people who stayed and survived came together to help each other out.

Probably the most important lessons (IMHO):

1. In a major disaster, you cannot rely on any government, volunteer or commercial services for at least a week.

2. It is an absolute necessity for politicians, at all levels, to seek out compentent emergency managers and then listen to them.

3. Since September 11, 2001, the U.S. Fed Gov has been total immersed in the reponse to another large scale terrorist attack and disaster prepardiness has been treated almost as an afterthought. The U.S. "Department of Homeland Security" needs to be realigned. It should become the "Department of Emergency Prepardiness" wiith an "Office of Homeland Security" and an "Office of Disaster Prepardiness". There are many areas that overlap, but the basic concepts behind both are very different. Keeping them in the same department will allow them to work together in the overlapping areas without too much institutional conflict.

4. "Turf", bearuracy and red-tape. There are so many examples where efforts to help people were thwarted by this crap it's sickening.

Oh well, I was going to try to be brief...

Stay Safe,

Jim

Well one thing that in my opinion very much worsened the situation was the officials insistence on retaining central control of everything and basically not letting anything happen that was not in the "chain of command" instead of letting people do what had to be done. Another contributing factor was the reluctance of the NO officials to provide a coherent evacuation plan well ahead of Katrina, one that used such things as buses, trains and barges. The stories of people showing up to help and being told "No Thanks" just illustrates the stupidity of FEMA officials and whoever else was making decisions (if anybody), one of the worst things one can do in an emergency is to hesitate, often a poor decision is better than none. One of the worst aspects of this would be the fact that it had ALREADY happened with Andrew in 1992; same thing, nobody prepared and when it was over nobody had any idea what to do. Again nobody knew where people who needed help where and people who came to help were turned away and told " No Thanks".
(This last is from the book 'The most dangerous place on earth') Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.