[Steely Tom]

Yup. People in New Orleans — and public employees especially — tend to have a casual attitude toward their duties.

Good thing no one has to depend on them in life-and-death situations.

[Rockingham]

As a student at Tulane University in New Orleans in the 1970s, I learned that the locals were fully aware of their city's vulnerability to catastrophic flooding. Shrewd residents in low lying areas kept a hatchet, crowbar, sledge hammer, and essential supplies in their attic in case they needed to bust through the roof to escape a flood after a levee breach.

A friend who lived in the Ninth Ward though explained how he worried more about a hurricane bringing a storm surge in Lake Pontchartrain and collapsing the industrial canal -- which is exactly what Katrina did. One could not miss the canal because it loomed over that section of the city. So why wasn't it maintained and reinforced?

Unfortunately, in the 1980s, the rise of black political machine power led to the election of corrupt and incompetent city officials, who then appointed and hired loyalists who comprehensively looted and mismanaged local government. This wrecked the essential housekeeping of municipal flood protection. The old white political and business elite of New Orleans had limited corruption by keeping it an elite enterprise and paying attention to essentials.