Well, a lot went wrong, but a lot did go right too.
The evacuation of New Orleans BEFORE Katrina went smoothly.
Problems that cropped up from Ivan the year before had been resolved. Specifically, Mississippi opening a contra-flow lane North for New Orleans.
Remember, an Evacuation of New Orleans was ordered before the storm. (They tossed it up to President Bush).
The fundamental problem was a lot of people refused to evacuate.
The evacuation of people to the ‘shelter of last resort’ - the Superdome also went reasonably well. However, they had about 30,000 more people that they had planned for.
There was an Emergency Hospital setup on the floor of the dome. They did great work.
Rescue ships had been propositioned off-shore in advance of the storm.
The U.S. Coast Guard started life flights as soon as the winds died down. They rescued massive numbers of people.
Transport and travel out of the city was setup and proceeded smoothly.
Several days after they knew that Katrina was huge and heading towards New Orleans. No credit here for Dem leadership in LA.