After they take care of their immediate needs, I'd say the folks in NO need to ask themselves some hard question about how their pumps are maintained.
Agree - that, and they badly need to re-examine their disaster plans, their evacuation plans (or lack of), and the competence of their elected officials. Frankly, the situation in NO seems like it was a bit of a "fustercluck". If the storm hadn't jogged east it could have been much worse, and it's bad enough as it is (and we don't even know how bad it truly is yet).
LQ