[milagro]

Both. But the Mayor and the Governor should have had the sense to have a plan in place in case of a hurricane, wouldn't you think? And wouldn't it have occurred to them to have--if not on hand at least at the ready--means of getting people out of NO in case of major flooding?

I mean if they have buses available now, why weren't those buses mobilized BEFORE the hurricane came on shore? They had 24-48 hours to mobilize them before disaster struck. And the Superdome--why in the world was it not set up to provide--in case of an emergency--water and sanitation to thousands? Portapotties could serve when toilets or sewers back up--so have them stored near if not on that facility

Same with water--if a bus can get to the SD to transport people out--why couldn't have buses been sent in the day after the hurricane filled with water--and food?

These are many basic commom sense things that I can think of--and if I can think of them, why did not the people responsible for the well-being of their constituents think of them? Before disaster struck?

[lugsoul]

I wonder where all those people are who were here on Monday afternoon, bashing the Mayor and others for overhyping the threat from the storm.

This is, unfortunately, unprecedented. A plan that would have been appropriate to deal with an Andrew or Camille level of destruction would have been woefully inadequate to deal with the current situation in LA/MS.

It may be that they actually did have a plan, but that plan completely fell apart when it ran smack into no communications, no access, the loss of key transportation routes, and a scope of disaster that was off the 'bad' end of the scale for any reasonable planning.

By way of comparison, we've heard for four years now about DHS planning for a N/B/C attack. But if a nuke went off in a major US city than is already beset by transportation choke points (i.e. NYC, Seattle, SF), do you really think that the response 3 days later is going to resemble a well-oiled machine?