FEMA has not been "incompetent". there have been lapses in New Orleans for sure, but alot of that is because the local and state apparatus simply washed their hands of any logistical and security support in the first 48 hours.
Yeah. Isn't it amazing that the Governors of Mississippi and Alabama both just said FEMA has been "outstanding" and has responded to every request. FEMA works fine when there is leadership. Nothing works fine when you've got a government like Lousiana voted for itself.
Maybe with a more accurate, on the ground frame of reference, if the President was angry with FEMA, he may see what they are dealing with.
IOW, FEMA can only work with what they have and NO did not give them anything to work with.
It has to come back to local. NO is an example of what can go wrong (everything!) if disaster planning is not a major issue for each locaility.
I too think that the pre-storm response was inadequate, and the post-storm response has been inadequate so far. There will be plenty of time for finger pointing.
But consider this: a disaster of this magnitude could (and will again) happen in any American city, for many reasons. With terrorist attacks and earthquakes, we'll have no warning so only the post-event plan means anything. With hurricanes, at least we have a few days warning to get ready and get people out of harm's way.
There should be at least two lessons learned from this, both of which will save lives and suffering in future disasters. The first is that when you have warning, as we did with Katrina, HAVE AN EVACUATION PLAN and USE IT. This is no easy task, to evacuate a large city in a few days, especially when some don't want to go. But it must be done.
Second, for the disasters which cannot be predicted, learn from this how difficult it is to render aid, evacuate the wounded, pacify the looters. It will be even moreso when we're dealing with earthquake-shattered roads or nuclear radiation. Learn from New Orleans and rewrite all the plans.
And as another poster pointed out, COMMUNICATIONS MEANS EVERYTHING. There is NO EXCUSE for having "no communications" when I can get a perfectly good set of radios at Target or Radio Shack which can talk all over NO. You cannot depend on telephone infrastructure. Witness the BellSouth switch building that is overheating; if that goes down, so goes a bunch of the Southeastern phone network, and I will probably not be able to access FR either.