They should have evacuated the sick from the hospitals before the storm. No one down there in "charge" had any sort of plan. If I am the mayor and I know I got a bunch of crack heads in my city, I would have been on the phone with the governor before it hit telling her to ask for Federal troops to be on standby! Good grief, no one could plan for everything, but they don't appear to have planned for anything. Mississippi and Alabama had their people drive the electric company trucks and all the emergency equipment up state so it was out of harms way. Jeb Bush should have been consulted, he's been through it enough times. Look at Houston they had everything ready. You plan before something happens not after. There is no excuse for New Orleans not being ready. They are surrounded by water, they should have had a worst case doomsday plan and supplies for it. What if a terrorist had gone in there and blew up one of those levies?
You couldn't bring the Guard into the area BEFORE the storm..and it was almost impossible to get anywhere near the city fro the first days after...