I think you are mixing me up with somebody else. My original post didn't assign responsibility to any group, federal, state or local.
It only spoke to the fact that we often don't realize how fragile our infrastructure systems really are. We think of water and food supply and sanitation, even sewage disposal, as if they are naturally occurring processes. We don't realize that people struggled for centuries to effectively provide such facilities to large cities.
Because we think of them as "natural," we are outraged when they fail, which means it must be somebody's fault.
BTW, I understand that the cause of the flooding was the failure of concrete levees. Wouldn't be surprised if there was some "fudging" on the specs when these things were built, possibly even payments to inspectors to look the other way. Only logical reason I can think of for levees to break that weren't even completely full.
My comments were also a general observation on the state of American society. I live quite near the San Andreas fault. One day Los Angeles and surround will have a disaster very much like N.O.'s, whether from the San Andreas or another of the multitude of faults that run through the region. Since L.A. politics operates on the same racist multicultural spoils system as N.O. -- just more and different kinds of spoilers involved -- I know the city won't be prepared either when its moment of truth arrives. I'll blame the elected officials, not the federal government.