They were slow...I don't think anybody realized how big the disaster would be in the prepositioning stages. And there seemed to be a true lack of good coordination until after day 3...Fema and the state and the city and the NG worked at cross purposes longer than they technically had to. Whoever's at fault (and I am not laying real blame...from an outside pov, it looked like everybody got kinda freekout froze for at least 12 hours more than they should have, but I certainly don't have the skinny on why it happened), made it worse than it had to be, but by day four things hit their stride and began to click. About a day longer than normal, but this was a huge event.
Things are always bad, screwy and miserable at the beginning of a disaster. But this one does take the cake.
I see a response that was slowed by Wargamed, politicly correct beauracracy, and hobbled by lawsuit avoidance until BUSH put a size ten in somebody's rear.
If you remember, a few months ago there was some LIB screaming about a disaster excersise that included "Minority Civil Unrest" as being racist?
And the Governor of Louisiana STILL has not declared a state of Emergency!! A Health emergency, yes, but not a LEGAL state of emergency...