Yes. And that is about the normal timeline for these events. But they could not have been there days ago. As I said before, we don't have military assets just sitting around loaded with disaster relief equipment. All of that takes time. I know you know this, but it is NOT the job of the military to perform disaster relief within the United States. That IS one of the jobs of the National Guard, under the command of its state governor. And Governors cannot federalize anything. They can ask the President to federalize a situation, but to this day, I don't believe the governor of Louisiana has done such a thing. And while the active duty military will (like your brother) assist in relief efforts after the event has happened, I will guarantee your brother wasn't sitting on a bus or a ship following any of those hurricanes to where ever they made landfall. In all likelyhood, he got there 4 days or more after the disasters happened.
The response to this hurricane was disgraceful. It was disgraceful that state and city officials essentially had to be ordered to start evacuations. It was disgraceful that the Mayor told everyone to gather in a shelter but provided no food or water for them. It was disgraceful that the Mayor did not use all of the buses in his city (as the New Orleans evacuations plans dictate) to evacuate the citizens of his city. It is disgraceful that to this day, the Governor of Louisiana is still resisting efforts to turn full control of the relief effort over to Federal authorities. But what isn't disgraceful is the actions of federal organizations like FEMA and the DoD, who have had to work around the idiocy in Louisiana to effect one of the largest rescue efforts in national history. You simply cannot blame the Federal government for not performing the responsibilities of the State. That is not the role of the Federal government, and it does not have the capability.
My complaints may look like I'm giving the locals a pass. I don't have enough respect for the local leadership to even care about the disgracefull way they have conducted themselves, particularly about the preparedness planning.