[Peach]

That's a good point about the cameras. Although I imagine the gangsters would have beaten people senseless to get their hands on them.

Those poor women and children. The more I hear about what when on with the lawless SOBs, the more angry I get.

This great plan for the City of New Orleans we've always heard about seems to be "every man for himself".

[Uncle Ike]

"This great plan for the City of New Orleans we've always heard about seems to be "every man for himself"."

Pardon me for responding to an old post -- I'm catching up on the thread after some sleep.

(ahem)

Plans

I've heard all over the media, and this thread, a lot of talk about "this plan" and "that plan" -- "why didn't they plan better" "why didn't they follow the plan", on-and-on ad nauseum. It's been such a wonderful vehicle for finger pointing and blame-laying, after all.

Despite the widespread faith in "plans" (or PLANS), the real road-to-perdition lies in not learning, or ignoring, the big "lesson learned" from the Katrina disaster:

There is no such thing as a plan that will not be overtaken and overwhelmed by events.

All plans depend on people and things behaving exactly as the planner predicts, and that just ain't gonna happen -- and the more complex and comprehensive a plan is, the more the likelihood of failure when actually implemented.

New Orleans and the State of Louisiana had plans, which failed not only because those tasked to implement them were incompetent, corrupt, venal, or just plain stupid -- but also because the plan did not - could not - predict the scope or nature of the events that actually unfolded.

The Feds - through FEMA - had a plan -- a plan that was based on "lessons learned" from the largest hurricane disasters in recent history (Camille and Andrew), but, also, did not and could not allow for what actually happened.

I hope I've learned this lesson -- I'm rethinking my personal "what if" plans with this in mind, making them LESS detailed and complex -- trying to build in the flexibility to at least attempt to deal with the unforeseen.

Sorry for the rant.