Is it fair to say, using the convention center as an example, that one reason it took until Friday to get aid in is the National Guard needed time to build up a response team with military police to ensure law and order because the New Orleans Police Department had degraded so much?
GEN. BLUM: That is not only fair, it is accurate.
And it could be that one of the reasons that lawlessness spread so quickly is because some people, like the state's own Attorney General, actually justified some of the criminal activity under a "need to survive."
While no one is going to begrudge those people who "later" took food and water to survive, this chaos started immediately after the hurricane passed, as we even witnessed some uniformed officers taking items.
If things were as desperate as we are now being told, why did these people even find necessary to take items they knew they could never use or take with them? The answer is because even the locals didn't think things would get as bad as they did. As a result, chaos ensued and things did get worse. Why did people expect such a fast federal response when the locals didn't even care.
Hell, after the hurricane passed and before the levees broke, the city had almost 24 additional hours to start getting things in order, but they all breathed another sigh of relief as some bars even reopened (some never even closed).
PS..the Convention Center wasn't even designated as a city shelter. Mike Brown of FEMA noted that they weren't even informed of this until mid-week.