Interesting you mentioned the Tsunami. 250,000 people died in that one, due to lack of warning. Things could
be much worse in NO, relatively speaking.
But in a Tsunami, how much warning are you going to get, an hour, if you're lucky.
With a hurricane, you can have days to evacuate.
We don't know the details yet, considering that those 250,000 people were from several countries and not just one city and surrounding parishes, and a few counties from MS and AL. I'm not even counting the folks affected from the storm inland. We haven't heard how they have fared either.