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What you are seeing in New Orleans is the result of very, very poor planning at the local and state level. They have got millions of dollars to plan out disaster response over the past few years. It was SPECIFICALLY for planning disaster response.

This planning is done by the people who know the local area the best, the local government. All of the federal plans are in place to assist the local government. If you don't have a good plan, this is what you get.

As the feds move in now, they are making it up as they go since the local govt. let their people down. It takes a good week to get resources moving and deployed. Local govt. is there to plan, assess the situation, call in the aid, secure the area.
You are watching a true tragedy unfold because of piss poor local leadership.

What about the thousands who are at the convetion center?

The situation there will get better when the National Guard troops arrive and bring order from chaos. A news article just on the wire pointed out that a military helicopter tried to land several times to deliver food and water but that the onrushing crowd prevented the helicopter(s) from landing. Troopers then dropped supplies to the people from a height of 10 feet. Link.

Then there are those who will probably complain that one of the water bottles hit somebody on the way down or that the water was too warm.