> In the case of NO, a city below sea level, there's no margin of error. But the city and state government just sort of shrugged and carried on as if it were all just a bad dream, probably provoked by GWB.
To willingly choose to live below sea level, surrounded by water IS to be living in an alternate mental reality. So their state of denial leading up to Katrina is not surprising.
Living below sea level is something you can get away with for awhile - maybe even a couple hundred years, until the weather turns around and bites you. But you always know it's not going to last, and to refuse to consider this possibility amounts, IMHO, to criminal negligence. People died because the state and city officials wouldn't face reality.