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I live at least 400 miles north of New Orleans and that Monday night Katrina--by then a weakening tropical storm--hit us dead center, knocking down a lot of tree limbs, blocking some roads, and delivering about 4 inches of rain in 20 hours. On Thursday, I drove our church van with three others, hauling a 16-foot van full of donated supplies down to Thibodaux, LA where a FEMA evacuee shelter was set up on the Nicholls State University campus. We worked as volunteers for two days mostly unloading trucks. By Sunday the Nicholls shelter had accumulated a surplus of some emergency items so we loaded up our trailer with bottled water and baby items--diapers, baby formula, wipes and bay food and drove to Hattliesburg, MS where we unloaded at a Red Cross shelter and then returned to Tennessee. The highways around New Orleans and throughout the region were lined with piles of limbs, folliage and fallen trees. All these roadways had to be cleared by crews with chainsaws and frontloaders or trackhoes before traffic could move. I think this accounts for some of the initial problems. However, in Thibodaux I talked to some FEMA people who were at the New Orleans Superdome when the storm hit with mobile communications gear, medical equipment and supplies. When the levees broke they were ordered to drive their vehicles up onto elevated I-10 until it could be determined how high the water would rise. After the flood crested they were unable to return to the Superdome so they drove to Thibodaux and set up there. Within a short time there was a safety net of emergency services, including medicalservices in all the communities to the west of New Orleans with Baton Rouge the largest. All anyone had to do was make it out of New Orleans and they would encounter food, shelter, medical services and a communications net to try and locate family members. But getting out of New Orleans, and it many cases getting out of the attic was a problem that should have been solved by local first responders.