[ClaireSolt]

It also reveals how completerly ignorant of nature urban dwellers are. For example, 1100 busses should be waiting round the corner, and felled trees and broken freeways are no impediment to them getting there. Only city dwellers have such unrealistic expectations after a huge storm.

[jwpjr]

I don't think for a minute that Katrina is representative of the way government at all levels would respond to such an event. Most cities and counties in most states are better organized and run than what seems to have been the case in New Orleans. Just a few miles away, in Mississippi where the actual storm damage was much greater things were entirely different. I was in Pascagoula just a few days after the storm and it was quite evident that the authorities there had set about doing what had to be done and were not simply standing around waiting for the feds to come and save the day.

New Orleans is an aberration, not the norm. I agree that government agencies are big and slow and not very efficient, but they certainly aren't all as bad as what we saw after Katrina.

Authorities in New Orleans have kept their hold over the political scene by convincing a lot of the population that they, the officials, were the source of most good things that happened to them. It took an event like Katrina to reveal just how little the powers that be were doing for the good of the population.

[marsh2]

Compare what happened in New Orleans with what happened at a high rise apartment complex next to the Two Towers during 9/11. What was the diference?

http://www.upmc-biosecurity.org/pages/events/peoplesrole/lapson/lapson_trans.html
(excerpted from transcript)

The Public as an Asset,Not a Problem - Community organizations acting during crisis: 9/11 and neighborhood associations presentation by Diane S. Lapson

...Immediately following the attack, our tenant association structure took over, and we realized that we were facing many serious problems. Building 9, closest to the Trade Center, lost all power and had been hardest hit by the debris dust. Many people had no choice but to evacuate. The other buildings had electricity but no hot water. All phone service was out. Cell phones worked sporadically. We didn't know if our buildings were structurally safe, or if they would fall down, as well. All businesses were closed, including our supermarket and drug store. And actually, Dr. Lewis talked about this before, when she was talking about what the seniors had to face. This is a slightly different story, because the seniors were not abandoned in our complex.

Anyone who left Ground Zero was not allowed back into the neighborhood. Some tenants had been in the Twin Towers when it happened, some had been below. Some tenants died, some lost relatives and friends, all had witnessed the terrible after-math, including very young children. People were getting sick, traumatized, confused, depressed and very frightened, and for better or worse, I was in charge with no experience in this kind of -- with no disaster experience at all.

Sean, the vice president of Building 9, was forced to take his family to safety, so the other vice president, Dorothy, she was vice president of Building 1, and I set up our posts in our respective lobbies. I think I have a picture of that. There we go. This is actually not me, but this is where I stood. I stood next to that black phone for about -- between that and the street for about 16 hours a day. That's how we ran the complex, and we used this very antiquated intercom system which miraculously worked for the first time in 20 years.

Seeing the vice presidents at the security desk, they knew that -- the floor captains came down to the lobby, and when they saw us they knew that we were part of the -- they were part of the team. Management gave us a list of seniors and disabled for each building, and this was our A list, people to check-in on first. Everyone talked to their neighbors, made sure the elderly were okay. We made mental notes of who returned home safe, consoled the frightened, watched the news hoping they would find believe alive and prayed the attacks were over.

Although rescue services and armed forces were all around us, it was as if we were invisible. The reporters used our building for video. All eyes were understandably on the rescue site, and we were on our own. We didn't know it would be for 10 days...

[uncitizen]

Mary Landrieu ... explained, "Most mayors in this country have a hard time getting their people to work on a sunny day, let alone getting them out in the city in front of a hurricane."

Guess we should be damn grateful the hurricane didn't happen on a Federal holiday. Then nobody would've shown up for work.

[Jack of all Trades]

If nothing else, hurricane Katrina reaffirmed something many of us already know...

That it's easier to write a piece parroting the loudest message rather than the correct one?

The Federal response to Katrina was not slow judging by the standards of past hurricanes like Hugo and Andrew. It was faster. In responding to Katrina, the Fed Gov. moved more supplies and people than ever before.

Your essay is a swing and a miss.