The truth comes out - slowly

• When you see a burglar breaking into your neighbor's garage, you don't call the FBI to come and arrest the asshole. You call CPD (or shoot him yourself).
• When the sewer backs up or the water main breaks, you don't call the Army Corp of Engineers to come and fix it. You call Streets and San (or the aldercreature does).
• A giant car-eating pothole appears on the Dan Ryan. The trucks that arrive have the IDOT logo, not the seal of the United States government.
  

LOCAL and STATE authorities handle these problems. Disaster relief works the same way. The FEDS operate from the TOP DOWN, not the BOTTOM UP. Even if every stockpile of water, food and fuel was stacked up and ready to go, FEMA doesn't have trucks parked in every state waiting to distribute aid. That is a LOCAL function. The FEDS deliver massive quantities of supplies to prepositioned depots, usually airports, and the LOCAL authorities arrange distribution. It is assumed that the local authorities will have the buses and trucks fueled up and ready to go, not parked in flood prone parking lots. And yes, the Federal response was slow. It always has been. When has it ever been otherwise? Bush has admitted it was slower than he would have liked, but again, you don't hire the federal government to do things rapidly. That's why private industry always works better, cheaper, and faster.

And the final word (maybe) that we'll say about New Orleans is this (from NOLA.com):

• "Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor (Nagin) at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding." (emphasis added)
  

The date of this article? 28 August 2005, over 24 hours BEFORE Katrina hit! Or how about this one:

• City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give the poorest of New Orleans' poor a historically blunt message: In the event of a major hurricane, you're on your own. In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm's way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation. (emphasis added)

The date of this article? 24 JULY 2005, over 35 DAYS BEFORE Katrina hit. They never even got the DVD done before hurricane season.

The feds were slow, big deal. The FEMA guidelines call for LOCAL infrastructure to have 3 days food, water, plumbing and fuel ON HAND because the Feds know how slow they are. The people screwing the pooch hardest here are the mayor of New Orleans, the Governor of Louisiana and the local infrastructure. They are complicit in the deaths of countless thousands. End of story.