History will point the well-deserved finger of Blame squarely at the Mayor of New Orleans, C. Ray Nagin;
a. He failed in implement his own city's emergency preparedness plan.
b. He left hundreds of city-owned busses to drown, rather than use them to evacuate low-lying neighborhoods to either safe-shelter or out the storm's path. And those same busses were not safe-guarded to be used for subsequent evacuations after the storm passed.
c. He failed to stock and prepare the very storm-shelters that he then directed his people to use...creating a death-trap situation.
d. He failed to issue shoot-on-sight orders for any looters on non-essential survival items.
And Gov. Blanco also failed to follow the state's own emergency-preparedness plan, and failed to mobilize the hundreds of school busses that she had control over through the La. Dept. of Education.
This was not a failure to plan, nor was this a "surprise, unforseeable event". A direct hit on NOLA has been discussed almost every time a hurricane enters the Gulf of Mexico...for years.
I have no doubt that there will be many instances revealed in the subsequent Congressional Hearings on how the Corps, FEMA and Homeland Security should have spotted the short-comings of local preparedness; and their own lack of imagination to war-game this through fully and act on the conclusions. But Civil Defense and Emergency Preparedness are "local issues" that should be dealt with at the local-level, with back-up provided by the resources of the Federal government and the Military. The Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana had...and have still...the principal responsibility for the bungled preparations and the inept follow-through.
I knew the people of NOLA were in trouble the minute I saw them standing the streets waiting to get into the Superdome. Competent planning would have gotten everyone inside as fast as possible through every door the place had....and stocks of food, water, bedding; and provisions for powering the lights and AC for days. Every power company has portable generators on flat-bed trucks, powered by the same jet-turbines that that power airliners and USN ships. A couple of them parked in a protected part of the elevated parking garage with a tanker-trailer of diesel fuel is beyond their imagination?
