kmp77 said:
Evolution takes millions of years...but the people in there devolved from people to animals in a matter of hours and days...#@%! sick.
Kmp, I have a couple of comments on your statement.
1. If you were poor and could not leave or if you made a mistake and did not leave, and you needed food and water to survive you might break into a store to get it. Regardless of whether we think the government did a good job in a disaster of this magnitude it is hard for me to condemn people trying to get food and water in a very bad place. There was no plan to evacuate the large numbers of poor (and incapacitated for any number of reasons) who lived in New Orleans. There was no transportation plan and no place for them to go. There is a meaningful object lesson for all of us who live in hurricane (or other disaster) prone areas that you had better have a plan for yourself and your family because relying on the government is a dicey proposition at best
2. The people who were thugs, carrying guns and looting businesses were thugs before the hurricane ever got there. I make no excuses for them. Like all large cities in the US, New Orleans had a percentage of the population who preyed upon others for their livelihood. I have heard reports that this percentage was a bit larger in New Orleans than other cities but I doubt that had a major effect. When order broke down, these low life individuals were freed to take advantage of the circumstances to accomplish everything from theft to murder, arson, and rape.
Major relief efforts take time to organize. My questions for the local, state, and federal officials who oversee disaster planning in the US relate to where were the troops to keep order in the days immediately following the event? There was never any doubt that the New Orleans Police Dept. would be overwhelmed in a large scale event. We had SAR (search and rescue) efforts proceeding without any order in the city of New Orleans. There were a number of warning events in Louisiana preceding Katrina's arrival. Was the Nat'l Guard not activated? What additional resources were allocated to New Orleans for a flooding event? Why did communications in the New Orleans Police Dept. completely break down? Were prisoners in fact released onto the streets following the levee system breaking? I could go on and on but I'll stop now. There is plenty of blame to go around on this and I hope people get fired at a minimum. I hope there is a major investigation and lessons learned from the 1000's of deaths that resulted here.