> They'll be writing about this failure for years to come. Why weren't people evacuated sooner? Why weren't supplies brought in ahead of time, just in case? Why weren't the levies reinforced better? Why weren't worst case scenario communication plans in place? ETC! And, if we did have this figured out, why the hell didn't it happen?

I agree that the levies should have been reinforced better (there have been people talking about needing to do that since the 80s, I think I heard on the news) but I don't know if the rest of those questions are neccesarily fair. 99% of the people who wanted to evacuate the city did, the people who were still around wanted to be. And what could they really have done with extra supplies anyways? They have access to an entire city worth of supplies as it is.


> I also don't know how disaster conditions give people the excuse to pillage and rape and whatnot. It is mind boggling, to say the least.

Well people who want to pillage and rape and murder don't need an excuse, they need an opportunity. With the whole city under like 6 feet of water and in total darkness at night, you could pretty much kill anybody you wanted without worrying about getting caught. I'm not evil and I don't want to murder anybody*, but I couldn't help but notice how easy it would be to get away with when I saw the pictures of the city at night. Stealing food I have no problem at all with. I honestly don't have much of a problem with stealing other things from stores either, although it definitely sounds like everybody else in the country does. But honestly if your house just collapsed and you're stuck in 6 feet of water and you see a store full of tshirts which they won't be able to sell anymore anyways because they've been through a hurricane, I don't care if you take them. By the time the water's gone months from now everything of value will be moldy and ruined anyways. I'd probably be looting if I was there too. The people looting the gun stores are the ones to watch out for.

> Most of the people who didn't evacuate New Orleans were in a bad situation to begin with and this has just made it exponentially worse. In a way, it isn't surprising that after five days, anarchy rules. What is surprising is that it has been five days and every hour that passes makes restoring ANYTHING increase by a huge amount. This will not be something we can just clean up with some bulldozers and shovels.

I think the chances of restoring anything have been pretty much zilch ever since the water flooded the city. After that point, what could they really do? It's going to be there for months whether you start a day or two weeks after that point.


*A lie