Anyone actually interested in where the myths about mass killings and rapes in the Dome came from, here's a link for you. It's a long read, but anytime a reporter has to go back and correct himself it gets a bit wordy.
http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3998
I've actually done SAR and Disaster relief, something that most members of this board I would bet never have. I've been cold, wet, dirty, tired and scared (If you want a come to Jesus moment, stand on top of a 12 foot dike in the freezing rain, desperately trying to get enough sandbags down to stay ahead of the rising water). While I was not at NO, nor a mission of such magnatude, I don't have to imagine the confusion or chaos, I've been to goat ropes before.
While the response was not perfect, I've never been to a perfect response myself, the response was awesome. Considering that most of the infastructure was taken out, it's pretty impressive how many resuers were on scene within hours. Unfortunately within a day things would start to fall apart, and the finger pointing would start. This is when part of me became ashamed to be an American.
Instead of doing what needed to be done, everyone ran either for cover or a microphone. It became political literally overnight.
Robert Kennedy wrote that it was Bush's fault before the storm was even over.
Even though Blanco declared an Emergency on Friday, and Bush declared a Federal state of Emergency Saturday, and Nagan declared a Manditory Evacuation on Sunday, in the aftermath the common party line was that the people were not given warning about the impending disaster.
This disaster is not without precedent. In 1927 a powerful Hurricane hit NO with horrific results. The Federal response to that? The US army sent tents. NO knew their dikes would not stand up to a big storm, it had been proven to them, yet why in the 78 years since they got their butt kicked in '27 did they not do what needed to be done? Bush's fault of course. Not Roosevelt's, Trumans', Eisenhower's, Kennedy's, Johnson's, Nixon's, Ford's, Carter's, Reagan's, Bush I, Clinton's, but Bush II's fault because he cut funding. We Americans love to blame someone, no matter how stupid it is in a historical context. NO had plenty of time to fix their dike problem. They chose not to.
I by no means am letting Bush off the hook, I just see no useful purpose to blaming the guy for something that should have been taken care of by the locals. If you feel the need to blame Bush for anything, blame him for a poor choice in a FEMA Director.
The only thing I really see coming out of Katrina is just how out of control the media and politicians really are. It's to bad that most of the sound bite generation is to stupid to realize how many agenda's got exposed for all to see.