WHY?

Why did the wealthiest nation in the world watch in helpless disbelief as two natural disasters devastated a region of 90,000 square miles?

What else could we have done?

Three days before the storm, the President declared LA a national disaster area. The LA Governor called in National Guard units and FEMA resources were set up outside New Orleans. The Red Cross set up a distribution center 80 miles away. The Mayor of New Orleans had the total public transit system, city and government vehicles and a fleet of school buses at his disposal ....

And the buses sat in the parking lots.

Two days before the hurricane hit, NOAA announced "Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks... maybe longer," it went on to say. "Power outages will last for weeks... as most power poles will be down and transformers destroyed. Water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards."

Those who had the resources to leave, left. Those who didn't, waited -- either because they did not have the resources to leave, chose not to leave for a variety of now defense-less reasons or chose to rely on historic pride in having weathered previous hurricanes.

And the buses sat in the parking lots.

Then Katrina came with savage fury. In her wake, resources and aid stood ready.
Until the flooding.

The levee system which had been in a state of upgrade since 1965 collapsed. It broke, coincidentally, in a section that had already been rebuilt to withstand a category 3 hurricane ....

No matter that funding to determine upgrades to withstand a category 5 hurricane was to begin in 2006 .... The buses that might have carried thousands more lives to safety were now sitting in floodwaters.

And with the second natural disaster, all post-hurricane infrastructures and conduits for basic needs, sanitation, communications, aid, access and delivery systems were rendered useless. Chaos reigned.

Survivors of the hurricane and the rushing floodwaters waded or swam to higher ground.

To stand in lines awaiting other buses.
While their own sat in flooded parking lots.