Yes, it would be unfortunate if the looting by a small percentage of the New Orleans residents kept people from donating to disaster relief. New Orleans is a pretty big city with a population of half a million or so. When you roll in the metro area, the population probably tops a million. All it would take is a few hundred looters to make the place a living hell.

I have no problem at all with people trapped in a disaster area taking food, water, baby supplies and the like from stores. As Peggy Noonan wrote, They are not looters, they are people who are attempting to survive; they are taking the basics of survival off shelves in stores where there isn't even anyone at the cash register.. Even the New Orleans Fire Department has had to do the same thing. I'd do the same thing if my own resources were gone. On the other hand, there are gangs of armed looters (New Orleans has a bad crime and gang problem) who're robbing stores, hospitals, nursing homes, and just about everything else. They're stealing not just food but drugs, guns, jewelry, and things like big screen TVs (which is particularly stupid since there's no electricity).

New Orleans has a high poverty rate and a lot of people didn't have the means to evacuate. Listening to news reports, others stayed behind for a variety of reasons. Some didn't evacuate because they couldn't take their pets to shelters. Others stayed because they were too old and/or sick to move, and still others because they thought it wouldn't be so bad. I'd be surprised if very many of them other than the most hardened criminals stayed in the way of a major hurricane just to loot.

Another tragedy is that resources that were being used for search and rescue are having to be redirected to stop the looters. Yesterday, the mayor ordered 1,500 cops who were searching for stranded people to go after looters instead. People will die because of that, but you can't perform search and rescue when gangs are shooting at you.