When confronted with a disaster of this scale you usually find a lot of delay in the bureaucratic end. There are issues of who does what. The local level is clearly not able to provide relief and so the state level is supposed to kick in. The Stae level in this instance doesn't have enough resources and so the channels to process the request at the Federal level immediately go into action. I suspect a Federal request from the Governor did not go in until New Orleans was under a foot or two of water.

The Feds determine who and what is needed. Power? Fuel? Shelter? Troops?

As a result almost a day can go by while a "masterplan" is being orchestrated. In the meanwhile, you have other agencies responding in a more or less undirected manner. As the need for helicopters, planes, fuel, medical supplies come in, they are raced ASAP from neighboring cities and throughout the nation.

Even a superpower has a delay time. I think the scale of the disaster has mainly been magnified by the failure of folks to evacuate or believe that the storm would be as serious. Folks who have never experienced a flash flood don't respect the power of water - which is ten times the power of wind.

The main tragedy we are witnessing was the byproduct of poverty, human nature and other sources.

The Mayor could have ordered the evacuation sooner and employed the Governor to authorize the National Guard to go house to house and get folks out. This would've saved many more lives. A half day of extra preparation is worth five days worth of response.

But assigning blame is asinine. Disasters don't follow workable plans. Human nature means shock, confusion and mistakes are bound to be made.

Right now, I'd like to thank those who are risking their lives to save and assist others. True heroics can be seen. Also the depths of human nature will also surface.