Using the data to allow for effects in the planning stages could make a major improvement in response time.

Ever hear of combat engineers? Demolition teams, and tanks with dozer blades, to clear roads; pontoon and other types of portable bridges suitable for armored divisons to use... And there are amphibious vehicles (such as the ones the Marines did eventually bring in to N.O.).

When the Soviet bloc was the perceived enemy, and Europe the anticipated battlefield, the rationale for having so many regular US armed forces in Germany was called "forward basing". A similar rationale, combined and coordinated with non-military Federal assets (FEMA) and civilian relief operations (Red Cross, etc.) might make a big difference, next time.

It's the difference between tactics and strategy, between short- and long-term thinking -- between reactive and proactive. We know when hurricane season is, we know conditions on the ground along our Gulf and Atlantic coastlines, and we have constant satellite surveillance with a high confidence of predicting paths and intensities of storms, days ahead of time. The appropriate units of the Regular services, the Reserves and the National Guard could be rotated into bases near the most critically vulnerable coastal areas as their annual "summer camp".

Protecting our own people on our own soil might even be a recruiting incentive.