Robert and Beth,
You guys are talking about failures well in advance (years and decades). I was talking about failures from maybe 3 days before landfall to the present. And, after I made my post, I saw more news and if anything I understated the failure...and it looks like the post-hurricane failure is federal. The U.S. senator (Landriu...sp?) and Governor are begging for federal help and are not getting it.

I lived in New Orleans for 2 1/2 years..working for Gulf Oil...and living a little north of Tulane. I was probably the only one working as a professional at an oil company who did not own a car. My housemates and I were woken up by the neighbors at 4 AM because the neighborhood was flooding. There was a thunderstorm about 1 or 2 miles to the south that had so much lightning that it was constant...there was always lightning. Friends at work who lived closer to the center said that sparks (Saint Elmo's Fire) would jump off their fingertips inside of their houses. It rained 11 inches (excuse the non-metric units). Most of that was in 1 hour. In New Orleans, all of this has to be pumped out. We lived 1 block north of Carrolton(?) which acted as a bit of a dam...so we were the highest ground for some distance around and only the basement room was flooded...I rode my bicycle to work (and crashed on the way...wet brakes)...someone was playing in their rubber raft on the rapids flowing over Carrolton. (the water was flowing north because the highest ground is near the river and it is farthest below sealevel to the north. When I got to work no one was there so I got to bike back home.

I suppose if I was there in that house with no car when Katrina arrived I would have had the resources to get out of town...my housemate had a car, for example.
Chris