Ahhh - a very good question and a good point!

Maybe I'm a bit more liberal about all this (not the liberal generally meant) - but living here in California, we're constantly told to be prepared for a disaster and it will be days before any government help will be able to reach us...

I am not at all surprised by the response in new Orleans - it's probably much worse than it would be here with a quake - at least (we hope) we won't be flooded out and have to evacuate the area... we'll have (at worst) structural damage, no roads, no sewers, no power - we'll be much in the same circumstances, but we won't have the unbearable heat, humidity and mosquitos and we won't have the flooding (unless our dams don't hold) - even if the dams break, we're still above sea level and the water will drain...

We are told repeatedly to be prepared to be on our own for at least 3 days...

I can't even imagine if they had to evacuate 10 million people from this area... and that's not even all of our population!

All in all, I think a good job has been and is being done by all -

Canie