The criticisms of Nagin came from above as well. Numerous officials urged him to evacuate the city, but he worried about the legality of ordering people out when New Orleans has few safe hurricane shelters. Also, National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield in Miami called Nagin at home Saturday night and told him: Get people out of New Orleans. ''I could never sleep if I felt like I didn't do everything that I could to impress upon people the gravity of the situation,'' Mayfield said...

"The Army Corps of Engineers believed the New Orleans levee system would protect the city for 200 or 300 years, but it was not designed to guard against a storm as powerful as Hurricane Katrina that thoroughly overwhelmed it, the head of the agency said on Friday."

"Interestingly, the survey's most undervalued home -- expressed in dollars as opposed to percentages -- belongs to a politician who has not hesitated to condemn the city's erratic appraisal practices: Mayor Ray Nagin ."

"NEW ORLEANS - At first it just seemed that the Wal-Mart in New Orleans’ Lower Garden District was doing a very brisk post-hurricane business yesterday: The parking lot was full; people were leaving with brimming baskets; and city police and firefighters were there as if to oversee it all."

Indeed, the most dramatic account of the study's findings on why (in the Foundation's words) NOPD is "bleeding police officers" is found in the summary that top Foundation executives authored with help from a local public relations firm. "New Orleans is facing a crisis: our police force is shrinking at the same time that our city has recaptured the distinguished title of 'murder capital' of the United States among major cities," the Foundation stated. "We now have only about 1500 officers act...

"Efforts to drain New Orleans hit another snag Friday as the Army Corps of Engineers discovered that it could not buy new pumps to replace those damaged by the flooding. Massive pumps capable of draining the city like those that have been keeping New Orleans dry for decades are no longer made and would have to be specially ordered, a process that would take too long, said Col. Richard Wagenaar, the senior corps official in New Orleans."

Simple question, is anyone ever happy with the pace of any type of emergency response? After going through the 4 hurricanes last year and checking out news reports of other emergencies and disaster it should be readily apparent to everyone that no matter how fast help arrives, it never arrives quickly enough.

"NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 3 - Reeling from the chaos of this overwhelmed city, at least 200 New Orleans police officers have walked away from their jobs and two have committed suicide, police officials said on Saturday."

"KABUL, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Impoverished Afghanistan will give $100,000 for relief efforts in the United States in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. embassy said."

"BATON ROUGE, La. As hurricane victims are being moved hundreds of miles from home, the president of the New Orleans City Council is demanding to know why Louisiana isn't housing more of them."

"The National Guard was slow to move troops into New Orleans because it did not anticipate the collapse of the city's police force after Hurricane Katrina, the guard's commander said. Lieutenant General Steven Blum said the New Orleans police force was left with only a third of its pre-storm 1,500-person strength."

"Louisiana's marshlands, the only buffer for hurricanes that come out of the Gulf, are slipping into the ocean at an alarming rate. New search indicates that just one major hurricane could put New Orleans under water. The Big Easy is in big trouble. New Orleans is sinking. And fast. But what's the big deal? Local businesses and residents have heard it all before. They've built levees to control the raging Mississippi. They've developed pumping systems to deal with rain and flooding. They'...

If this isn't the time for Blanco to make use of the stockpile, when will it be time? Nine stockpiles of fire-and-rescue equipment strategically placed around the country to be used in the event of a catastrophe still have not been pressed into service in New Orleans, five days after Hurricane Katrina, CNN has learned.

CNN has edited the article to remove the quote, but the interesting thing here is that you have the President of the United States and Max Mayfield having to call and urge/ask LA to start evacuation. Relevant quote: Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said that President Bush had called and urged the state to order the evacuation.

Great NT Times article going over the tensions between State and Fed officials. For our foreign readers, the separation between the State and Federal level of government is a HUGE deal and explains why Bush/the Feds/the Military didn't just swoop in. This article details how the Feds wanted to go in fast and hard, but Blanco resisted the legal conditions for that to happen. It came down to her refusing to give up control to the feds, which was required as a matter of law. Here are som...