[Ghoulish Delight]

I do agree that Martial Law shoul have been declared sooner. Among other things, I heard on Wednesday or Thursday that even if the National Guard HAD arrived, until martial law is declared, they would have been completely barred from taking any police action whatsoever. This is an important division of power designed to protect states rights. The federal government can't simply send troops into a state and take it over, they must have permission from the governor. And a fine rule that is.

BUT, that's a drop in the bucket in terms of what went wrong. It all comes down to the preparation, or the lack there of. Three things keep jumping out at me as glaringly wrong:

1) FEMA and the National Guard was mobilized AFTER the fact. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. They had 4 days' warning. It took 3 days to mobilize. Had they begun mobilizing and staging immediately, they would have been in the city on day one. Martial Law or no, they would have been delivering supplies, stabilizing the levees, and keeping stock of the refugees immediately.

2) Years and years of studies showing the weakness of those levees was patently ignored. This exact scenario was played out on paper in front of everyone who could have done something to prevent it, prepare for it, something, and it was completely dismissed. Unforgiveable

3) Since 9/11, when FEMA was stuck under Homeland Security, there have been zero, that's zero training scenarios for hurricanes. The closest they came? 2 training missions that were, "What to do in case of a terrorist attack during a hurricane." Yup, this whole war on terror thing is doing a fabulous job of improving our lives at home.