A Different Perspective on N.O.

There has been a lot of name-calling and complaining going on over what happened in New Orleans. And most of it has been pointed squarely at an allegedly slow-to-react Federal government. And there is no doubt some good blame to go around there. But from the start it has sticken me that the difference between NYC on 9/11 and NO this last month was not the Feds. It was the local government... or lack thereof. The New York Daily News has an interesting perspective on this angle.

Then there's Mayor Ray Nagin...who has blamed everybody but himself. Maybe he has forgotten his plans for dealing with Katrina.
Last July, his office prepared DVDs warning that, if the city ever had to be evacuated, residents were on their own. According toa July 24 article in The Times-Picayune (spotted by the Web's Drudge Report), "Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm's way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation."
"You're responsible for your safety, and you should be responsible for the person next to you," one official said of the message.
And how's this for preparation? Cops were told not to work on the day Katrina hit, one officer told The New York Times, but "to come in the next day, to save money on their budget."

I was not going to post today - work is nightmare these days - but I could not leave this one off the Blog. My opinion is the main problem here is not Federal, and is not even Republican or Democrat. The problem was a local government so lax that they never planned for a disaster that they knew was not only possible, but likely.