It is indeed a natural disaster. As per usual in any large scale break down of routine, violence, looting, and I strongly suspect vandalism and gang violence are occurring at higher rates than usual. The poor are being passed over in treatment and protection. Provision of necessities and order keeping forces have not reached all parties, though I don’t know enough and it may be a bit early to say it’s severely deficient in provision.
None of this should be a surprise.
Our government finances, and states in particular, have been reduced for a few years now. Our traditional disaster relief personell have been heavily tapped for a foreign war. How you feel about these causes aside, it makes the possibly deficient response a little less surprising.
It’s also something that does not directly affect me currently. Nor was new orleans in my travel plans. I’m not pinning the blame on any government office, agency, branch, or elected officials.
Sadly, it seems I spoke quite a bit too soon in my declaration of New Orleans’ dodgeing of the bullet. At that time, only one levee had caved in a manner that was not threatening.
The one factor that has really shocked me here, played out in multiple ways, is the vast incompetence demonstrated by FEMA. Without jumping to identify the why and the how, it is certainly a sad situation to have an ineffectual organization in charge of handling disasters.