Remember that the vulnerability of New Orleans has been known for decades, while you read this:

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.


The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

Why am I not surprised that this is all about turf? Louisiana's medieval standards of governance are legendary. A commenter at Chrenkoff points out the difference between the respective leaderships of Louisiana and Mississippi, which sustained more damage but was managed more competently, and concludes:

This was a good reminder that LA has for decades been our worst managed and most corrupt state. . . . the South has been booming for the past 25 or so years. The major cities went from backwater jokes to leading cities - Atlanta, Raleigh, Dallas, all of Florida, etc. The "hole in the map" in all of this has been Louisiana - it's like the last 25 or 30 years of southern growth have passed it right by. Get away from the gussified tourist areas and NO is a pretty awful city.

A comment at LGF:

I sat in on a discussion with a senior National Guard officer from one of the southeast states just the other day. He, and other senior Guardsman in the region, are appalled by the foot-dragging in Louisiana. The Gulf Coast states have been dealing with hurricanes for some time, and have things down pretty pat. They have state-to-state agreements to help each other out, way before the Feds need to get involved.

More examples of lethargy and incompetence from New Orleans bureaucracy. More from Captain Ed:

When the storm reached Cat-5 status in the Gulf of Mexico, what did George Bush do? He declared the entire Gulf coast an emergency area and mobilized FEMA. Until it actually made landfall, however, he could not pinpoint the assets. . . . The city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana asked people to evacuate, but made no preparations to assist people in that endeavor. By Friday the outbound roads clogged with people in cars looking to escape, which all did. However, an entire fleet of school buses -- hundreds of them -- sat in their parking lots, gathering dust. Until George Bush called Governor Blanco personally and pleaded with her to make the evacuation order mandatory on Saturday, neither Mayor Nagin nor Blanco told people they had to leave. Apparently, that order only went out over the TV and radio from their press conference; no attempt was made to direct people out of their homes and onto the road.

Bill Hobbs has more on the unused buses:

. . . the New Orleans Regional Transportation Authority operated at least 364 buses . . . If each bus could hold just 60 people, NORTA's 364 buses had the capacity to take almost 22,000 peope out of harm's way per trip. Given that Nagin ordered the compulsory evacuation of the city two days before the storm hit, there was sufficient time for more than one trip - sufficient time to move tens of thousands of the city's poorest residents out of New Orleans by bus before Katrina arrived. . . . A commenter notes that the New Orleans Public School system also had buses - hundreds of them. Why weren't they pressed into service to evacuate the thousands of residents who had no way out?

Apparently Mayor Nagin didn't know they were there.

Pundit Guy notes that the National Guard troops expected to provide disaster relief, augmenting a functioning police force. They didn't expect to be shot at by looters. From DefenseLink:

Army Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum said the Guard forces aren’t simply troops with no police skills pulled into the mission; they’re bringing solid expertise to the mission and an understanding that they’re supporting existing law enforcement authorities, not replacing them. . . .

The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits active-duty forces from conducting law enforcement operations, but does not cover National Guard members operating under their state governors’ control. This enables Guard forces, who often come from the communities they are serving, to work side by side with law enforcement officials in ways active-duty forces simply can’t.

(More on the purpose of the National Guard.)

Tomorrow's forecast: Hysteria continues.

UPDATE: A good point:

. . . it's becoming increasingly less obvious that more first responders etc, would have made an enormous difference in the aftermath of this unfolding calamity. The disaster zone after 9/11 was less than 40 square blocks. Rescue vehicles shot straight down Broadway, Fifth Avenue, the West Side Highway etc. The disaster zone, as the President mentioned, is the size of Great Britain. Would relief vehicles have made it to the center of Ground Zero on 9/11 immediately if the rim of the disaster area was deep inside New England? All of the truly damnable mistakes were made before Katrina hit land. Why weren't more people evacuated? for example. Such mistakes are legion and fall disproportionately at the state and local level.

UPDATE: The logistics of relief: Jason posts an email about trucks into NO and asks:

Think the shortage of available fuel for 300 miles might put a crimp on any Federal response?