I could not resist responding to this article nor the respondents. First of all, the government is paid for by the Tax Payers and does not pay well for all the services we do receive. Next, the government is controlled by whomever has the money just like private corporations pay the top bidder. The government could have better oversight, except that would be like sending the fox to watch the chickens. Who would watch the Fox? I just recognized the pun and you may take it how you like. The bottom line is that regardless of where Katrina went or did not go, New Orleans was not the point of impact, Mississippi was and the shoreline was changed forever. The people who died will never be counted accurately because the Census does not have an accurate count of who did and did not live there at the time. (People just will not fill out those stupid little government forms that give out private information because it could reduce food stamps, welfare checks, and medicare checks if the number of dead people were higher than the number of people receiving GOVERNMENT benefits. The next problem we have is that There was nothing anyone could do about evacuating the number of people who needed to be moved. As long as real estate developers are allowed to build on the waterfronts you will have lots of dead people. We all used to know not to build permanent housing near the ocean. Somehow by the 21st Century the asphalt, concrete and paint fumes have fused a mentality that we can actually build structures that are hurricane proof on SAND for goodness sake. And, while I am at it, we have all but changed the structure of the shorelines to change the ecology of the nation for centuries to come, not necessarily a good thing even if you are a conservative politician who likes to make money instead of trees.
I am afraid that in my book the lawyer jokes have turned into jokes about real estate developers because lawyers as a group do not tend to set people up to die, by selling dangerous homes, dangerous locations, and draining vital swamp land to sell to uninformed buyers. I am not talking about all the real estate developers, just the ones who sold out south Florida at this point. I can guess that this happened on the Northern Gulf coast too. Before I get strung out on this topic, though. Read, think and write to your government. If you want more accurate reporting of weather by the Government, you will have to make a law stating that homeland protection should include accurate weather forecasting and release of correct information to the public and that the money to do this should flow even more freely than the funds currently being poured down a foxhole for less moral reasons. Most forecasters also don't have to prove their loyalty by dying in the storm they failed to predict.