Addendum

So here's just a little more about the hurricane, now that it's a few weeks removed. (And this one will be shorter, I promise.) So here goes...

The biggest complaint I've heard in the past couple weeks is about the complainers. People keep saying that we need to stop throwing blame around. They say it doesn't matter who is at fault and what's important now is taking care of people and getting people food, clothing, and shelter. So here's my take. Yes, taking care of displaced people is of the utmost priority. At this moment in time, we need to continue relief efforts and show some compassion for humanity. However, I don't think we should stop throwing around blame. I think that in catastophes like this, it's important to discuss who's to blame. If we don't discuss who is at fault, we won't be able to figure out how to fix this mess for the future. Obviously, there were tremendous failures at the local, state, and national level. It doesn't matter who messed up more. What matters is who messed up what. Once we figure out what they did wrong, we can then figure out how do make sure it's done right in the future. The worst thing would be to not figure out who's to blame and just ignore it. That would mean playing catch-up behind Mother Nature for the upcoming decades. Why keep cleaning up messes after the fact when there are things we can do to prevent such a disaster?

I'm no expert, but here are at least a few ideas.
LOCAL: The local infrastructure of New Orleans is a joke. It's no secret that corruption is a huge problem for the local government. I heard reports that the New Orleans version of Port Authority simply shut down, with the manager there telling his employees to go home. I also read that a sizable portion of the New Orleans police force, firefighters, and EMTs received paid vacation to go to Las Vegas. So maybe the local government needs a giant overhaul.
STATE: After issuing a MANDATORY evacuation, it's the state's responsibility to make sure that people can get out. 60% of New Orleans' population is under the poverty line. These people didn't have enough money to leave. So if the mayor or the governor or whoever declared a state of emergency and issued an evacuation, why were people still there? Where were the city's evacuation plans? Where were the buses taking people out of the city? Where were the emergency funds for evacuees? These people didn't have cars and they didn't have money for a plane ticket. And the state government didn't help them. The state obviously needs more comprehensive evacuation and emergency response plans.
NATIONAL: Uh, FEMA? Where were you? What were you doing? Obviously they weren't watching C-SPAN because they seem to have had no idea that the city of New Orleans was underwater. In their defense, national emergency response DID go to New Orleans. Unfortunately, they were there before the levees broke, so a lot of them just got blown away. And even when they were there, they set up camp around the perimeter of the city. Newsflash, guys: the people that were dying were inside, not hanging out around the outside. We all know FEMA screwed up. Otherwise, why did they guy get fired? Also, Department of Homeland Defense? Where were they? I guess they were a little too busy color-coding terrorist alerts and racial profiling people in airports, because that's all I've seen come out of the new department since its creation. I don't even know where to begin on suggestions for improvement.

So they all get a big, fat F. The good news: we can only go up from here.