Earth to the President: warnings ignored at your peril

theaustralian: Like many seismic events, Katrina's true impact might take a while to absorb. The poverty, anarchy, violence, sewage, bodies, looting, death and disease that overwhelmed a great city last week made Haiti look like a paradise.

The seeming inability of the federal or city authorities to act swiftly or effectively to rescue survivors or maintain order posed fundamental questions about the competence of George W. Bush's administration and local authorities. One begins to wonder: almost four years after 9/11, are evacuation plans for cities this haphazard? Five days after a hurricane, there were still barely any troops imposing order in a huge city in the US. How on earth did this happen? And what will come of it? Read more