Those other groups did what they are trained to do. FEMA is a coordination organization. The coordination needed for this storm is unlike any other.
I do have to wonder if we spent so much effort on planning for a tight coordinated response to a localized problem (terrorist attack) to the detriment of a generalized and widespread response to a storm like Katrina (which hit an extremely LARGE area, knocking out all "nearby" response centers -- some military bases which might have been used if New Orleans had a levey breech without warning were down for two days because of the storm).
Those are good points (widespread area of storm, etc.).
But I still think that if the mayor of NO and the governor of LA hadn't been so dysfunctional, many of the major problems would have been averted. The hurricane wasn't really the big problem in NO - it was the flood afterwards. If NO, which has always known that the main threat was flooding, had even had a local evacuation plan in place and operative, just to get people to high ground and spread them out in shelters (we use school gyms as shelters here in Florida), this all would have been different.
So in a sense, the disaster was widespread, but the failure was really only in one very localized area, and not actually from sudden hurricane-type damage (wind and waves) but from a related and slower event that had even been forecast in numerous projections.
I understand their focus, but The Red Cross and Salvation Army stood by unused due to the State Homeland Security office saying NO to their entering NOLA> Don't think I am blaming FEMA for everything, not at all. I blame Mayor of NOLA and Gov of LA for not doing what they were supposed to do.
My question is about these $250,000 payments from FEMA to anyone who loses house on beach in a disaster area....1000 of those homes leads to quarter of a billion dollars....and these people are wealthy, they aren't poor.
I think we need to SIMPLIFY things for Red Cross and SAlvation Army.