The first I heard about the convention center was yesterday, and I've been reading most of the FR threads.
All eyes were on the Superdome before then. I didn't even realize the convention center existed as a shelter until it was in the news as a big crisis.
First response is with the local people, and the local people could not have been more incompetent if they'd made a deliberate effort to do so. FEMA's supposed to come in after the local response, as it did. It does take time to get resources from outside of New Orleans, especially with the roads largely blocked.
I don't think FEMA did an exceptional job, but I'm not sure if they've done better in other crises; the sheer incompetence of the locals simply exposed pre-existing weaknesses.
I do think that if I werre head of FEMA I would do a detailed review to find out how performance could be improved and how things could have started faster.
The whole government of Louisiana, however, should be thrown out and replaced.
D
Well, that's the problem, it isn't a shelter. People were told to go to the Superdome as the "shelter of last resort", it seems a bunch of people showed up at the wrong place and couldn't understand why they weren't being helped immediately.