My thoughts on Katrina

I haven't written anything on Katrina because I wanted to wait for more information, so now I will write my thoughts.

• I'm sick of hearing people saying, "I don't really feel badly for those people that stayed because they knew what they were in for." No, these people did not. Katrina was supposed to hit upper Florida, but it changed course and caught many people off guard. Yes, an evacuation order was issued, but New Orleans had never seen anything like this. People stayed behind to protect their business and assets. The people who stayed behind were poor. The evacuation order did not provide free transportation out of the city and these poor, black people couldn't afford the bus fare out of the city. Also, these poor, black people did not have anywhere to go out of the city.
  
• All levels of government are at fault. To place blame only on FEMA is naive because state and local officials did not do as much as they could have. Hundreds of buses could have helped people leave the city, but the mayor did not use correct evacuation procedures and did not utilize these buses. Any mandatory evacuation order must be accompanied with free transportation.
• The two best articles I've read about the Katrina disaster are:
• Slate's Lost in the Flood: Why no mention of race or class in TV's Katrina coverage?
• Wall Street Journal's Blame Amid the Tragedy editorial