>>I agree completely that no one group is to blame.

I should also say that the real crime here was lack of alignment between city, state and federal plans. If you assumed that city and/or state plans covered getting the population OUT of the city then the federal response was quite reasonable. If you assume that the feds have responsibility for everything including getting people out of town in the first place, then they dropped the ball big time.

I guess the big question is "under the US laws, what responsibility does each level of government have with regards to disaster planning and execution ?".

I was under the impression that National Guard was always under federal control when reacting to an emergency, but other posts have indicated that they are normally under state control unless the Feds step in (and offer to pay ??).

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