Thirteen months ago, FEMA conducted a five-day, table top exercise to test preparedness against a direct hit on New Orleans by a category three hurricane.
Participants drew up action plans for dealing with the storm's aftermath in which calls for evacuation were partially heeded, water pumps were overwhelmed, corpses floated in the streets and as many as 60,000 people died -- mostly by drowning.
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After the drill, FEMA concluded that progress had been made, and that hurricane planning would continue.
But one of the drill participants, Col. Michael L. Brown, then-deputy director of the Louisiana emergency preparedness department, told the Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper that, in a worst-case scenario, there would be only so much government agencies could do.
"Residents need to know they'll be on their own for several days in a situation like this," Brown, who is not related to the FEMA director, told the paper.
We may find that New Orleans was better prepared than we now believe – unless the casualty list grows substantially.
Still, we can ask with Matt Drudge and Kate: why were all those ~ school busses still sitting a city parking lot?
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