Quote: answer me this: if everyone had done their job perfectly with the exception of nagin would NOLA be in the situation it is now?
Absolutely. But let's throw the governor in there with the mayor for good measure.
The federal government comes in after a disaster, not during (unless requested to do so). It's the State and Local government's job to handle the disaster itself, the evacuation, coordination, etc. And New Orleans had a pretty decent plan -- it just wasn't executed in a timely and efficient manner.
New Orleans would still be underwater right now -- no force, Presidential-authorization or otherwise, can stop a levee from failing. Businesses will still have been looted, fires still would have burned, and people would still be spread all over the nation.
Could it have gone smoother -- hell yes it could have. FEMA's job when it's authorized and gets there is to coordinate, and it didn't do a good job of that at all. But the end result would have been exactly the same. We'd be in the same spot right now, it's just whether or not we would have been in the same spot on, say, September 1st. More lives could have been saved if Nagin and/or the governor would have reacted faster, but the city would still be in the same shape.
