Corruption & Inefficiency, Hand in Hand

First, it was the picture of the school buses, a symbol of all that city officials could have done to evacuate their sickest and poorest residents -- if it had followed their own evacuation plan (see left). Then it was the news that Louisiana State Homeland Security refused to let the Red Cross take food and water to the Superdome before the hurricane because doing so would "encourage" people to go there.

Then it was the news that the mayor had turned down help from Amtrak, so that a 900-seat train rolled away empty, the day before the storm. (According to CNN:"The mayor's disaster plan called for mobilizing buses and evacuating the poor, but he did not get it done. He said he could not find drivers, but Amtrak says it offered help and was turned down, so a train with 900 seats rolled away empty a day and a half before the storm.")

And today, in The LA Times, we learn that:

Senior officials in Louisiana's emergency planning agency already were awaiting trial over allegations stemming from a federal investigation into waste, mismanagement and missing funds when Hurricane Katrina struck.

And federal auditors are still trying to track as much as $60 million in unaccounted for funds that were funneled to the state from the Federal Emergency Management Agency dating back to 1998.

Are you surprised?

Update: Bush-haters must be disappointed by stories like this one. Amazingly, some are more interested in misleading and out-of-context "news" that can be used to distort and blame the feds for a number of mistakes that could have been averted by a modicum of efficiency on the parts of the state and federal governments.