Between bureaucratic snafus, a lack of integrated command, and just plain poor decision making, the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans was far poorer than it could have been, stranded people hundreds of miles from friends and family willing to take them in, and may have needlessly cost thousands of lives.

As of Saturday afternoon, virtually everyone had been evacuated from New Orleans emergency shelters at the Superdome and the Convention Center. Triage for those in need of medical assistance is taking place at New Orleans International Airport, and the city is now in the hands of the looters and the National Guard.

But it took over five days to get there.

In the first few days, Mayor Ray Nagin decried the lack of help from the federal government. After meeting with President George W. Bush on Friday, Nagin said, “My philosophy is never get too high, never get too low. … I always try to keep my emotions in check and yesterday I kind of went off a little bit. I was worried about that, but it maybe worked out. I don’t know. If the CIA slips me something and next week you don’t see me, you’ll all know what happened.”

During that time, the Department of Homeland Security did its best to prevent any rescue or relief efforts, even going so far as to deny the Red Cross access to the city to distribute food and water it had staged only a few miles away.

“The Homeland Security Department has requested and continues to request that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans,” said Renita Hosler, spokeswoman for the Red Cross.

“Right now access is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities. We have been at the table every single day [asking for access]. We cannot get into New Orleans against their orders.” — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

And then they failed to use equipment and personnel that was offered to them, because all the paperwork wasn’t done.

Several states ready and willing to send National Guard troops to the rescue in New Orleans didn’t get the go-ahead until days after the storm struck — a delay nearly certain to be investigated by Congress.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help from his state’s National Guard last Sunday, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route didn’t come from Washington until late Thursday. — Associated Press

Nine stockpiles of fire-and-rescue equipment strategically placed around the country to be used in the event of a catastrophe still have not been pressed into service in New Orleans, five days after Hurricane Katrina, CNN has learned. — CNN

A visibly angry Mayor Daley said the city had offered emergency, medical and technical help to the federal government as early as Sunday to assist people in the areas stricken by Hurricane Katrina, but as of Friday, the only things the feds said they wanted was a single tank truck. . . .

“We are ready to provide more help than they have requested. We are just waiting for their call,” said Daley, adding that he was “shocked” that no one seemed to want the help. . . .

Daley said the city offered 36 members of the firefighters’ technical rescue teams, eight emergency medical technicians, search-and-rescue equipment, more than 100 police officers as well as police vehicles and two boats, 29 clinical and 117 non-clinical health workers, a mobile clinic and eight trained personnel, 140 Streets and Sanitation workers and 29 trucks, plus other supplies. City personnel are willing to operate self-sufficiently and would not depend on local authorities for food, water, shelter and other supplies, he said. — Chicago Sun-Times

Not that the evacuation went very well. Jordan Flaherty, who was stuck in New Orleans for days, told his own story of the horrors he encountered there.

In the refugee camp I just left, on the I-10 freeway near Causeway, thousands of people (at least 90% black and poor) stood and squatted in mud and trash behind metal barricades, under an unforgiving sun, with heavily armed soldiers standing guard over them. When a bus would come through, it would stop at a random spot, state police would open a gap in one of the barricades, and people would rush for the bus, with no information given about where the bus was going. Once inside (we were told) evacuees would be told where the bus was taking them – Baton Rouge, Houston, Arkansas, Dallas, or other locations. I was told that if you boarded a bus bound for Arkansas (for example), even people with family and a place to stay in Baton Rouge would not be allowed to get out of the bus as it passed through Baton Rouge.

You had no choice but to go to the shelter in Arkansas. If you had people willing to come to New Orleans to pick you up, they could not come within 17 miles of the camp.

I traveled throughout the camp and spoke to Red Cross workers, Salvation Army workers, National Guard, and state police, and although they were friendly, no one could give me any details on when buses would arrive, how many, where they would go to, or any other information. I spoke to the several teams of journalists nearby, and asked if any of them had been able to get any information from any federal or state officials on any of these questions, and all of them, from Australian tv to local Fox affiliates complained of an unorganized, non-communicative, mess. One cameraman told me “as someone who’s been here in this camp for two days, the only information I can give you is this: get out by nightfall. You don’t want to be here at night.”

There was also no visible attempt by any of those running the camp to set up any sort of transparent and consistent system, for instance a line to get on buses, a way to register contact information or find family members, special needs services for children and infirm, phone services, treatment for possible disease exposure, nor even a single trash can. — Jordan Flaherty

The only difference between the chaos of New Orleans and a Third World disaster operation is that a foreign dictator would have responded better, said BBC correspondent Matt Wells.

It certainly seems so. With Homeland Idiot Michael Chertoff saying this wasn’t a “real emergency,” the federal government response seems entirely predictable in that context.

It was hard for me to even write this. All I kept thinking about was how many people five hundred airboats could have rescued, if only they were allowed to go in, and how many people died of thirst in the hot sun because the Red Cross was not allowed to bring them water. Indeed, I’ve thought of little else all week.