SUPONGO que a estas alturas es demasiado tarde para cambiar el veredicto dictado por los impermeables, por muchos datos que se les ponga enfrente. Así que es difícil que se aparten del mantra "Bush culpable de las consecuencias del Katrina". Pero por si acaso hay algún impermeable con goteras -pocos, pero los hay-, "Governor Blanco Refused to Act":

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.

Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.

"The federal government stands ready to work with state and local officials to secure New Orleans and the state of Louisiana," White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said. "The president will not let any form of bureaucracy get in the way of protecting the citizens of Louisiana."

Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state's victims and hired James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort.

De hecho, la gobernadora Blanco no reaccionó hasta recibir una llamada de Bush en la que quedó claro que la evacuación de la ciudad era obligatoria (h/t Recaredo).

Por cierto que en el primer enlace veréis una imagen de unos autobuses inutilizados porque no se utilizaron a tiempo y quedaron anegados. Como dice Fausta, que también tiene otra fotografía de los autobuses,

The Anchoress points out that, at 66 people per bus, 13,530 people could be carried to safety in ONE trip using only the busses shown in that picture. Add to that the 364 buses New Orleans Regional Transportation Authority operated prior to the disaster, which were never put to use in the evacuation.

Jonah Goldberg spells out the rather obvious,

But it seems to me if people have been talking about these levees breaking for decades, and if you know that they can only withstand a cat 3 hurricane, you might have an evacuation plan at the ready which calls for moving vehicles to high ground or putting them in parking structures above the likely flood level or something like that. Again, as I said, Jeb Bush did this sort of thing routinely in Florida. Has there been any evidence that local authorities acted on anything like a serious emergency plan? In other words, maybe some other buses were set aside and I simply haven't heard about it?

JunkJardBlog points out the school buses are a mile or two away from the Superdome.

Todo ello no se llevó a cabo porque quien tenía competencias sobre el tema, el alcalde Nagin, no dio las instrucciones para ello. Y así no se evitaron las dantescas escenas en el Superdome que sí, quizás se podría haber gestionado algo mejor. Pero que no habrían ocurrido si quien ahora se queja del retraso de la ayuda hubiese sido más competente.

ACTUALIZACIÓN. Más.

ACTUALIZACIÓN II. Y tampoco es cierto que la falta de ayuda se debe a que el ejército está en Iraq:

So is the war in Iraq causing troop shortfalls for hurricane relief in New Orleans?

In a word, no.

A look at the numbers should dispel that notion. Take the Army for example. There are 1,012,000 soldiers on active duty, in the Reserves, or in the National Guard. Of them, 261,000 are deployed overseas in 120 countries. Iraq accounts for 103,000 soldiers, or 10.2 percent of the Army.

That’s all? Yes, 10.2 percent. That datum is significant in itself, a good one to keep handy the next time someone talks about how our forces are stretched too thin, our troops are at the breaking point, and so forth. If you add in Afghanistan (15,000) and the support troops in Kuwait (10,000) you still only have 12.6 percent.

So where are the rest? 751,000 (74.2 percent) are in the U.S. About half are active duty, and half Guard and Reserve. The Guard is the real issue of course — the Left wants you to believe that the country has been denuded of its citizen soldiers, and that Louisiana has suffered inordinately because Guardsmen and women who would have been available to be mobilized by the state to stop looting and aid in reconstruction are instead risking their lives in Iraq.

Not hardly. According to Lieutenant General H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, 75 percent of the Army and Air National Guard are available nationwide. In addition, the federal government has agreed since the conflict in Iraq started not to mobilize more than 50 percent of Guard assets in any given state, in order to leave sufficient resources for governors to respond to emergencies.

ACTUALIZACIÓN III. ¿Recordáis los ejemplos alucinantes de explotación política de la tragedia que había recogido Arthur Chrenkoff y al que enlazó HispaLibertas? Pues hoy hay una segunda parte. Os irá bien leerlo; así sabréis lo que dirán mañana los enteraos de aquí.

ACTUALIZACIÓN IV. Y aún más, escondido al final de este artículo del Washington Post, pero importante: resulta que todos los planes federales (es decir, a grandes rasgos los que dependen de la administración Bú) establecen que las autoridades locales y estatales tienen que tener previsto no recibir ningún tipo de ayuda hasta pasadas 72-96 horas, es decir, en este caso el pasado jueves cuando efectivamente llegaron:

Other federal and state officials pointed to Louisiana's failure to measure up to national disaster response standards, noting that the federal plan advises state and local emergency managers not to expect federal aid for 72 to 96 hours, and base their own preparedness efforts on the need to be self-sufficient for at least that period. "Fundamentally the first breakdown occurred at the local level," said one state official who works with FEMA. 'Did the city have the situational awareness of what was going on within its borders? The answer was no."

Y es que está claro que no siempre es posible entrar en una zona devastada en la que no quedan puentes, ni carreteras, en las que nada se tiene en pie. La primera respuesta tiene que venir siempre desde dentro (h/t Golan via Instapundit).