How do you call up the National Guard when the power is out, phone service is gone and most roads are blocked in La, Al, and Ms?
The fact that you're far from the only one asking this question is actually the answer to many of our problems today. In a nutshell, it seems the trend has been that more and more people (and governments) simply react to things instead of planning in advance. Not just disasters, but even everyday things. Why do we do this? Because we've come to rely too much on technology, and now use it to compensate for poor (or no planning). For example, I often see people walking down grocery store aisles on cell phones asking about what should they should buy. I'm quite sure the person on the other end is often interrupted by such a call at a less than opportune time, and thus has to make spur of the moment decisions. Compare this to the "old-fashioned" way of making a shopping list, checking which items you need might be on sale or discounted with coupons, consolidating many small trips into one big one, etc. Not only do you usually save money doing it the so-called "old school" way, but you save time and resources. Of course the downside is that you have to plan and think about something before you actually do it. People seem to be more and more averse to dealing with things before they absolutely, positively have to (opps, we're out of milk so I'll run to the store and call my wife at work to see what else we need). Or to even planning their finances (hence living on borrowed money).
At best, operating this way wastes time and money. At worst, it can result in disasters which could have been prevented. You should never operate in such a way that you're dependent upon technology to work in life or death situations. The cell phone won't operate, the power will be out, and the car won't start at precisely the moments you need them the most. Indeed, much of our technology is difficult to keep operating even without natural disasters. When you think there is even a remote chance that technology will fail, make plans to do without it. Calling in the troops in advance of something like this would have been the prudent course. Bringing in supplies ahead of time to repair damage to the levees would have made sense. Most importantly, getting everyone out of New Orleans in advance should have been done, even if some were removed at gunpoint. Far easier to deal with the logistics of moving and feeding people before the storm wiped out civilization than after. Doing so also would have let the disaster relief workers go immediately to assessing the damage rather than rescuing stragglers.
I really hope this country learns a lesson from this. On so many levels, what went wrong here is a microcosm of what is wrong with our country. We need to plan not only for things which occur before the next election but also for what we'll need in five, ten, twenty, even a hundred years. Life isn't like a 30 minute sitcom where problems are solved by the end of the show, or just "work themselves out". Without advance planning, we are all 24 hours away from disaster.
