A simple explanation

So a lot of media attention has focused on the fact that the folks left behind in New Orleans were mostly poor, mostly black. It must be racism! Bush and other persons of power were slow to act because they don't care about black people. If the people left behind were white, it'd be a totally different story!

But really, I think the main reason why Katrina turned out the way it did (all possibilities of prevention and better evacuation aside - I read somewhere that the Bush administration cut funding to upgrade/repair levees in the region that may have stood up better to the storm, and we all know that the real reason for the utter devastation was due to the flooding following the levee breaches), was due to incompetence. I think this is a much more likely explanation for the resultant distaster than racism or bias. Local, state, and federal agencies simply didn't execute well. They even trained for this type of event following 9/11, and still couldn't pull off a satisfactory outcome. All they really needed to do was get food and water in there quickly, then start evacuating methodically.

Ultimately, we paid the price. A few million dollars of savings on the levees a few years ago is now billions of dollars in losses. What's that they say about hindsight?