Where was the help?

Ever since I spent three years in the Air Force at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, I've been fascinated by Hurricanes. None of them hit the base while I was there, but 1957's Audrey caused the creeks to rise rather dramatically even though it went inland at Lake Charles, LA., a number of miles away. Then Camille hit in 1969 and wiped out the Gulf Coast. We have had experience with the big winds over a period of at least a hundred years (the big one hit Galveston in 1900). So now we are getting the post mortem, but I have a question to ask: why wasn't help in place to come into the coast as soon as the storm ended. Instead we are waiting on boats out of Virginia and National Guard from the states to organize enough to come into the destruction zone. What is taking so long? Why weren't the basic in place and ready to move as soon as the storm passed? We had days to prepare for what was foreseen as an even more destructive storm than actually occurred. Did no one expect people to act as they always do in a crisis? The majority shows its best side, the minority turns destructive. And is it truly looting if all someone wants is water and food from a store where they normally get it, even if there is no one to collect their money?

The New Orleans Times Picayune ran a series in June 2002 about the dangers to New Orleans of a direct hit by a major hurricane. National Geographic had an article about it several years ago. We were warned of what could happen. We knew that the area could be very hard hit. Granted, it seemed at first that New Orleans had been spared but that still meant the Gulf Coast would need help. Why wasn't that help ready to roll when the storm ended?