re: What's the truth on Katrina/Blackwater, etc.

I was a bit East of NOLA in a hospital that flooded.

A hospital is not a venue to be in as it floods.

At least the folks around me were human.

The strangest LE folks I saw on the ground were U.S. Forest Service personnel from Stanislaus County, CA and the Capitol Police from Tallahassee.

No special forces or Blackwater, etc.

I'm glad I had money in that scenario. Being a poors then would have sucked.

I know times were beyond super tense but why start shooting at them just because they were running? I guess I can't imagine being in any situation like that ... who knows what kind of sleep the police had had as well as so many others but they were perhaps overly "alert" and for lack of better term trigger happy due to the situation and not just because they wanted to shoot 'em up?? IDK. The whole thing sucked.

Simple: they weren't allowed to bring their pets.

Really. Thousands stayed behind for that reason. The shelters were not equipped to accomidate birds, housecats, dogs, ect so they would not allow people to bring their pets with them to safety. The buses refused to allow the non-human passengers onboard (except for service dogs), so many of those who couldn't drive themselves out that didn't want to abandon their precious pets stayed behind to ride it out with them. That decision likely resulted directly in hundreds of deaths.

To prevent this from happening in the future, starting with Gustav, evacuation buses allowed evacuees to bring their pets and disaster shelters partnered with animal shelters to care for those pets so people would no longer stay behind to avoid abandoning their pets to near certain death. They also instituted this system of statues around the city. All one must do to evacuate is walk to one of those statues during an evacuation and busses will arrive at those statues to take them to safety.

We learned from many of Katrina's mistakes, but had we already known, many lives may have been spared.

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At the very least they could have supplied the convention center and dome by flotilla

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We were very well supplied at the Superdome. No one missed a meal at the Dome. If you heard differently, you were misinformed. The Convention Center is at the feet of a particular national guard officer and the national media - there were never supposed to be evacuees at the CC - there was a small guard unit (Engineers) and when the folks got word of all the horror stories about the dome,they started to redirect themselves - by word of mouth to the CC. It is just fortunate that situation didn't turn out worse.

Back to the dome - some folks didn't like the fact they were given MREs and water. However, the VAST majority were grateful.

I tell this story, occasionally. This was, I believe, Friday after the storm - a commander that I don't particularly like, but this was the right call, made a decision, "We're not going to try to feed, then get on the buses - give them a choice - everybody who wants to get on the buses, get in line. If you want to eat, then evacuate later, get in the other line." Most got in line for the buses - they did have some bottled water and (I think) fruit and snacks for the bus riders.

Only a few wanted to delay leaving to get another MRE. Anyway, after the bus line was way down, I went with another soldier to see how the bus loading was going - it was so much quieter than it had been all week, it was surreal. As we were coming back, a tall, thin man, maybe 50 to 55 stopped us, shook our hands and said, "Thank you" - then made his way to the dwindling bus line.

He may not know it, but that meant a lot to me at the time.

Now, the wheels of progress roll slowly, and sometimes things work out funny - on Saturday (almost all the civilians had been evacuated) - a helicopter FULL of Krispy Kreme's showed up - I ate at least a dozen doughnuts that day. We had boots and clothes showing up - had the crisis continued, the logistics piece at the Dome would have gotten better and better.