A category 4 hurricane would level most buildings and kill damn near everyone wherever the eye actually lands (luckily Katrina lost power very fast when it hit

A category 4 hurricane would level most buildings and kill damn near everyone wherever the eye actually lands (luckily Katrina lost power very fast when it hit land and the eye was miles from downtown). So there's really no option but to evacuate, besides just pray it turns away. Houston is way bigger than New Orleans, but either way you obviously can't evacuate a major city in one day. Their first obvious mistake was waiting way too long to call it (of course a very easy thing to say after the fact). As I recall, Bush was calling on the mayor and governor to evacuate for a couple days before they finally did. Then there was confusion about which govt was in charge with the gov finally taking over the city then Bush taking over the state. In the mayor's defense, he never really had much power to being with, and cops were abandoning their posts so I don't know who he could have called on to get things done. And as you say, once it become national politics, it's impossible to get much objective analysis. As for examples, the comparison was made to Cuba. A small city in a small country with an absolute dictator calling the shots. I get the impression that the previous poster wanted to criticize Bush as being dictatorial, which is ironic, since it's ultimately a lack of federal domination that everyone complains about in Katrina.