1523 Such a deal!

Couldn't have worked out better. Be totally unprepared for anything above a category 3 hurricane, don't get your poorest and most vulnerable out in time, create chaos by not allowing ngo's to provide food and water, and then when all that bad planning gets washed away, ask all the other citizens of the United States to pay for it.

Here's what Blanco asked for yesterday in a speech to the Louisiana Legislature on the Restoration of Southeast Louisiana.

"Governor Blanco left no doubt about what she expects of the federal government. That includes:

• Asking the federal government to cover 100 percent of what Louisiana will spend on this disaster – just as was done after 9-11.

• Significant financial help to rebuild homes and return our families.

• Tax relief and loans to keep our businesses afloat.

• An extension of unemployment benefits.

• FEMA to give priority to hiring Louisiana companies and Louisiana workers."

So if Alabama and Mississippi were only slightly less prepared, do they get this too? And Florida? What about Ophelia and the North Carolina coast. They're quite prepared, having learned some painful lessons from FEMA's failures in 1999.