American Red Cross
The Red Cross notes that they are not in New Orleans after Katrina at the request of the state Homeland Security Department.

And there are other reports that people are not being allowed to leave New Orleans on foot. No resources going in and no people going out. That sounds compassionate and conservative.

I was listening to an interview on NPR the other day with the author of a book on the Mississippi 1927 flood (or maybe it was this one). On one of the bluffs outside a Mississipppi town, everyone, black and white, gathered high and dry to await rescue. When it came time to evacuate, the whites were taken and the blacks were left. Evidently, the plantation owners were afraid if the sharecroppers were evacuated they would never come back and they would lose their labor force.

I wonder if that sort of thought is going on now.