Yes, this captures it perfectly.

The US Coast Guard, Sean Penn, The RCMP and groups who packed up their friends and some supplies and hopped in the back of a pickup truck to help those left floundering about in the aftermath of Katrina all got got there...
:: dramatic pause ::
BEFORE FEMA.

They helped rescue people via boat, helicopter and on foot. They spoke with survivors and lent support. They helped haul bodies away or covered them up if they didn't have the means to remove them, then went on to give comfort and support to the living. Not only in Louisiana, but in Mississippi and all areas hit so brutally by the worst natural disaster to ever happen within our borders.

Reverend Al Sharpton got there before FEMA, and our own president didn't show up for days. When hurricane Betsy hit in September of 1965 President Johnson was there, flashlight in hand, with an immediate presence and response. Where was Bush after Katrina? Conspicuously absent until Mayor Nagin (New Orleans) called in to a radio show angry and upset by the lack of response from the federal government. Once it became public knowledge that nothing had been done, the ball, as they say, suddenly got rolling.

And with great efficiency; the level of efficiency we've come to expect from the feds, and the level of disregard for the suffering of their fellow *less cash-rich* humans, that was never more clearly demonstrated than in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.

FEMA did indeed bring buses to get people to safety: five days later, while the dead sat in chairs both mobile and stationary outside of the Superdome.
FEMA did indeed bring trailers to shelter the victims: but required documentation residents of Louisiana and Mississippi no longer had in their possession in exchange for the privilege of sitting the flimsy, poorly constructed little trailer-box on their own land, with the ruins of their homes visible from the tiny slotted windows.
FEMA did indeed bring trailers: many of which went unoccupied because with their homes, identification and paperwork gone, many families could not prove they were residents of the cities or states affected by the disaster.
Transportation out was provided: however, instead of sending people where they wanted to go (and in many cases they had family desperately waiting to hear from them), families were split up and survivors sent to places where they had no one. They were dropped with no support and left to fend for themselves and in most cases the places were unfamiliar to them. No money to help them get themselves settled, little to no communication options to help them find their missing family members who had been shipped elsewhere. Just, 'well, we paid for the plane...you can take over from here, right'?

Many of the survivors are still suffering depression and anxiety from post-traumatic stress. And getting no aid.

People are returning to see the lots their homes used to sit on claimed by greedy developers or still so strewn with debris the mere thought of rebuilding is overwhelming. They're returning home to a devastated economy and the worst employment situation in the country because there was no disaster plan, nothing done to get the businesses in the area to assist in the cleanup and give them a reason to stay. Worst of all, too many people who were four, six, eight generations of family or more born and lived in Louisiana and Mississippi have had no option but to abandon the ruins of their homes because in the wake of the storm they have been left destitute.

Two years later the levees are being repaired/rebuilt using the same methods that caused them to fail the first time, bodies are still being discovered in the cleanup effort (or have never been found at all), and the aforementioned effort consists mainly of private organizations and citizens who still have some means with which to start over. Insurance companies have left Katrina victims in the breeze, developers are scalping the land and the federal government is still mostly MIA. They have put in an appearance here and there recently, to tell the occupants of those poorly constructed trailers their time is just about up and they'll have to vacate them. No money? No resources? No job? No way to support your family? Too bad. You've squatted here long enough. Time to move on.

Meanwhile more and more money is poured into the war to protect oil interests and there aren't enough military or reservists left stateside to respond if anything like Katrina should ever hit again. To quote the Rev. Al Sharpton, "Those people are being sent to Iraq to spread democracy while back at home we have nothing."

I'd really love for someone to pipe up about 'compassionate conservatism' right about now. Not only have conservatives flubbed this whole thing to devastating effect, creating a post-Katrina situation that is as disastrous as the hurricane itself, they and the federal government continue to show indifference and give little aid to survivors. If Katrina had hit Martha's Vineyard, you can bet your gold-plated ass the rebuilding would have been completed by now, families would have been reunited immediately and insurance companies would have been falling over themselves to assure that their richest clients were fairly treated. As it was, they found every way possible to avoid paying on policies that people had been pouring their hard earned money into for generations, and the government stood by with their thumbs up their collective asses and let it happen without bothering to intervene on behalf of the people who had lost everything they had and were continually getting screwed.

So two years later hurricane Katrina continues to devastate the gulf coast and she's brought in reinforcements.

My mother always told me that in every horror and negative there is a tiny seed of ultimate good. If that seed exists in the post-Katrina disaster response (or lack thereof), it is this: we now know definitively what we have suspected all along; the feds are not going to help us. Insurance companies will not help us. In all things, man-made or natural, we have to learn to take care of ourselves because little to no help will come and as long as there are republicans in the White House our asses will be left to swing in the breeze unless we have the right skin color or millions in our bank accounts. We must learn to depend upon ourselves and be willing to give all that we can when needed because no help is coming from the feds without a time limit or a price tag.

We are on our own.