American governments biggest failure

The biggest failure in American government today is disaster relief. This is clearly obvious from the delayed efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Being from somewhere that has been devastated by another hurricane, Ivan, I know what it's like to be in need of government assistance to help you get back on your feet. While Katrina's destruction surpassed Ivan's the government did not step up to the level of aid that people in Louisiana and Mississippi required, and because of it many people suffered for much longer than they should have. Several college students proved that they could cut through the red tape and travel down to New Orleans. In the first few days after Katrina FEMA and other government agencies were not in New Orleans providing relief because they were still in Washington D.C. trying to get their act together due to being unprepared for something this disastrous. This shouldn't have been the case. FEMA and Homeland Security should be prepared for the worst case scenarios possible. This situation was one that was definitely forseeable, especially since many people had been predicting for years that a hurricane would directly hit New Orleans. But disaster relief spreads further than just hurricanes to other natural disasters such as earthquakes, tornados, blizzards, and wildfires. The government needs to be prepared if another major earthquake strikes San Francisco, if a tornado ravages through the midwest, if a blizzard freezes over the northeast, or if a wildfire burns through many people's homes out west. The government needs to be ready to take quick, decisive action in all of these circumstances. Just like they were in Katrina people will be entirely dependent on the government to support them. The governments unpreparedness is the biggest problem in domestic relief efforts.
The government was caught off guard by the number of people in need because they simply didn't think something like this would happen. The lack of a real natural disaster in recent history has lead many to feel as if were immune to an ordeal of that magnitude. The recent focus on foreign policy and protecting our citizens from terrorists has also hindered the attention on helping us deal with mother nature. Hopefully, a positive to come out of the midst of Katrina will be that in the future our government will be more prepared to handle similar destructive situations, but until that happens we will never know.