Look, I don't want to get into a long discussion about blaming the victims of this disaster; however I am going to quickly respond to the comments about the tsunami vs Katrina.

Firstly, there WAS looting in Thailand and other affected areas. There was also a child trafficking, rapes in some areas - or at least rumors of these (which is what we have in NOLA).
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems...2/s1273685.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4145591.stm

Secondly, in most of the areas affected by the Tsunami, guns just aren't readily available. Desperate people, those wanting to protect themselves, or criminals couldn't arm themselves like they could in NOLA.

Thirdly, the response to the tsunami, especially in Thailand, was very rapid. Many of the areas badly hit in Thailand were tourist areas where the police presence was strong. This contrasts markedly with New Orleans whose police department was undermanned at the best of times (and who had a reputation for racism and corruption, which I suspect lead to a lot of people not trusting them) where they had to cope with a population basically abandoned for up to four days in a city that posed a continuing danger through toxic floods.

The Tsunami was a catastrophic event that killed over two hundred thousand people. The magnitude of the disaster cannot be overstated; however most of the death toll in the Tsunami happened during the actual wave. This differs from New Orleans, where (I am supposing here) many people died (and continue to die) as a result of the flooding and lack of aid AFTER the initial storm.

My point is, we just can’t know what would happen in tsunami affected areas if 200 thousand people were stuck in a city with no food, water, electricity or sanitation for four days, where guns were readily available, where huge stores stocking expensive items such as TV’s (which could later be sold to alleviate absolute destitution) or food or clothes were at hand and where the constant threat of poisoned water surrounded you. We can’t know what would have happened, because that wasn’t the situation the tsunami victims found themselves in. It was however, the situation that folks from New Orleans found themselves in.