"Katrina" was a manufactured crisis, just like this one. In a better time, the public would have blamed the shiftless New Orleans residents for ignoring evacuation orders. I remember the apocalyptic language the NWS published in advance ... mass flooding, high rise structural failures, etc. That should have convinced any sane person to leave, but many did not value their own lives enough to make an effort.
The media are shameless. They exploit universal suffrage in the most cynical ways, by playing to the base emotions of the uniformed and hysterical. I wish they would just go to hell, and leave the rest of us alone.