The mayor is going to have to accept his fair share of blame too. I don't think anyone's going to escape some blame.

In fact, looking at the NHC storm track, they don't forecast the storm greater than a Cat 3 at this critical juncture in time. Granted, they do their forecasting off mathematical data and computer models (with a bit of climatological history thrown in for good measure), but with water temperatures in the GoM being so high, and the track being what it is, one would have thought they would have foreseen that the storm would grow as it did. Had NOLA seen the possibility of a Cat 4 at that point, they might have taken action earlier.

Who can know? It's all behind us now, tragically.