There's no lack of military resources in the States. But this is a race against time, involving the cranking up of a vast rescue machine that is bound to malfunction because of its size and the unfamiliarity of the mission. Nobody has had much experience in rescuing tens of thousands of starving people from a huge swamp.

For the countries hit by the tsunami, local resources were usually so limited that breakdowns from sheer size and complexity were uncommon. But the resources themselves were inadequate, and that was the problem.

CNN is just now showing aerial photos of Gulport, Mississippi. It's dry, but the level of destruction really does resemble Hiroshima without the radiation. Every frame building is literally flattened, and the brick structures are hollow shells.