They were having to deal with reality, John. The reality is that they didn't have the resources to do it. They said they didn't have the resources to do it. That's reality. The other aspect of reality is that FEMA was charged with the responsibility of taking up the slack for anything that the local governments didn't have the resources to deal with. That's the job of FEMA. That's why it exists. That's reality.

The idea that the local governments could have done better with the resources they had available to them, and the idea that the federal government and FEMA did not have any obligation or responsibility in this situation is fantasy. Not reality.