We're sounding just a bit mean-spirited about many of the folks who were stuck in New Orleans. I too feel for the animals (I'm a vegetarian, after all), but not everyone that got stuck there stayed because they were idiots (some were, I'll grant you). One of every six households in the city had no car. With or without a car, a great many had no resources to afford a getaway--there is grinding, numbing poverty in the region. Bus fare or a tank of gas are luxuries. A great many shopkeepers can't afford insurance (try getting covered in the inner city) and had every penny tied up in their businesses. How else to protect what they had but to stay nearby and stand guard. Even if those reasons don't withstand pure intellectual scrutiny, people have paid much more than a fair price for the mistake. I know we're not really mean, but we sound that way.