Buzz for the last week of August: Katrina

The big news from last week is obvious. It's easy to become blase about weather warnings. Last year's seemingly never-ending hurricane season devastated huge areas of the Southeast. Yet relatively few lives were lost, and the season had little impact on the rest of the country.But as Hurricane Katrina swirled offshore — at one point a Category 5 monster — it just seemed different.Many questions remain unanswered, not the least of which is why victims of last year's tsunami started receiving aid almost immediately, while thousands of U.S. citizens hit by a catastrophic storm were holed up without sufficient aid in a football stadium.The events raise uneasy questions about the Homeland Security Department. We knew Katrina was coming. But we probably won't have advanced warnings before the next terrorist attack.We called this year's Federal List issue the Survivors Guide. When we conceived that idea, we couldn't have known Mother Nature would unleash one of the worst disasters in U.S. history on the Gulf Coast. Relief workers and residents struggling with the storm's aftermath are the true survivors.