The anti-Bush people hold the administration responsible for everything short of the actual winds and the rain. In response, White House supporters have been forced to acknowledge that this was not the President’s finest hour. On the other hand, they point to state and local officials, many of whom are Democrats.

It seems likely that we will have a re-run of the 9/11 effort. That is to say the cries will begin, supported by the White House, for a commission to study this problem, analyze it and decide what went wrong. Millions of dollars will be spent on a commission staff which will issue a lengthy report. Perhaps legislation will emerge. There will be one difference, however. This time there won’t be a fund for the victims because the treasury is too depleted for that.

In concept, the idea of a commission and a study sounds fine, but it seems like a ridiculous academic exercise. A number of the major lessons from Katrina are both clear and simple. They can easily be determined on without a report of a thousand pages.

As a nation, we would do well to focus on some of those lessons. Katrina will not be the last disaster to hit this country. Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat their errors, as the old saying goes.

Here are five of the lessons which emerge from Katrina.

The first one is that wishing won’t make problems go away. We can stick our heads in the sand, but when we pick them up the problem will have occurred or it’s about to hit us in the face.

Several years ago I was in New Orleans for a conference the week after Labor Day. A hurricane was stalled over the Gulf Coast and lingered for three days delivering a drenching rain to New Orleans and surrounding areas. The conference broke up early to permit people to leave the city. There was only one problem. The New Orleans Airport was operational. It was raining and wet downtown, not flooded. However the road to the airport was under water. That meant we stayed in our New Orleans hotel for two days until the water level reduced and we could get to the airport.

During this experience, I began inquiring about the geography of New Orleans. To my horror, I found out for the first time what we have all learned in the last couple of days. This is a city largely built below sea level. It was inevitable that heavy rains, sinking land and rising sea level would put the city under water. Yes, there were levees that are intended to protect the city; however, those have a practical limit of when they will hold and when they will break.

It seemed inevitable that sooner or later a huge storm would hit New Orleans and flood the city. The only question was when. My conclusion wasn’t a particularly perceptive one. Anyone who knew New Orleans had reached the same conclusion.

In this situation, it is inexcusable that an effort wasn’t made to buttress the levees. Ultimately, flood was the doomsday scenario for the city. People of all levels of government chose to ignore that clear and present danger. Ignoring it didn’t make it go away.

The second lesson is that once the danger was clear, Katrina was bearing down on New Orleans on a direct path, that was the time for full and urgent action. In a similar situation, in coastal Virginia when confronted with a major hurricane approaching the city, local officials took immediate and effective action. They moved promptly to evacuate people and stockpile supplies. They also commandeered all of the public buses and school busses, went door to door and urged people in the strongest terms to evacuate. Providing transportation was critical because those without cars couldn’t otherwise leave.

None of this was done in New Orleans. To be sure, some people would not have evacuated, but many would have. There is no excuse for the failure to provide transportation.

The third lesson relates to the uncertain and confused roles between the state and local governments. Our new federalism is a tangled mess. The federal government has tried for several years to shift more responsibility to state and local governments. The lines of responsibility are poorly drawn and unclear. In a situation like Katrina, there should be effective coordination between state and local governments. There wasn’t! This is a major problem which has to be addressed to avoid another massive failure of government.

A fourth lesson is that particularly at the federal government level, but also at the state government there was far too much bureaucracy and far too little leadership and effective management. There was uncertainty about who was in charge at each stage so we had a virtual governmental free for all. At the same time when the federal government decided finally to move, it did so in an awkward and cumbersome manner. There is no question at the Home Land Security Department, which absorbed FEMA, was grossly inefficient. The absence of effective management in a federal agency is inexcusable and needs to be addressed.

A fifth lesson is that terrorism is having a huge adverse impact on our society in incalculable ways. Yes, terrorism is a major problem confronting the country, but our obsession with it has taken away our ability to deal with other equally pressing problems. We have spent billions on new federal airport screeners with no discernable public benefit, yet potential and lurking problems, like the security of New Orleans, received no attention whatsoever. We simply have to reassess our national priorities. I’m not suggesting that terrorism isn’t a major problem. On the other hand, efforts focused on terrorism cannot dwarf all of the other necessities of our government.