It had nothing to do with Bush visiting. It was "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job" where Brownie was Michael Brown, the director of FEMA, and FEMA was failing at every level.
Even small government conservatives will agree it is the role of the federal government to prepare for and deal with the aftermath of natural disasters. The Bush Administration failed to heed the warnings the days before Katrina (the storm didn't just suddenly appear over New Orleans), and failed to respond immediately after.
Rather than overseeing preparations for the storm, Bush was in Arizona singing Happy Birthday to John McCain. That is what he was criticized for.
http://www.disastersrus.org/katrina/senatereport/KatCon.pdf
Most all of what you typed was pure bullshit. Yes, the levees were neglected and obsolete, and had been so for some time, well before bush. The rest of what you typed is pure shit. I was actually living there at the time. Every attempt was made to evacuate and plenty of people didn't take advantage of it, because people in louisiana had made a habit of waiting out hurricanes and sticking it out.
FEMA was abused and fucked over. Every person in louisiana received a free 2k displacement check on top of food stamps. They weren't even checking ids. People from Arkansas and Texas were cashing in on the freebies. Property damage was fraudulently reported to the tune of record costs. The dishonest behavior and record amount of fraud, that took place in louisiana during katrina, will forever change the nature of emergency response and monetary dispersal during emergencies
No one that actually lived in louisiana, and exercised any amount of common sense, would argue that they didn't have enough time to prepare. I certainly did and I lived within 45 minutes of new Orleans at the time. But hey, what do I know, I was only there...and you have a fancy government report.
Outside of the gross negligence to the levees, they did as much as could be done. If a person chose to ride out the hurricane, and wanted help once they realized they bit off more than they could chew, that's their own fault. They were all told that if they didn't leave now, emergency response may not be able to reach them in a timely fashion once the hurricane arrived