If I'm showing my ignorance here, I'll apologize in advance. But, don't we have huge military transport planes which could fly hundreds of people at a time to Houston? Why are we using school busses to drive from New Orleans to Houston? How many people can fit onto a school bus at one time? Forty or fifty?

I think this tragedy is going to be a huge object lesson for many of us. In the future, we need to give people real options for emergencies.

Those of us posting here are financially blessed enough that we (and our beloved pets) would have been able to evacuate to safer territory. I'm sure some folks who stayed simply chose to "tough it out" or decided to stick their heads in the sand and stay.

I think a much larger number, though, stayed because they had no viable options. Shelters won't take pets. How many of us posting here would have abandoned our pets and gone to a shelter to save ourselves, leaving our pets behind to be killed? None, probably.

Many others stayed because they had no way to get to shelter.

I hope we learn from this. People need real options. They need a way to protect their ENTIRE family, including their beloved pets. And they need effective transportation to adequate, well-stocked shelters.

Time to re-evaluate how we view (and spend on) homeland security, in my humble opinion.

Kathy