Not-Quite Buried Lede Dept.

It's only the third paragraph in, so it's not quite buried, but some dirt has been spread over it, just so the horses don't get totally spooked. From Friday's NYT story on wrangling between state and federal governments over Katrina response, this startling gem:

The debate began after officials realized that Hurricane Katrina had exposed a critical flaw in the national disaster response plans created after the Sept. 11 attacks. According to the administration's senior domestic security officials, the plan failed to recognize that local police, fire and medical personnel might be incapacitated.

That's one hell of a disaster response plan that fails to take that eventuality into account. Did the planners also fail to recognize that there might be a need for sandbags, heavy-duty choppers, and emergency food and water? If so, like "Brownie", they did a heck of a job.