http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/446419.stm=====================================================
Nixon and Bush (41) took simiilar actions for other hurricanes.
Someone else here at DU posted this, but I can't find the original post, so I got this from a site that "borrowed" the post:
In September 1999, Hurricane Floyd -- a category 3 -- was bearing down the Carolinas and Virginia.
President Clinton was in Christchurch, New Zealand - meeting with President Jiang of China ... he cut short his meetings overseas and flew home to coordinate the rescue efforts. This all one day BEFORE a Cat-3 hit the coast.
How about own father during Hurricane Andrew? Once again, President Bush (41) -- August, 1992 -- was in the midst of a brutal campaign for re-election. Yet, he cut off his campaigning the day before and went to Washington where he martialed the largest military operation on US soil in history. He sent in 7,000 National Guard and 22,000 regular military personnel, and all the gear to begin the clean up within hours after Andrew passed through Florida.
In August of 1969 when Cat-5 Hurricane Camille hit roughly the same area as Katrina, President Nixon had already readied the National Guard and ordered all Gulf rescue vessels and equipment from Tampa and Houston to follow the hurricane in. There were over 1,000 regular military with two dozen helicopters to assist the Coast Guard and National Guard within hours after the skies cleared.