In the build-up to Hurricane Sandy, New York City's Mayor Bloomberg and other city and state officials made valiant efforts to keep New Yorkers safe by ordering mandatory evacuations of hundreds of thousands of city residents and shutting down the mass transit system that serves over 5 million people daily. Similar precautions were taken for last year's Hurricane Irene, and although neither storm was expected to be remotely as severe as Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans and surrounding areas in 2005, government officials are clearly reluctant to repeat the mistakes of that episode.

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