September 2, 2005

American disaster officials say they have long known that New Orleans was especially vulnerable, but none of their preparedness drills considered possibility that levees keeping Lake Pontchartrain out of city would be breached; disaster experts, while acknowledging that Hurricane Katrina posed unprecedented difficulties, say evacuation measures were inadequate; say large numbers of National Guard troops should have been deployed on flooded streets early in the disaster to keep order; some question whether federal government's intense focus on terrorism has distracted from planning practical steps to cope with major natural disaster; American Red Cross official Joe Becker says first, lifesaving phase of hurricane response, which usually lasts just hours, in this case is stretching over days; calls government response 'nothing short of heroic'; some critics fault Federal Emergency Management Agency, while others say blame should be more widely spread; note that local, state and federal officials have cooperated on disaster planning; photo; map (M)

Most New Yorkers are Democrats. And half of them, a recent poll suggests, would re-elect the city's Republican mayor. So come Primary Day, what are these Bloomberg Democrats to do? Their intriguing quandary could become a huge factor in determining who wins the Democratic nomination on Sept. 13. Do they vote their hearts? Or do they vote strategically, for ''anybody but Freddy'' to force the Democratic front-runner, Fernando Ferrer, into a debilitating runoff against either Gifford Miller, Anthony D. Weiner or C. Virginia Fields? Or do they vote for the candidate who they believe would pose the smallest threat to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in November?

A STRICKEN CITY -- The scenes from New Orleans were chilling: an elderly woman dead in a wheelchair outside the Convention Center. Corpses rotting in the streets. Angry crowds chanting to television cameras, ''We're dying!'' PAGE A15 PRESIDENT UNDER FIRE -- A political furor over President Bush's handling of the hurricane intensified as Democrats, local officials and members of the public accused the president of responding too slowly. PAGE A16 OVERLOADED REFUGE -- Baton Rouge is so crowded with refugees that the police chief said the city could accept no more and would instead send them to adjacent regions. PAGE A18 TELEVISION SHIFTS -- After three days of flood scenes, television news shifted from recording a devastating natural disaster to exposing human failures. PAGE A21 OIL OPERATIONS IN DISARRAY-- The Gulf of Mexico was still reeling from the hurricane, and gasoline supplies were crippled in some pockets of the country. BUSINESS DAY, PAGE C1

FOR Hank Jones, the last 60 years of jazz is not best explained by records. The entire period seems to be retained in his own head: a labor history of all the jam-session, studio, one-night and concert-hall gigs he has played since moving to New York in 1944. Mr. Jones, a pianist, has been one of the hardest and most consistent workers in the history of jazz. As a result, his focused, organized, subtle touch -- one device is to turn up the energy of his improvising while still playing softly -- shows up everywhere in the music.

Floyd Norris column urges 1970's-style energy conservation plan in wake of disruptions of oil and gas production in Gulf of Mexico caused by Hurricane Katrina; says prudent course now would be for national effort to reduce demand; suggests urging drivers to slow down and telling police to enforce speed limits; holds campaign to raise home thermostats now, and lower them this winter, might reduce demand enough to limit price increases that market will have to bear; graph (M)