I was the same way. Never really though much about it until I started dating my now wife. Her family lives in Bay St. Louis Mississippi, where it was hit just as hard. They have some crazy stories about the storms and aftermath. First time I went down there in 2013 we were just driving around to get dinner and you could still see old pieces of buildings destroyed. Crazy scene.
The level of suffering that the government allowed, was staggering.
You can argue about all the politics around planning and execution and paying for it, but in the end the Federal and State governments allowed the victims of Katrina to suffer and die.
They chose to play games versus jumping in the deep end and helping in any and every way they could.
Even local govt bullshit made it worse... one story about people who were trying to walk out of the city to somewhere safe and they were met by a police dept that stopped them at gunpoint and made them return to a destroyed city with no food, water, nor shelter.
Another story of how these people were told to go to this nearly empty Naval base and the Navy could help take care of them... it was an evacuated base with plenty of empty housing units and supplies and they turned these people away at gunpoint as well.... no offer of food or water or advice on where to go or what to do... just "Fuck off, we have orders"
These were American citizens whom had their homes destroyed..... lost loved ones.... and they were met with at best indifference and at worst outright hostility at the end of a gun.
I see this bullshit in my job... corporate America politics "Not my job... not my team's responsibility.... I don't have the funding or resources.... blah blah blah" and often you have to cut thru the bullshit as a leader and say "We have problems to solve here... major problems, so either help solve the problems or fuck off and send me your boss"
No one in a sufficiently high enough position seemed to do that before/during/after Katrina.