Forbearance

A true sign of civil breakdown would have manifested itself in the following way: the have-nots of New Orleans, seeing that the haves had departed and left their fridges full of food and their properties on the high ground, would have moved in, breaking down the doors and smashing out the windows, consuming all that food going to waste, sleeping in comfort and living in splendor compared with existence on the verges of the highways, under the bridges, or jammed together in the stadium and the convention center. If any of this happened, it has not been reported. There would have been little in the way of governmental might in any form to have prevented it.