Hurricane Katrina and the US Navy Question.

This thought occurred to me over the past weekend post storm.

I realize that the US Navy has many ship abroad fighting the WOT.

Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa and Asia all in support of our troops abroad fighting many battles in many theaters.

Where was the US Navy positioned in the Gulf of Mexico pre and post Katrina?

Here is my concern. It appears that the US Navy had to bring in ships from the East coast to support the relief effort, and it took a few days for the ships to cruise to the rescue.

Ok, I understand that Navy ships set out to sea to avoid storms like Katrina, but it appears that we, (the US) had no real Navy presence in the Gulf of Mexico prior to the storm.

I realize we had Coast Guard cruisers in the Gulf, but it took days to get any real Navy muscle on the seen.

Is the Gulf of Mexico unprotected ?

Are there no Aircraft carriers and their support ships stationed in the Gulf?

Am I missing something here, If we had an Aircraft carrier battle group stationed somewhere in the gulf, the Navy would have placed them off the coast for support directly after the storm.

If this is the case it seems that our Gulf Coast could be an easy target for something far worse than Katrina.

Thank you Vasilis Azoth !

That's my question, is the majority of the US Naval Fleet stationed on both coasts and not in the Gulf.

It seemed the arrival time for the Navy's big ships was days and not hours.

Our country has the ability to use the military to help in time of natural disasters, and the Navy is a big part of the picture, it just seemed odd that the big ships had to come from the East Coast and not some place in the Gulf?

Honestly, it seem to me that our Navy is spread thin across the globe with more emphisis on the Pacific than the Atlantic. As it is unlikely that a foreign power would lauch an invasion without some kind of warning(ie increased tension with said nation) I guess we really don't have to protect our coastline. But this event shows that maybe we do need to keep more military closer to home(and not just the Navy).