"The majority of those who refuse to evacuate, 'the stragglers', posses nothing on this planet except the house they live in."

Chances are they didn't possess the house before the disaster, even if they stayed where they were living.

"They have no savings, no relatives, no support group, NOTHING!"

So staying in a destroyed city is a favorable option to moving elsewhere at the expense of both the government and a giving populous?

"They have their house and their indpendance. If they evacuate, they lose both, they lose everything. In effect, their lives are over."

There is no city, no infrastructure, no nothing. Their lives are over if they don't leave the filth that is the result of this disaster.

"Having been warned multiple times of what they are risking, they have decided to stay, to protect their homes, and probably more importantly, maintain some little semblence of control over their own lives, rather than surrendering themselves to a bungling government beauracracy that will stick them into a shelter somewhere that they don't want to be, and promptly forget about them as 'a problem solved'."

....a shelter somewhere is in fact where they already were in all too many cases.

"How can anyone 'BLAME' them for trying to maintain what little they have?"

I can get outright po'd when anyone claims that the reason some people have died in New Orleans is a result of a lack of an alternative place to live since the flood, and way too many on the left are claiming it is race based. I can't see how forcing someone to remain alive by moving out of a cesspool is removing their dignity. If they were just left there on their own, wouldn't the same criticisms come straight down the pike after these people die too?

Saving people from their own stupidity is all too often the job of our government. Suggesting that it not be done is even more stupid. ...at least in this case.