Heated, but I don't see any real ugliness here except for the accounts of the hurricane itself. New Orleans is, alegedly, predominantly black. Alegedly, it has a large Roman Catholic population. As long as folks aren't saying things like, "Good, I'm always glad to see black people [or] Catholics [or] Americans die," then we must be willing to countenance a frank assessment of the situation.
Some comments were perhaps ill-advised, but the discussion is progressing more or less respectfully.
As always, you may report the thread or PM me personally, but I might not agree that an offense has occured.