Differences in planning and reactions to Katrina, Rita are stark.(Hurricane Katrina, 2005 and Hurricane Rita, 2005)

Byline: Bill Glauber, Mark Silva and Jeff Zeleny

NEW ORLEANS _ Government learned, and learned fast, how to deal with natural disaster over the past month.

And dealing with Hurricane Rita, not everything went right, especially the chaotic mass exodus from Houston _ an evacuation that led to tragedy with the explosion of a bus carrying elderly people that left 24 dead.

Still, people heeded the call to flee. Those left behind were quickly rescued and housed in shelters.

Throughout all ranks of government, from city halls to governors' offices to the White House, the differences in the planning and reactions to Hurricanes Rita and Katrina were stark.

Stung by criticisms of a sluggish, haphazard response to the far more powerful and destructive Katrina last month, politicians went to great lengths to be seen as taking pro-active measures, big and small.

And Rita was no Katrina.

What the country saw before Rita was a massive mobilization of citizens, troops, rescue crews and medical teams, each trying in their own way to cope with a storm that roared to a full Category 5 hurricane while out in the Gulf of Mexico, and throttled back to a Category 3 before making landfall.

More than 1,000 people died when Katrina rocked Louisiana and…