JB, Before you get to personal, why don't you try to understand the the situation. If the floodwalls and the levees did not wash away, would we be having this conversation?
Let us look at some of the columnists on what caused the disaster in New Orleans... "An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State by Robert Tracinski Sep 02, 2005 " http://www.intellectualactivist.com/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=1026 "Katrina- A Man Made Disaster" http://wizbangblog.com/2005/12/08/katrina-a-man-made-disaster.php Katrina: A Man Made Disaster http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bvo-qo2mBN4 Katrina, the "man-made disaster" http://katrinacoverage.com/2005/12/10/katrina-the-man-made-disaster.html Why Hurricane Katrina was a man-made disaster http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060814&s=grunwald081406 Remember, New Orleans disaster was man-made http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2006/11/remember_new_or.html Katrina: Man-Made Calamity http://thecentralscrutinizer.blogspot.com/2005/09/katrina-man-made-calamity.html
FOX NEWS ALERT Berthoud Pass Avalanche sweeps over six motorists on I-40 north of Denver. Some cars may have been swept off the road and over cliffs. "We are working this story as hard as we can." I'm so upset I can't go to the bathroom. Will stay glued to FOX all weekend for coverage of this national tragedy.
I live very near New Orleans to the Northeast and suffered a direct hit from Katrina and many thousands of dollars in damage, but thankfully no flooding and no deaths among my immediate family. I am often in New Orleans and previously lived in Denver. The destruction visited by Katrina is unfathomable by one who has not seen it with their own eyes: Much of New Orleans flooded, the towns of Bay St' Louis and Bay Waveland removed from the face of the Earth. Virtually all structures from the waterline for 1000 yards inland along the Mississippi Coast gone, a path of major destruction 300 miles inland and 150 miles wide, well over a thousand souls lost, including my friend Mega who was washed away in the wave that destroyed Bay St. Louis -- her body not recovered until weeks later. So perhaps it is not an apt comparison to equate the storm that hit the plains of Colorado with the Storm that washed away the Gulfcoast, nevertheless EqtTrdr has an important point to make, viz., the difference in attitude between those who expect, sometimes even demand, to be taken care, and those who accept responsibility for themselves and others. Just as the destruction wrought by Katrina is unfathomable, so too is the collective incompetence of the New Orleans City Government. And not only is there incompetence, but there is corruption. Corruption in the government, in the lower courts, and among the police. The kind of corruption and incompetence that in Denver would be considered scandalous is largely ignored in New Orleans. And as an aside i might add that there is a new wave of racism sweeping the lower South. And sadly, rascism is now just as prevalent in the younger black population, if not moreso, than among the less educated white population. It makes one wonder if all of the sacrifices of Southern Freedom fighters of the sixties have been for naught. Those levees that burst in the Storm had been leaking for years. The City had been repeatedly notified by nearby residents that there was a leak. City employees inspected the levees and concluded that they were indeed leaking. Yet absolutlely nothing was done. Furthermore, New Orleans has always been aware of the threat posed by hurricanes to the levees, particularly the canal levees. The city is drained by massive, 19th Century, cast iron pumps placed so low on the city side of the major levees that the pumps themselves can flood and become useless. Vast areas of the City to the North and East were allowed to develop with slab construction below sea level! All of this area, naturally, flooded. Whereas the homes in neighborhoods built in the early twentieth century or earlier are all on raised foundations and peers, and many of these survived with only minor damage. Of course the homes of the wealthy, built on the highest ground, on high foundations, did just fine. It does not take a rocket scientist to see that the disaster in New Orleans would have been completely averted by timely levee repairs. (One can not blame the federal government, because it was the City's responsibility to request whatever federal help was needed and to be articulate and persistent in doing so. But unfortunately, that was clearly beyond the local competence.) It is also fairly obvious that had the city adopted a reasonable building code requiring that all new homes be on peers rather than on slabs, many homes now lost would have been saved. Driving South on I59 into New Orleans, one passes mile after mile of flooded apartment houses, the water line clearly showing on the sides of the buildings just below the first floor windows. One also must be extremely critical of the way the City handled the evacuation. Were it not tragic, it would have been comical. All those school buses that could have been used. And AMTRAK! Couldn't the Mayor have requested additional cars be added and additional trains be routed into New Orleans? So far as I know, no one even thought of using the train. The outer Louisanna banks and Mississippi coast took the brunt of the Hurricanes force as Katrina veered to the East just before landfall. It is now very clear that it was not the absurdly slow response of FEMA, nor the rath of Mother Nature, that destroyed new Orleans, but a long history of incompetence, ignorance, and corruption. New Orleans, a city that received only a glancing blow, was devastated by its own devices. That same laziness and tolerance of corruption that beguiles the tourist at Mardi Gras turned lethal on that sultry August morning when hurricane Katrina came to town.
piezoe, I believe the Orleans Levee Board and Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans have made repeated pleas to the Corps to repair the levees before Katrina. In Jefferson Parish, the Corps did not repair the lake front levees that had sunk, but more than 2 feet in some places. The Jefferson Parish Govt. used large sand bags as temporary levee tops. Levees were in bad shape throughout the state but there was no money. Are you aware of the South East Louisiana Flood Control Program or the SELA? The project was planned at around 500 million dollars. Work had begun in earnest around 1996-97. However, federal funding, the main source of funding, dried down to a trickle before Katrina and was around $20 million for that financial year. How can you say the feds were not responsible?
I believe the Orleans Levee Board and Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans have made repeated pleas to the Corps to repair the levees before Katrina. Tradermaji, your point is well taken that there were requests. I have heard that, but i do not know how far the requests went and specifically to whom they were made and by whom. But, if need be, they certainly should have gone as far as the Governor, and Louisanna's congressmen and senators. Perhaps they did go that far, frankly i doubt it. The Corp can take years to respond to requests put through normal channels. When you have a situation such as that with the levees in New Orleans, and it was obviously a serious situation, it takes a persistent and articulate spokesperson to get action. I know New Orleans, and frankly i find those qualities lacking in most city officials. I think this is a case of pass the buck. Ultimately this whole situation goes back to attitude. The attitude in New Orleans is it's the Federal Government's responsibility (and ultimately it is, but local government has to drive the process forward, and you know those leevees were leaking for years.) I believe that had that same situation happened in Denver Colorado, those leevees would have been fixed pronto come hell or high water.
In fairness i want to add that Tradermaji has pointed out, correctly so far as i know, that the Corps and the Federal Goverment is culpable. The design of levees that leaked and eventually gave way was inadequate. That has been generally acknowledged. The Corps was reponsible for approving the design. In my opinion, and it is nothing other than that, the blame for the New Orleans disaster rests jointly with the City, the State of Louisanna, and with the Federal government. My opinion remains unchanged regarding the respective attitudes and level of competence and corruption in NewOrleans versus Denver (or virtually any other major city in the Midwest, West, or Southwest.) The writer of the article that may be found at the following URL correctly sums up the situation in New Orleans and the difference between attitudes in Denver and New Orleans. http://www.intellectualactivist.com/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=1026
Right On Dude!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm afraid you may be missing something though, these Ghouls and BloodSuckers don't give a shit about these victims, they are only interested in tagging Bush with their deaths. Considering the results would have been identifcal, do you think they would post picture of corpses under a Clinton or an Obama presidency? No, they'd be talking about "first responders", and such.
piezoe, If you contact Senator Landrieu or Vitter's office, or Representative Jindal's office, they can tell you what they were doing to get the federal monies for flood control work before Katrina. As far as I know, and I am very involved with flood control work, they were busting their behinds to get the federal monies for this work. However, they were not that successful. Read the postings made by other posters here. It appears that these posters are trying to blame others in order to shift the blame away from the Federal Govt. and bushboy. That is what is sad. chimp in chief did accept that it was his fault during his speech from Jackson Square, yet these party card holders are trying their best to provide excuses for that moron.