I tell you one thing, it should have come to this. Where is the Shock and Awe, I blame the government first and foremost. When the Corps of Engineers first constructed the levees, they only constructed them to resist a category 3 storm. Why? Cause it was the most cost effective at the time. Apparently, that assessment proved wrong, not that its going to cost billions to fix this problem. To add insult to injury, the
funding to fix the levees to withstand a category 5 storm kept being reduced.
quote: "Al Naomi, senior project manager in the corps' New Orleans District, said it would cost as much as $2.5 billion to build such a system, which would likely include a massive system of gates to block the Gulf of Mexico from Lake Pontchartrain and additional levees. If the project were fully funded and started immediately, Naomi said it could be completed in three to five years. A project to build up the levees to withstand a Category 3 hurricane was launched in
1965 following Hurricane Betsy and was supposed to be completed in 10 years, but it remains incomplete
because of a lack of funding.In recent years,
funding has dropped precipitously, which some officials attributed in part to the escalating costs of the Iraq war. Funding for a drainage project in New Orleans went from $69 million in 2001 to $36.5 million in the current fiscal year, while funding for such hurricane-protection projects as levees around Lake Pontchartrain declined from $10 million in 2001 to $5.7 million this year, according to figures provided by the office of Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La."
Truly
Unbelievable.
Plus..
"Maestri [the local EM director] is still awaiting word from FEMA officials as to why Louisiana, despite being called the "floodplain of the nation" in a 2002 FEMA report, received no disaster mitigation grant money from FEMA in 2003 ("Homeland Insecurity," Sept. 28). Maestri says the rejection left emergency officials around the state "flabbergasted." That plain sucks and is inexcusible. These are peoples lives at stake. Not only in New Orleans, but throughout the whole Mississippi River areas that have thousand of miles of levees.
Getting back to NOLA, the governments response to this situation is pitiful. No one can tell me that knowing how the city of New Orleans is lower than sea level, and that the levees were made to hold back only a cat 3 storm and seeing that this storm is a cat 4 or more and heading towards the city, that they could not see that it was a disaster about to happen. Therefore they should have gotten their act together and get things in place so that the minute the storm passes, you get in there and aid the people. I see folks on here complaining that people are rioting. I would too after days of no clean water nor food. It wouldn't have come to this if the government was prepared. This is a disaster unlike any before. A whole city is destroyed. Millions are affected directly and millions more indirectly cause of the food and gas prices (that came through the ports of NOLA) and will be in short supply in the weeks and months to come. I can't help but to think its also a racial thing. Being that there are more african americans in the city dying and in desperate help and nothing is being done for these poor folks. Yes the media is concentrating on the rioters and looter, but there are plenty of good tax paying hard working citizens that are lossing any hope.
Its a shame and could have been avoided.
I can only think what would happen if any city were to be hit with a major terrorist attack with a dirty bomb or a nucleur accident. We are not prepared as shown what is happening to NOLA.
TS out