NOLA and Katrina

[sailaway21]

Anniversary of Katrina today and I'm listening to NPR (I know!) and Doug Brinkley, the historian, is spouting some claptrap about how the feds (you and me) need to spend even more money on NOLA because of it's cultural significance, ie...it's the jazz and gumbo capital of America. I kinda choked on my crawdad over that one. Anyways, here's Larry Kudlow's take on the situation:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art..._dollar_b.html

And, if you think Brinkley is funny or just want to hear the type of thing that drives Kudlow up the tree, here's the latest from Fidel Fan Club, oops, the "Nation". This one's for you, Fluffy!
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070910/sothern

[tdw]

Actually Sway old buddy old pal I did enjoy reading Robert Novak's assessment of the dolt Gonzales.

"I met Gonzales for the first time in 2001 when, along with other conservative journalists, I went to the White House for a background briefing on the new president's judicial nominations by presidential counsel Gonzales. I was stunned by the incoherence of the briefer. After checking with several Republican senators, I received the same verdict. Their judgment was that Gonzales was not qualified for a senior government position.
Gonzales's handling of the crisis over the firing of U.S. attorneys set new standards for incompetence. In the midst of the furor, he agreed to address the National Press Club May 15 (insisting on breakfast instead of the usual lunch). It by chance was the 44th anniversary of this column, and I never before had seen anything like it."

Wow. I'd hate to see what he would have said if Gonzales had been a Dem.

[PBzeer]

Actually Fluffy, though I find Novak to be a bit of a pompous ass, he usually doesn't pull punches on the basis of party affiliation.

[ebs001]

Sail Away. The first article gave a breakdown of the expenditures which totalled $49.8 billion and then says "the billion dollar question; where did the rest of the money go?" According to my calculations that's a $77.2 billion dollar question. That's more than the GDP of half the countries in the world.
It always amazes me how quickly US Americans (Can Americans too) get to blaming the left or the right instead of focussing on the issue at hand. Where's the friggin' money? We're not talking chump change here. Whatever I am I'd be choking on my crawdad.

[NOLAsailing]

Anniversary of Katrina today and I'm listening to NPR (I know!) and Doug Brinkley, the historian, is spouting some claptrap about how the feds (you and me) need to spend even more money on NOLA because of it's cultural significance, ie...it's the jazz and gumbo capital of America.

Keep choking.

[sailingdog]

Don't forget that many of the supplies that were sent to NOLA for the katrina recovery efforts ended up being wasted. Also, the trailers that FEMA sent down had dangerous levels of Formaldehyde in them.

[hellosailor]

Seattle and Chicago both solved similar flooding problems (Chicago was swampland, Seattle was on a tidal plain) in the 1800's all by themselves, raising the "downtown" street levels over eight feet all by themselves. In Chicago, landowners co-ooperated and jacked up the buildings, In Seattle, they didn't. So the town fathers walled in the streets and raised the street levels anyway--creating what is now 'Underground Seattle'.

Personally, I think any attempt to aid NOLA without first raising the ground level twenty feet, is pissing in the wind and should not be funded. Raising the ground level has been done before. It works. It is economically viable and cheaper in the long run than any other solution. Anything else is just screwing around--something both parties and all governments have been real good at doing with NOLA.

[NOLAsailing]

The original city - the French Quarter, Garden District, and much of Uptown -is considerably higher and did not flood.

Also, much of the flooding was caused by - or, inarguably, made worse by - human causes: poorly constructed levees, the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, and the oil industry's brutalization of LA's coastal wetlands. The erosion of our natural barriers and the poor construction of the levees made this far worse than it otherwise would have been. Note that what happened in New Orleans was not a result of a very strong storm - we did not see worst of Katrina, the Mississippi coast and SE Louisiana did - but the result of levee failure.

I know the region's image has taken a huge hit by the scale of the corruption (it's always been here, now that it's being rooted out more effectively it's getting lots of coverage) and by the images of the worst of NOLA's citizenry during and after storm - looting WalMarts and wailing at FEMA.

I DO think that the local communities need to do far more. I also think that all levels of government need to spend the dollars to fix the city - and do so efficiently .

That involves having a reasonable, limited plan for recovery, the appointment of a federal "recovery czar", and a clear division of local responsibility and federal contribution.

What happened after the storm was a total collapse of governmental responsibly, as is the grossly lagging recovery progress. To suggest that the solution is to stop investing in the area, as the original poster did, pisses me off. The solution is to fix the problem.

When the problem is that when the destruction of a major American city and the surrounding region is followed by five days of inaction while people die by the hundreds, it is NOT JUST A LOCAL PROBLEM. And if you think that gumbo and crawfish is the extent of the regions national contribution, then you're an idiot.

[danjarch]

Not to pick a fight, but there was plenty of action. We went through three major hurricanes here in central Florida. It wasn't fema out on the streets directing traffic the next day. It was the local police. We also had roving bands of vigilante chainsaw gangs clearing the streets of debris, not looting the stores. There are plenty of good people in NOLA but the crime rate and poverty rate was already out of sight before Katrina. There has been little real effort on the part of New Orleans over the past couple of decades to fix it's problems. Now I'm supposed to come in and bail them out. Forget it. There isn't going to be any real effort to fix New Orleans. They're overwhelmingly Democrat and poor. That means the Republicans aren't going to waste their time playing down there. Neither are the Democrats, they already got the vote. They just well Katrina every once and awhile to keep you guys going. As far as Business is concerned, whats the point of dumping massive amount of capital into a city with poor work ethics, low education and high crime. Its a recipe for bankruptcy. Do you really see some one putting a factory or biomedical research facility center there. My opinion is to build up the industrial areas that are current profitable and bulldoze the rest of the city. Then if some one wants to spend their money there so be it, but quit taken mine.

[NOLAsailing]

As to the response after Katrina -

There was ZERO support. Do you remember to people stranded at the Convention Center? They made it there under their own power and were left while buses idled outside the city for lack of drivers. They tried walking out - in Sept. heat, across the Crescent City Connection Bridge, and were turned away by police who fired over there heads.

While the CG was fantastic, much of the rescue effort was citizens helping citizens. Good for you and your chainsaws - I've done that - but this was another animal entirely.