One season - It could be us

[yippie]

No, the direct cause of the billions of dollars of damage cauased this year was the levees, and all evidence is showing they were defectively designed.

Just as people who live in glass houses ahouldn't throw stones, people who have or sell million dollar gulf front homes and spend lord knows how much of their time talking about their property values (will they go up? will they go down?) should not mock and belittle those who live in other coastal areas.

You are just irritated because W's approval rating is lower than Nixon's now.

Sick of this nonsense. Bu bye.

They were not defectively designed, they were defectively built. A direct refection of all the corruption in New Orleans. The contractor was paid to build to certain specs, but chose to cut corners and pocket the money.

 

[yippie]

Thank you, Travel2much, for pointing out something that was really blowing my mind...it could very well have happened to anyone on this board. If you've ever said to yourself, what is the chance of a category 4 storm taking a direct hit on Destin? Something like that only happens once every hundred years and isn't likely to happen in my lifetime...well, you sound a lot like I did a year ago. Luckily, the damage in this area would be pretty contained, since the population density is relatively low (Of course, I hope you guys are keeping a watch on the Walton County Commissioners, because the property rights people and developers seem to be ready to sacrifice your wetlands and natural protection, too). It probably wouldn't threaten the national economy for insurance companies to take their investments out of the market and actually pay all their claims. Maybe you still have enough faith in the government to think FEMA, the insurance commissioner in Florida, someone would step forward and save you from losing everything because you paid your taxes and insured your investments.

I was in New Orleans last week. It looks like Lebanon in the 1980's. I had been upset over the fact that I had not heard from FEMA, but since I had (a rather beautiful SoWal) roof over my head, I figured the decent thing was to wait my turn while really desperate people were helped. Unfortunately, some FEMA employee keyed in my mailing address as the collapsed home I was unable to live in (and therefore requesting help from FEMA) rather than the mailing address I had put on the application. So, as I looked at the pile of rubble in my neighbor's yard, I noticed some paper sticking out of the mailbox. What do you know -- my FEMA applications that required response by OCTOBER 28th!! Mail wasn't even running in the city then...a fact even Netflix was aware of! The final mailing indicated I had voluntarily withdrawn my application. So, three months into this, I have to start all over. And I only have the beautiful roof for 38 more days. I am not alone...everyone has a story like this. Insurance companies aren't paying claims. FEMA is a joke. Mortgage companies are foreclosing. Property taxes are due in less than a month and if they aren't paid the city has the right to seize property, yet people can't live there and need what little money they may have left to live in exile.

As for jobs, well...you are set if you want to do construction for $8.25 an hour. Or if you want to work as a housekeeper in a hotel or wait tables. And if you can find housing that you can afford on such wages, my hat is off to you. If you were a professional, well you are out of luck. I worked in the infamous euthanasia hospital, and I know of two doctors who have committed suicide because of their financial ruin and not being able to cope with the human misery.

As for those who want to blame our state and local governments, I'll agree there were some rather glaring lapses in leadership. Guess what? New Orleans and Louisiana have some of the most entrenched political corruption in the country. I wasn't on the take. No one I knew was (well, I did know some guys who bought a senator to help their business, but that was a heartbreaking experience for me and I vowed not to vote for that guy again). Isn't the whole point of the federal government to protect the citizens of New Orleans from that kind of corruption? Do they really just get a 'get out of jail free' card by blaming the corruption of Louisiana's political machine without doing anything to break that machine and help all the people in New Orleans? I ask this because, although I have no paperwork to prove it, I believe I remember paying taxes to the federal government. I think that's where most of my tax dollars went, actually. And I believe I did that based on some vague promise of a social contract government that served to protect life, liberty, and property. I, as well as every other citizen of New Orleans, bought into this promise. If it was all our fault for living below sea level on the coast, perhaps the government should have told us not to worry about those taxes because they weren't going to be around to help us if we ever needed them. It seems rather unfair to wait until after the storm hit, after they dredged a channel called MRGO to insure easy access to oil and gas from the gulf (it was up this channel the 15 foot storm surge travelled and topped the levees in the 9th ward and started the chain reaction of destruction), after they took the oil and gas revenues and gave more of the proceeds to New Mexico than Louisiana, to tell us all this.

When Bienville settled New Orleans, it wasn't below sea level. It fell below sea level after people were already there. People up and down the Mississippi River built levees to protect the nation's farmland from annual flooding. The country had to be fed, so despite the increased risk this caused New Orleans and gulf parishes, levees were allowed to go up from Minnesota to Mississippi. In 1927, a flood occured that was so devasting it's aftermath gave us the populist, corrupt state government that still paralyzes the city today. The first real levee system was built to prevent another such disaster. What people didn't realize at the time was that the annual gentle flooding of the Mississippi had produced the natural levees that created New Orleans and the wetlands in the first place. By preventing this natural flooding, the levees kept the river from replenishing the land, and the silty soil was compacting and eroding. Slowly, New Orleans ended up below sea level...the wetlands that kept New Orleans from being a coastal city were being washed away. The sediment that the Mississippi was dumping into the gulf had to be dredged away from the mouth of the river to allow 30% of the nations shipping and its oil and gas to come in and fuel the national economy. A wide mouth with many channels cost too much, so they just dredged two...and one of those just happened to funnel Katrina's storm surge right into the industrial canal and knocked out the levees that ring the city.

If people outside New Orleans don't hold the government accountable for what happens to us, if we are allowed to just rot on the vine, to lose everything we've spent our lives building without so much as an apology and a willingness to accept the responsibility for that decision, why will they do any more for SoWal? I mean, these are just the second homes of the rich...why should some working class guy in Wyoming pay taxes to underwrite loans to rebuild those? Because you are Americans, you've paid taxes and earned your wealth and your property and the government's resposibility is to protect that life, liberty, and property. According to thomas Jefferson that is the only reason for government to exist, and the Declaration of Independence asserts our rights to abolish any government that fails to protect those three fundamental rights of man.

On that note...from the Times-Picayune letters to the editor:

Dear France,

Greetings from Louisiana! We are shopping for new owners, and we immediately thought of you! Our present rulers haven't been taking very good care of us and we are looking for a better deal. They are spending all our money in a place called Iraq (somewhere in the Middle East). We thought that perhaps you might want to revisit an old land deal you made long ago.
If you've been reading the papers lately, you may have noticed that we have had a few problems with "water". No, we're not offering you a deal on a damaged water park. (Althouugh that's what it looks like from the air) Seriously, we need help, and fast.

Some things you might like here:

1. We named the state after your King Louis
2. We named the city after your city, Orleans
3. We have lots of French names on the streets
4. We still have Napoleonic law (maybe you can explain it to us!)
5. A lot of our citizens speak French (the accent will grow on you)
6. We like French food and wine

What we can offer you:
1. a toehold (rather wet!) on the continent
2. an incredible port
3. Lots of oil and gas
4. Lots of restaurants
5. Jazz
6. Mardi Gras (you won't believe what we do with this!)
7. Some of the most beautifu houses in the world (very, very wet)

What we need from you is simple:

1. Wetland redevelopment
2. New levees
3. Lots of new houses (but we want them to look old like the ones we lost)
4. We need schools and hospitals rebuilt
5. If you insist, we wouldn't mind some more outdoor cafes like you folks are famous for.

Please think this over carefully. Our current owners are so busy in other countries, they might not even notice if you come down here and take a look around. We'll put you up in grand style in a place we call "The French Quarter" (yeah, really!) and you can have lunch at a place we built for your very own Napoleon, which we call (you guessed it!)Napoleons". You'll be right at home.
Oh, just remember, we would like the levees and the wetlands taken care of ASAP, sometime just after lunch if not sooner.

Yours sincerely,
A homeowner in New Olreans
Joan Fox

And when will you be returning to New Orleans? Not soon enough.

 

[yippie]

Quite easy to say if you are not being foreclosed upon or evicted, liable for the deficiency, have lost your life savings and are living out in your car. (And, those are the lucky ones).

Maybe you should go dissect a fish or take a water sample or whatever it is you do and are presumably competent at. Like I said, from what you say you appear to have no clue about what is going on in New Orleans.

Also like I said, perhaps the Army Corps of Engineers could build levees that meet accepted engineering standards, like they were required to do according to the legislation that authorized the levees in the first place that induced much of the building you are deriding.

I will happily chortle the next time Walton County gets whacked. See ya then.

The Corps didn't build the Levees. Contractors hired by Louisiana built them.

 

[yippie]

I need some clarification please. What started this dialogue going to a place of bitterness and name calling? T2M...I hope you can remember the outpouring of support and prayer that was sent your way after Katrina. You and others have remained in my thoughts. I am confused as to what you expect me to do about NOLA. I do not need to list what we have done monetarily or otherwise because I am not trying to appease you. If you will be more specific, I might actually listen. Otherwise, your ranting and would be chortling will fall on deaf ears.

Nothing seems enough for the people of NO. They are just sticking their hands out more and more. No amount of help is going to satisfy them. I am convinced of that from what I have seen since Katrina.

Florida has had it's share of disasters, but unfortunately, NO got all of it in one big place. I have never seen people act so terrible. I don't recall people in Florida screaming at the government that they "deserve" to be taken care of. What I saw was people picking up their lives, helping each other and trying their best to keep going.

I have seen some of the people from Louisiana do absolutely nothing to help themselves, NOTE, the word some was used. I have seen some of the people take total advantage of the good will that was offered. Jezzz, I saw people going into places like Harvest House coming out with shopping carts over flowing with "stuff" and go down the street and try to sell the same goods. They had to stop putting out so much at a time so people would not "take it all".

We have an unemployment rate of under 2% here and employeers are begging for employees. As for the comment that you could work construction for 8.?? per hour, so be it. Most are paid more than that. You could also bus tables at a restaurant or flip hamburgers for $10.00 per hour.

Point is, what are you doing to help yourselves? Even 10.00 an hour is more than nothing. And I know FEMA, who is paying the rent right now, does not require that you remain unemployeed to accept their help.

I have always enjoyed NO and am very sorry about what the flood did. I hope the best for everyone who was affected by the flood, but my patience has begun to run very thin with the entire situation.

 

[ktmeadows]

Or, the freaking Army Corps of Engineers could build levees that meet generally accepted engineering standards to protect one of its cities instead of the negligently designed and built piles of cement they gave the city.

Virtually none of the damage was caused by the hurricane directly.

Excuse me for being blunt....but I am getting a little tired of folks who don't know squat about how government works blaming the Corps of Engineers for the failed New Orleans levee system. If you want to lay blame, Travel2Much, you can begin with pointing your finger at Congress. And then maybe back at yourself. Congress is where the Corps gets it's money, and it was Congress who decided not to fork over the $$$ it would have cost to make the upgrades needed to protect New Orleans from this recent disaster. Protecting the city from Category 4 and 5 hurricanes is extremely expensive...at a a minimum, many, many hundreds of millions of dollars ? and likely a lot more than that. But determining the level of protection needed versus what Congress and the public are willing to pay for is another story. For example, assume you are a builder and I decide I want a home similar to the Hilton House in SoWal's Alyss Beach. You say you need $25M to do the job; I tell you all I'm going to give you is $10M. Get the pic?

Now that the obvious has happened, many are pointing fingers and trying to lay blame. Obviously the folks that made the decision not to fork up the money needed to build the proper levees are probably now realizing that it's costing a heck of a lot more $$$ to clean up and rebuild than it would have had they just provided the funding needed years ago. But the Corps of Engineers could only do so much with the $$$ Congress forked over.

Travel2Much....I suggest you do your homework before you begin trying to discuss a topic that you obviously know very little about.

And that's all I'm going to say on that topic

 

[ktmeadows]

I lied. Ain't going quite yet.

Houses did not flood with "toxic waste". I have been in several flooded houses and it is not "toxic waste". Unpleasant, yes. Unhealthy, certainly. Moldy, absolutely. For the most part that is a problem Bush-loving, Limbaugh-fawning, FoxNews-watching Florida crackers like to throw around.

Okay...so I'm not finished. I have one more comment. Travel2Much, once again you obviously haven't done your homework. If you had, you'd know about the Murphy Oil Spill in St. Bernard Parish Approximately 1,800 residences and buildings were affected when a partially filled 250,000 barrel storage tank was lifted off its foundation by floodwaters during Hurricane Katrina, damaging the tank and spilling more than 1 million gallons of oil into the floodwater. If that's not toxic waste, I don't know what is.

http://murphyoilspillinfo.com/

 

[Smiling JOe]

Okay...so I'm not finished. I have one more comment. Travel2Much, once again you obviously haven't done your homework. If you had, you'd know about the Murphy Oil Spill in St. Bernard Parish Approximately 1,800 residences and buildings were affected when a partially filled 250,000 barrel storage tank was lifted off its foundation by floodwaters during Hurricane Katrina, damaging the tank and spilling more than 1 million gallons of oil into the floodwater. If that's not toxic waste, I don't know what is.

http://murphyoilspillinfo.com/

Raw sewage is also considered to be toxic waste.

 

[ktmeadows]

Raw sewage is also considered to be toxic waste.

Definitely. But it was so obvious that T2M didn't understand, which is why I brought up the oil spill.

 

[yippie]

Excuse me for being blunt....but I am getting a little tired of folks who don't know squat about how government works blaming the Corps of Engineers for the failed New Orleans levee system. If you want to lay blame, Travel2Much, you can begin with pointing your finger at Congress. And then maybe back at yourself. Congress is where the Corps gets it's money, and it was Congress who decided not to fork over the $$$ it would have cost to make the upgrades needed to protect New Orleans from this recent disaster. Protecting the city from Category 4 and 5 hurricanes is extremely expensive...at a a minimum, many, many hundreds of millions of dollars ? and likely a lot more than that. But determining the level of protection needed versus what Congress and the public are willing to pay for is another story. For example, assume you are a builder and I decide I want a home similar to the Hilton House in SoWal's Alyss Beach. You say you need $25M to do the job; I tell you all I'm going to give you is $10M. Get the pic?

Now that the obvious has happened, many are pointing fingers and trying to lay blame. Obviously the folks that made the decision not to fork up the money needed to build the proper levees are probably now realizing that it's costing a heck of a lot more $$$ to clean up and rebuild than it would have had they just provided the funding needed years ago. But the Corps of Engineers could only do so much with the $$$ Congress forked over.

Travel2Much....I suggest you do your homework before you begin trying to discuss a topic that you obviously know very little about.

And that's all I'm going to say on that topic

Luv the Beach - Congress refused to give any more money to the levee system because the money was not being used to improve the levee. It was being used to build such things as the Mardi Gras Fountain, a better Marina so more gambling boats could come in.

The real people to blame are the crooked politians from the State of Louisiana.

This gross misuse of funds is documented.

 

[yippie]

Luv the Beach - Congress refused to give any more money to the levee system because the money was not being used to improve the levee. It was being used to build such things as the Mardi Gras Fountain, a better Marina so more gambling boats could come in.

The real people to blame are the crooked politians from the State of Louisiana.

This gross misuse of funds is documented.

And, I'm not finished. THAT is who should pay for the rebuilding of New Orleans. The State of Louisiana, NOT the federal government.