Bush is an Asshole ! (Peace to New Orleans)

Originally posted by mjps21983
Once again Rikku the government can only do so much for you. It not like they had all this time to prepare either and the levies held, not for long but they held and then when shit hits the fan you still have planning, to go through and coordinating things of such this magnitude don\'t just replicate in an hour it takes time to get things like this done thats why we weren\'t there the next day.

The government is supposed to protect us, that\'s their job.  

Here are the facts, in case you passed over them before:
-New Orleans, located in the Gulf of Mexico, is below sea level
-Category 4 and 5 hurricanes have been known to go through the Gulf and on to land
-Levees, that protect New Orleans from flooding, able to withstand up to a category 3 hurricane.
-The levee was in need of repair anyway

Impending disaster.  That\'s all there is to it.  

This was a problem long overdue, and they weren\'t the least bit prepared on any front.  That\'s fucked up.

EDIT: Are you even willing to accept the probability that we were completely unprepared and that the responses have been underwhelming?

[videoholic]

Originally posted by GmanJoe
Wait wait wait. Katrina was a Category 1 Hurricane when it hit Florida. No one was sure where it was going.

Also, where would you stay once you got to high ground? There\'s no guarantee someone will take you in. Especially if you\'re black and in Mississipi.

It sat out in the gulf for a couple days and it was at least two days that it was very obvious it was going to build to a 4 or possibly even a 5.

2nd point is valid.

Who is we? The government or the people? Because obviously thats all you want to blame is the government its been thirty years and your telling me the people of New Orleans gave a rats ass about the levies until, they thought hmm dem der hurricane\'s coming our way, wish we would have made more of a deal about dem der levies!

Originally posted by mjps21983
Who is we? The government or the people? Because obviously thats all you want to blame is the government its been thirty years and your telling me the people of New Orleans gave a rats ass about the levies until, they thought hmm dem der hurricane\'s coming our way, wish we would have made more of a deal about dem der levies!

For what its worth:

The Bush Administration ignored warnings last year that New Orleans\' east bank hurricane levees were left vulnerable as the administration diverted money from an Army Corps of Engineers project to the Iraq War.

When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA. Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained.

But, according to an article in the Philadelphia Daily News: "(A)fter 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the (New Orleans) Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars."

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, La., told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president\'s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that\'s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can\'t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps\' project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for.

From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune: "The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don\'t get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can\'t stay ahead of the settlement," Naomi said. "The problem that we have isn\'t that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can\'t raise them."

The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there.

As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22: "That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount. But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said."

The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it\'s too late. One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer: a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on Monday.

Originally posted by mjps21983
Who is we? The government or the people? Because obviously thats all you want to blame is the government its been thirty years and your telling me the people of New Orleans gave a rats ass about the levies until, they thought hmm dem der hurricane\'s coming our way, wish we would have made more of a deal about dem der levies!

Actually, from what I\'ve been told, the people of New Orleans have wanted the levees repaired for years.  The state and federal governments never granted the the funds to do it.  I would think, like road maintanence, something like a levee is the state/federal government\'s job.

You know, you could actually learn something by seeking out some truth on the matter.  I\'m going to do some research now and hopefully find some more facts about the situation.  I\'ll be back and let you know what I find, if anything.

EDIT: Thanks, Black Samurai.  Any thoughts mjps?

Ok if they made such a big deal about it all these years then why wasn\'t it done?

Everyone thinks the levies are the key to preventing a mess like this.  The area is below sea level and right on the coast.  Even if you fixed the levies in time for the Hurricane there would still be:

1) Rain with absolutely no where to go, and there was tons of it with Katrina
2) Rivers that overflowed
3) With people evacuating there would definitely still be looting, raping, car jackings, etc...

Look at Florida where ALL homes are required to be made of concrete.  How do you expect cheap, thin, delicate dry wall to hold up to 145mph winds and flood waters?  Not only that, Ins. companies won\'t cover flooding because it encourages people to keep rebuilding on unstable land.

Bottom line is the city was never fit to be in a Hurricane, with or without levies.  If you want to blame someone blame the French for building up below sea level. =0

god damned french

i knew it
:rpissed:

Originally posted by mm
god damned french

i knew it
:rpissed:

lol

Funny crap I\'m glad THX found some info to back me up, cuz I\'m too lazy.

[GmanJoe]

Well, to be fair, New Orleans was above sea level back around the Colonial times. It\'s just that when the leveed the river, the soil in New Orleans began to slowy sink.

Originally posted by THX
Everyone thinks the levies are the key to preventing a mess like this.  The area is below sea level and right on the coast.  Even if you fixed the levies in time for the Hurricane there would still be:

1) Rain with absolutely no where to go, and there was tons of it with Katrina
2) Rivers that overflowed
3) With people evacuating there would definitely still be looting, raping, car jackings, etc...

Look at Florida where ALL homes are required to be made of concrete.  How do you expect cheap, thin, delicate dry wall to hold up to 145mph winds and flood waters?  Not only that, Ins. companies won\'t cover flooding because it encourages people to keep rebuilding on unstable land.

Bottom line is the city was never fit to be in a Hurricane, with or without levies.  If you want to blame someone blame the French for building up below sea level. =0

The French may have settled there, but you can\'t argue they made us stay there or settle further into the valley...

Much of the city is located below sea level between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, so the city is surrounded by levees. Until the early 20th century, construction was largely limited to the slightly higher ground along old natural river levees and bayous, since much of the rest of the land was swampy and subject to frequent flooding. This gave the 19th century city the shape of a crescent along a bend of the Mississippi, the origin of the nickname The Crescent City. In the 1910s engineer and inventor A. Baldwin Wood enacted his ambitious plan to drain the city, including large pumps of his own design which are still used. All rain water must be pumped up to the canals which drain into Lake Pontchartrain. Wood\'s pumps and drainage allowed the city to expand greatly in area. However, pumping of groundwater from underneath the city has resulted in subsidence. The subsidence greatly increased the flood risk, should the levees be breached or precipitation be in excess of pumping capacity (as was the case in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina). There were many warnings in the late 20th century that a major hurricane or a Mississippi flood could create a lake in the central city as much as 9 m (30 ft) deep, which could take months to pump dry.

>>>Link<<<

You\'re bottom line is rendered irrelevant because there are people there, and lots of them.  It\'s true that New Orleans would have suffered flooding anyway due to the heavy rains, they have before, but it didn\'t have to be to this extent.  Two levees, which needed repair and needed to be raised, broke and let water rush into an already flooded area.  It made a bad situation worse.

Originally posted by mjps21983
Ok if they made such a big deal about it all these years then why wasn\'t it done?

Priorities.  The levees obivously weren\'t at the top of the to-do-list.  That I blame on the people for letting the government get away without necessary repairs.  See, there\'s plenty of blame to pass around.

Originally posted by Rikku
Priorities.  The levees obivously weren\'t at the top of the to-do-list.  That I blame on the people for letting the government get away without necessary repairs.  See, there\'s plenty of blame to pass around.

And what government would that be Rikku?  State and local governments are the ones who arrange those projects.  People need to understand that the Federal Government is not in charge of local projects - those are controlled by local and state governments.  

It is well known that the City of New Orleans is as corrupt as it gets and putting anything under their supervision is a complete waste.  The city of New Orleans gets an annual fiscal budget and their city planners decide how it is going to be spent.  The priority is then rearranged to suit every politician in the city.  This happens everywhere - but it is worse in NO.  

BS - where is the link for that slanted story you posted?  All federal projects were scaled back in every major city.  If NO was so concerned about those levee\'s they should have reallocated the funds or added a 1 cent sales tax for example to complete the "repairs".

you mean teh george bush doesn\'t dictate what new orleans does with thier budget?