gquaglia says:

Here is an idea, live somewhere else. But no, instead millions of our tax dollars will go to prop up this city in which nature is trying to revert to its natural state. To add insult to injury, the fine citizens re-elected that moron Nagin, who showed his true incompetence during Katrina. Who while doing virtually nothing himself during the crisis, had plenty of blame for others.

Mike Voice says:

Reminds me of Sam Kinison’s rant about sending food aid to Africa.

“There’s no food here, there’s never been any food here! You live in a desert!”

“We have deserts in America, too… We just don’t live in them!”

But, we happily live & rebuild in flood plains, earthquake zones, tornado alley, and places which dread the annual roulette-wheel of “hurricane season”.

I guess we should all move to Kans… no, wait… Montana?

Tom says:

A lot of controversy erupted on my blog and the noted one in the post back in April when I quoted this ABC Science Show transcript on this very topic. In this case, the interviewed scientist never responded to me personally. The dissenters on the point also have scientists and pictures.

joshua says:

Not to be racially insensitive, but New Orleans will be rebuilt exactly as it was, on the same land because America is guilt ridden that those poor black poor folks got flooded.

To hell with science and common sense, those people want to live in the 9th ward and other lower lying areas(as opposed to *low lying* areas) and thats all that matters in our Oprahrified world.

So hundreds of Billions of dollars will be spent to make everyone happy, until the next big hurricane wipes half or more of the city out.

Everyone wants to pile on FEMA, but they weren’t the reason it all happened, and they sure as hell didn’t leave half the damn city of New Orleans sitting in it’s hospitals, and sports arenas to die or be killed, that was done by the present Mayor and the Govenor of the state.
This is what happens when states give up their authority to the Federal goverment. The state should have been prepared for this type of disaster, the city should have been prepared and the Feds should have just been there to fill in the gaps. But states are leaving disaster preparedness up to the Feds, so they can shirk their duty and save money.

joshua says:

podesta you don’t read well either. I didn’t blame the black residents for the problems, but I did and do blame them and others for stubbornly insisting on rebuilding in the same locations. I hope they all get the compensation they deserve, not just in New Orleans but all along the Gulf coast. But that is another issue seperate from the rebuilding issue.

It was the responsability of the local and state goverment to evacuate those people. They didn’t do it until it was to late and they had been warned 2 days in advance to do so. The Mayor was so incompentant he didn’t even know the Super Dome was full of people, so much for his being aware of his own city’s evacuation plans. Blanco refused to turn over authority of the National Guard because she was afraid to lose control, costing precious time and lives. FEMA had moved teams into place and even had some equipment ready, but couldn’t get info on where it was needed. This is not to say they had a handle on it, because obviously they didn’t, but it wasn’t as bad as early reports made it out to be. The commission even stated that they did do things that were needed to be done, but faulted them for not doing enough sooner.(among other things)

As for the corps admitting they screwed up, they are admitting errors 46 years ago. Don’t you suppose it was someones job to be checking the levee’s and dikes out during those 46 years? It wasn’t just the corps job to do that, it was also mandated that the state and city were to be doing it as well.

I don’t know why the commission basically gave Nagin and Blanco a pass, because they are as much responsable or more than anyone else for what happened in their state and city. For Nagin to tell those people that it’s ok to rebuild in the hardest hit areas is irresponsable and negligent and outright pandering.

We can’t let a major American city just disappear, but someone in La. and New Orleans needs to be a grown up and use some common sense. It’s no fluke that the areas outside of N.O. that were devestated are well on their way to being rebuilt but most of N.O. is still a wasteland, after 17 billion has already been spent. Yes, most of those people owned their homes, but hardly any of them carried any flood insurance. They lived in a flood district, it was required of them, our ranch in Arizona is in a 100 year flood plain in the middle of a desert and we are required to carry flood insurance, this one reason so many haven’t been reimbursed for their losses yet.

I’m not racist, I say the same thing to the white farmers who keep insisting on rebuilding their farms in the Misssissippi flood plain and we keep picking up the tab, and the rich white folks who insist on rebuilding along the Carolina shore line that are wiped out every 5 or 6 years by hurricanes that we pick up the tab for. Stupidity is color blind.

xully says:

“Your effort to shift the blame to the local government and the black residents is nothing more than bigotry and ignorance.”

Podesta, the Feds have been warning those idiots for 50 years that they were at risk. When the Big One hits California, you’ll probably blame the Feds for that too. Anyone who lives on the San Andreas fault is the same as anyone who lives below sea level on a coastal city, DUMB.

xully says:

ECA, since I mentioned the #1 USA newstory of today, the USA carrier Kittyhawk, and the USA state of Indianoplis – I thought most people would realize I was talking about the USA. The rest of your post isn’t worth responding too since you completely missed this initial fact. My source is the FBI crime statistics which you can look up yourself.

If you don’t see the relevance of 6% of a population commiting 5x-7x their numbers for various violent crimes, then you are as blind as you are dumb.

ECA says:

CIA factbook…
Christians 33.03% (of which Roman Catholics 17.33%, Protestants 5.8%, Orthodox 3.42%, Anglicans 1.23%), Muslims 20.12%, Hindus 13.34%, Buddhists 5.89%, Sikhs 0.39%, Jews 0.23%, other religions 12.61%, non-religious 12.03%, atheists 2.36% (2004 est.)

I dont think this is correct….

white 81.7%, black 12.9%, Asian 4.2%, Amerindian and Alaska native 1%, native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander 0.2% (2003 est.)
note: a separate listing for Hispanic is not included because the US Census Bureau considers Hispanic to mean a person of Latin American descent (including persons of Cuban, Mexican, or Puerto Rican origin) living in the US who may be of any race or ethnic group (white, black, Asian, etc.)

Ummm, 81.7% white??? Makes alot of mexicans in this country.. Last I heard it was about 40% black, 40% white and 20% other…

http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2075.html

Have fun with alot of mis-information.. 1/2 truths, 1/2 off..