[andie74]

Not exactly what I had heard reported. Still interesting.

[antaresequity]

Responding to this Nonsense claim only validates it...like that idiot media whore Cindy...

No Response...other than: "People are dying right now and that is our first concern. Save your politics for another day...perhaps next week if you can contain yourself that long. Next Question Please"

[GladesGuru]

It is soooo much fun watching politicians from Lousy-ana, whose greed and corruption finally bit 'em, and the LameStream chattering class idiot children, trying to second guess the engineers at the Army Corps of Engineeers.

When those who have never even lifted a shovel start criticising those who literally move mountains for a living I think "Bring out the popcorn, it's show time!"

The Liberals, and the rest of the "Communism Lite" crowd, will conveniently forget that they were all for "saving money" and thus only authorizing levees for catagory 3 hurricanes.

Real butter on that popcorn, please!

[Peach]

I hope you all get a chance to read this.

[359Henrie]

Yea, but Bush still sucks.

[Willie Green]

The decision to build levees for a Category 3 hurricane was made decades ago based on a cost-benefit analysis.

Well I guess now we've learned the hard way to do it right.
Rebuild it to withstand the worst case Category 5.
At least now that the adjacent property is probably already condemned,
there shouldn't be any difficulty acquiring it to both widen and heighten the levees.

[goldstategop]

Building for a Category 4 would have been overkill, huh? That's what disgusts me about cost-benefit analysis. Penny-pinching bureaucrats value the bottom line looking good over the cost in human lives. For me, the reverse is true. The value of a human life is absolute - and can never be quantified. You can't spend enough to save one person - let alone thousands.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[lawnguy]

There seem to be more and more Chicago Tribune links here that actually appear to be fair and balanced.

Am I right in that, or have these been anomalies?

[Uncle Donuts]

ping for later read

[airborne]

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.).

Funding for these projects has generally trended downward since at least the last years of the Clinton administration. Congressional records show that the levee work on Lake Pontchartrain received $23 million in 1998 and $16 million in 1999. It was not clear how much the drainage project received in 1998, but records show it received $75 million in 1999.

All that money, and what's to show for it?