New Orleans myths: The numbers tell a different story

The American Thinker ^ | September 6th, 2005 | Richard Baehr

[tumblindice]

Good post. On a directly related note, an October 2004 National Geographic article.

http://205.188.130.53/ngm/0410/feature5/

"The chances of such a storm hitting New Orleans in any given year are slight, . . ."

[Rightly Biased]

for later

[jbwbubba]

We keep hearing about the Levees were blt for a Cat 3 and not a Cat 4 or 5 when Katrina hit. However, as is noted here katrina didn't hit N.O. directly and the number of "dodging the bullet" claims. Yet the levee didn't break during the storm, it broke after the storm had passed over. I heard one report that someone saw a large ship or barge that was lose and hit a levee and caused the breach, makes sense to me.

[brothers4thID]

Good article, thanks

[Red6]

Later read.

Red6

[r-q-tek86]

marking

[Rocko]

Bump.

[Archytekt]

Excellent, thanks!

[msnimje]

The Administration needs some talking points and I think they should be:
"This was not a sudden catastrophe and those people should not have been in the way of this storm."

[Peach]

A little elementary math will address this canard. According to the 2000 census, New Orleans' population of 484,000 included approximately 136,000 whites, and 326,000 blacks. The white figure includes 7,000 Hispanics who classify themselves as white on the census forms. If 80% of New Orleans residents got out early – and this is the Mayor's number – then only about 97,000 residents remained. Assume all of them were black, (which of course they were not). That would mean that 229,000 blacks got out early, and 136,000 whites along with them. In other words, the successful mass evacuation substantially benefited black residents of the city.

A year ago I never heard of the American Thinker. They've become prolific in their writing and I've been enjoying reading their stuff.

[adorno]

It's so extremely shameful and despicable that the democrats are smelling Bush and republican blood from the outcome of this disaster and considering hurricane Katrina as a victory for their side. Like always, they hope for disasters and war losses to try to make political gains. Meanwhile, they hope nobody notices that the biggest mistakes were made at the local levels of governments which were led by democrats.

'Shameful' and 'despicable' should always be the terms that should be used in the disctionary to describe democrats.

[Vic3O3]

ping!

[untrained skeptic]

I keep hearing people say that the federal government's response had it's faults... Can someone point them out to me?

It really doesn't seem to me like they dropped the ball. I don't think the the levee failing after the fact could have been forseen, so it's not surprising that it cought everyone off guard.

However, I'm not sure what the federal government could have done better. It takes a lot of time to move supplies and equipment into place, and they we probably vastly underestimating the need because they expected that New Orleans would stock it's evacuation centers at least somewhat.

You would have also thought that the city of New Orleans would consider the fact that they eventually had to move the people out of the Superdome and would have moved the school buses that were a little over a mile away to the superdome and out of the area that they knew would flood if the levee broke.

If the federal government made a mistake, it was their assumption of at least minimal competence of the local government who has been repeatedly warned of this threat and has been supposed to have been planning for this for decades.

[Feiny]

I knew an intelligent break down would be forthcoming.

[Lekker 1]

...which should NEVER happen in this country when we have the resources LIKE SCHOOL BUSES AND CITY BUSES

Don't forget satellites, radar, and extremely accurate predictive modelling. Imagine back in the day before all of that. How many days advance notice did the Governer have to at least get the busses ready?

[KarlInOhio]

You would have also thought that the city of New Orleans would consider the fact that they eventually had to move the people out of the Superdome and would have moved the school buses that were a little over a mile away to the superdome and out of the area that they knew would flood if the levee broke.

Does anyone have something like an hour by hour map of the flooding? It took a couple of days between when the levee/canal walls started to break and when the water in NO was at the same level as the lake. During that time you could see the water rising. How many hours did it take before the buses were in too deep to use?

[pfony1]

ping

[DallasMike]

Fellow Freepers:

At the suggestion of writer Michelle Malkin last Friday, I have cobbled together a blogsite called Texas Clearinghouse for Katrina Aid to serve as a clearinghouse for refugee efforts in Texas.

Texas is getting more refugees than any other state -- that's fine, we'll take them all -- but we need help providing them with food, clothing, and shelter.

If you are a refugee, you can information that will help you find relief. If you want to donate or volunteer, you can find someone who needs you.

Right now the site mostly covers Houston and Dallas but I will add various churches, schools, and other charities in San Antonio and Ft. Worth tonight. My wife is down at Reunion Arena in Dallas as we speak handing out care packages and otherwise ministering to the refugees as a representative of her employer.

There are a lot of churches and other organizations in Texas that need help in dealing with the problem and I would be most appreciative if you would get the word out.

Many thanks,

Michael McCullough

Stingray blogsite

[jwalsh07]

Reality #8:

The MSM has focused all of its energy on the blue state of Louisiana while ignoring the Red States of Alabama and Mississippi. In their warped book this is prima facia evidence of bigotry. Race baiting and bigotry baiting is an easy game to play.