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Thank you for your comments. My very large family down here has lost everything they own, one uncle retired in August and was proud that he'd just paid off his home in St. Bernard parish.

What insurance they have does not recover memories, sentimental items and photographs of the passage of time.

There will be a reckoning with politicians, local and state crooks and environmentalists about where the money designated to improve levees went for the last forty years. People will have to be held accountable for stopping improvements and for diverting (stealing funds) but this is not the moment for that.

This is a time to help families put their lives and homes back together.

My very large family down here has lost everything they own, one uncle retired in August and was proud that he'd just paid off his home in St. Bernard parish. What insurance they have does not recover memories, sentimental items and photographs of the passage of time. There will be a reckoning with politicians, local and state crooks and environmentalists about where the money designated to improve levees went for the last forty years. People will have to be held accountable for stopping improvements and for diverting (stealing funds) but this is not the moment for that. This is a time to help families put their lives and homes back together.

Thank you so much for your post and I am so sorry for you loss. Your post hits just the right tone, IMO. And it echos exactly what the president was proposing -- this is a time to put lives and homes back together. This was an equal opportunity storm, in spite of what the race baiter's would tell us. Though the poor, the elderly and the sick could not get out, they mostly survived (no thanks to local officials). But the middle class who could and did get out also lost everything in the city's flood. And we all have to work together to rebuild and ensure that a new New Orleans will be built better and be more prosperous than in the past.

Some few last words. I am very disappointed with many of my fellow FReepers who can not see that this is truly a national disaster which requires the cooperation of all levels of government and, yes, spending of more federal dollars in response. To engage in petty fighting among ourselves to the extent that it disintegrates to name calling that he or she is purer than others does not enhance this distinguished forum or provide visiters with confidence that we are any different than other mean-spirited discussion groups on the net. I'm sorry to see it reach this level.

There will be a reckoning with politicians, local and state crooks and environmentalists about where the money designated to improve levees went for the last forty years.

No there won't. There will be months and months of delays and obfuscations, political spin and politicians flapping their gums. Then, a couple years from now, a 3-inch-think report (Taxpayer cost to prepare: $400 Million) full of government gibberish will appear, to land with a thud on the desk of the NY Times late on a Friday night.

Nobody will notice, but that's no matter, because the report will be unintelligible and will affix blame to nobody, certainly no politicians.