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Posted on 12/15/2005 10:08:51 AM PST by Ben Mugged
President Bush will request billions more to help rebuild the levee system in New Orleans, Louisiana, Donald Powell, the top federal official for reconstruction, announced Thursday.
"The levee system will be better and safer than it's ever been before," Powell said at the White House.
When asked if the levees would be built to withstand a Category 5 storm, officials used broader language instead, promising that the city's citizens would be safe and the levees would be "stronger and better."
"The federal government is committed to building the best levee system known in the world," said Powell. "It's a complicated issue." (Watch Powell announce more money for New Orleans -- 2:54)
The announcement came after Bush met in the Oval Office with Powell, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the head of the Army Corps of Engineers.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
The state has already requested 250 billion is this 3 part of that?
No, I think you are correct to notice who wasn't there. And the timing is significant as well - just one day after Blanco's testimony on the Hill.
Well, not exactly... if you figure 1,000,000 people,
and $200,000 for each house, that comes to $200 billion....
A little more than $3 billion for the levees. Still lower than the great plan by their governor...
- plewis1250
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Are those three billion "big dig" demoRAT dollars, which would be roughly equivalent to thirty billion human dollars?
On Brit Hume's report last night they said that the amount that Landrieu and Blanco were asking for amounted to about a half-million for each resident of N.O.
I'd be vague too. We might design and build them to withstand a Cat 5, but with the same city bozos in charge of maintaining them, who knows what might happen?
What's a few billion between friends? I'm sure our great-great-great grand kids won't mind paying for it. I mean, gee whiz, it's only money! < / sarcasm >
We could have just all voted for Marxists in 2000 and 2004--we would not be worse off had we all done that, since the Republican'ts deal taxpayer $$$ out with ZERO accountability.
$21 BILLION to New York City after 9/11--ZERO accountability. The RATs are complaining today they still do not have a phone system for the police/fire--after $21 BILLION!!!
$2000 debit cards for New Orleans welfare groupies--even though they got everything free their whole lives and still did. The money was used to buy plasma TVs and jewelry. ZERO accountability.
$15 BILLION to Africa--ZERO accountability as to which warlord gets the loot.
You are right. Looking back, there was no sound reason to vote Republican in 2000 and 2004. We have RAT-like spending anyway.
Because it affects all of America, specifically, a city 60 miles to it's west, Baton Rouge, which has suffered major growing pains in the aftermath, and a city 120 miles to the east, Mobile, my hometown, which didn't share Baton Rouges fate because for about a month, you couldn't really cross through coastal Mississippi
If New Orleans goes down, that affects the whole region. Baton Rouge clearly does not have the infrastructure to handle the entire exodus (this of the more well-to-do refugees), and now that 10 is back of, if the final nix is put on the city, many of those people will end up here, and we had infrastructure problems before we had new arrivals, I estimate we have about 35-45k people in the area who came because of Katrina. Traffic on Airport used to be bad at certain times of the day, it is now bad all day, many roads that previously lacked congestion, such as Dauphin Island Parkway, have once again become congested.
And we havent even gotten to Mardi Gras. Baton Rouge does not have a reputation of having a Mardi Gras all that big, it shocks many people too. Cities such as Mobile and Lafayette do however, so the question is, considering that many colleges in the Southeast (as well as the rest of the country) have long managed to let students out around Mardi Gras for a few days, the question is, where will they go. If New Orleans is lucky, they will have as many people downtown on their Mardi Gras day as we have on ours, roughly 175,000-200,000.
This means people who want Mardi Gras are more likely to scope out alternatives, such as Mobile. Mobile doesn't nearly have enough hotel rooms as it is, and this would just complicate matters. More importantly, one thing I like about Mardi Gras day here, is that is a family affair, I don't have to worry about seeing some drunk woman exposing herself on Conception Street just to get some beads or a moonpie. We're not the only ones who'd be potentially negatively affected (granted, this would be offset by the fact that much of NOs banking industry would end up here)
Jackson is trying to pull itself out of a crapper induced by the fall of oil in the 80s and the overmigration of people from the Delta previously to that. It is well known that, Jackson, is one of a few cities in the South, along with New Orleans and Birmingham, where it's real easy to start up your gang enterprises if you want to. Many of the crooks in New Orleans have family in Jackson (not to mention Mobile) and if the city is not rebuilt, they'll be migrating this way. Granted, how many will return is a good question, but, another question is, how many still reside in metropolitan New Orleans. I just came back from New Orleans a few days ago, and traffic on 10 was as busy as ever, gets even worse when you try to cross Lake Ponchartrain to leave the city, as that damn bridge is now a one lane on either side affair, and the backup to get on it is even worse. It took me an hour to travel a mile going eastbound on the part of the Interstate near the Highway 11 exit for the Irish Bayou
New Orleans affects more than just Louisiana, cause it like it's neighbors and fellow victims in Mississippi and my state, were in areas somewhat isolated from the rest of their states, and in many ways, more culturally in-tune with each other than their states.
It would be a bad thing for the South to just let New Orleans die, and we shouldn't, especially when we have a golden oppurtunity. New Orleans has long been the South's symbol of urban decay since the days that Dutch took over the city. We now have a chance to rebuild it into something like a larger version of Mobile, and if we dare, maybe even a larger version of Charleston, there will certainly be enough historic buildings for that.
It would be a powerful sign to the rest of the world if we did rebuild it better because it would show the world that theres really nothing that will stop America from doing what it wants to do. It would enhance our prestige (and to be blunt, save our Mardi Gras from becoming a tourist trap)
Lets hope someone or a team is selected to keep this money under lock and key.
And not someone from LA.
I'll bet Nagin is choppin at the bits trying to figure out how to get his hands on this money.
great - spend $3 billion on these levees and then 20 years from now, theyll be destroyed by a cat 5 hurricane. heres an idea: BUILD THE CITY ABOVE SEA LEVEL.
ABout the residential in the flood zones, if you do that, then basically, you prevent the Irish Bayou from being rebuilt, and that would be a tragedy.
What New Orleans should do for floodzones is what Mobile is doing, and what Galveston did following the 1900 Hurricane (New Orleans actually did this in the Irish Bayou after Betsy), and this is require that in certain areas, all structures be built a certain level off the ground, either through stills or columns, and any old structures which can be rebuilt, should have to be raised onto platforms somehow (Galveston did do this successfully, as many of their stilted houses existed in 1900 and were not stilted)
A great deal will be lost to graft and corruption, which will make Saddamn's Oil-for-Food scandal look like a stick-up at the 7-11.
I heard this week that FEMA will partially fund rebuilding the Superdome (inital tab = $150 million, which means the final tab will be closer to $500 million). This rebuild will include extensive upgrade of the private luxury boxes, private entrances, new sound system, etc. Ain't Amerika grand?
Republicans. NOT Conservatives.
"On Brit Hume's report last night they said that the amount that Landrieu and Blanco were asking for amounted to about a half-million for each resident of N.O."
Landrieu is a piece of work.
Better watch her entire family if this money gets to NO.
I wouldn't trust Landrieu as far as I could throw her.
Seattle also did something similar and it helped as well...
Now what are Blanco and Nagin going to do with the other $247B they requested?
---Continue to bankroll their rich lifestyle just as they always have done.JMHO
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