The city was reconstructed without dime-one from the government. 6,000 died.
Posted on 03/03/2007 5:01:39 PM PST by driftdiver
NEW ORLEANS - Only $1 billion of the $77 billion the city is seeking from the Army Corps of Engineers is for infrastructure damages it says it suffered because of levee breaches during Hurricane Katrina. The rest is for such things as the city's tarnished image and tourist industry losses. ADVERTISEMENT
The city "looked at everything and just kind of piled it on," Mayor Ray Nagin said.
"We got some advice from some attorneys to be aggressive with the number, and we'll see what happens," he said.
New Orleans has joined big business and thousands of homeowners in filing claims seeking compensation from the corps for damages sustained when the levees broke during the 2005 storm, flooding 80 percent of the city.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
That did merit repeating. But threepeating? ;-)
"t will be an interesting legal case. The levies that broke, if my understanding is not flawed, were not actually built by the Corps. The money went to the local government and the levies were built below the specifications of the Corps with the difference being pocketed by Brother in Law Tommie or Uncle Fred."
Last time I looked, the Corps' own report (as well as that of three other independent engineering firms) accepted full culpability for the failure of the levees to perform up to their design specs. Words like "faulty design and construction" I believe. I don't see how it's possible to maintain something that is improperly designed and constructed in the first place short of what they were supposed to do.
Typical liberal entitlement mentality.
Let's see... do I want my tax dollars to go to our soldiers or New Orleans? Hm... this is a hard one.. NOT.. Nagin needs to suck it up and get on with life.
77 billion! Apparently the new plan is to construct the levees out of pure gold.
Fascinating. Thanks for info.
Does anybody remember the story about the teenager who "commandeered" one of those buses and loaded about 80 people from his neighborhood up in it. They took off to Texas and pooled their resources for fuel. They made it all the way to I think it was Houston. When he got there, they wanted to turn him back because he wasn't an assigned evacuee driver. He parked the bus, got off and said he wasn't leaving. This was just a kid, but it seems that he had a more level head on his shoulders than Nagin.
I was in Louisiana at the time of both Katrina and Rita. Rita did as much damage to the western part of the state as did Katrina to the eastern. Whole cities were blown away. I don't hear any complaining from that side of the state. You know why? Because these people are hard working "Cajuns" who aren't looking for handouts. They picked themselves up, dusted off and started rebuilding.
It would be cheaper to move the whole city.
Okay then where is the rest of the money LA and New Oreleans? Just like this state squandered its 9/11 money people should be held accountable for their misuse of Federal Funds but its not going to happen.
"Last time I looked, the Corps' own report (as well as that of three other independent engineering firms) accepted full culpability for the failure of the levees to perform up to their design specs. Words like "faulty design and construction" I believe. I don't see how it's possible to maintain something that is improperly designed and constructed in the first place short of what they were supposed to do."
Yes, that's right. Here's the press release at the time.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/20060406-040256-9185r/
"So, how much of this $77 billion is going into his pockets and the pockets of his cronies and other "interests"? "
Judging from how much of the levee money they siphoned off before the hurricane I would bet $76.99 billion would go for golf course improvements
If you want to the auction, you would have seen that it was, in fact, clearly identified as one of "those busses" you see in the picture and as non-operational.
They used the infamous picture, marking which one it was.
There were actually people who did want it. They got 23 bids in the second auction, I think more in the first one before it was pulled.
Now that I search my memory, I seem to remember the busses were worth more as salvage, so they were eventually sold in bulk.
Unfortunately for them, a schoolbus is a rather awkward collectable ... it's just too big!
D
77 Billion. That'll by a lot of chocolate.
Oooh....maybe they were collectors' items as it were.
http://www.railroadforums.com/photos/showphoto.php/photo/14367/ppuser/1480
In Arden, PA is one of the original "Streetcar Named Desire." (not far from where I grew up). My father was under the impression it was the only one. When I moved to New Orleans, I found out it wasn't. (There was no streetcar on Desire Street, but rather a bus, but there was a streetcar in a museum or something.) It looks like California has a couple of them as well:
http://www.streetcar.org/mim/spotlight/world/heartbreak/index.html
The city was reconstructed without dime-one from the government. 6,000 died.
Well, I was wrong. The government DID spring for a new seawall...that's held ever since. ;)
http://www.1900storm.com/rebuilding/index.lasso
"Sunday morning, the day after the disaster, began with the sound of bells from the ruined Ursuline Convent calling people to worship," wrote historian David G. McComb in "Galveston: A History."
It was a fitting beginning.
Despite the unimaginable devastation and what must have been a hard realization that it could happen again, the city immediately began pulling itself out of the mud.
By 10 a.m. Sept. 9, Mayor Walter C. Jones had called emergency city council meetings and by the end of the day had appointed a Central Relief Committee.
Ignoring advice from its sister paper, The Dallas Morning News, that it move temporarily to Houston, The Galveston Daily News continued publishing from the island and never missed an issue. Sept. 9 and 10, 1900, were published together on a single sheet of paper. One side listed the dead. The other reported the devastation of the storm.
In the first week after the storm, according to McComb's book, telegraph and water service were restored. Lines for a new telephone system were being laid by the second.
"In the third week, Houston relief groups went home, the saloons reopened, the electric trolleys began operating and freight began moving through the harbor," McComb wrote.
Residents of Galveston quickly decided that they would rebuild, that the city would survive, and almost as soon, leaders began deciding how it would do so.
The two civil engineering projects leaders decided to pursue - building a seawall and raising the island's elevation - stand today and are almost as great in their scope and effect as the storm itself.
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