“So what you’re saying is we should continue to feel sorry for the people of New Orleans.”
Nonsense. I simply related my personal experience as a citizen living in the aftermath of a devastating storm. I was trying to explain that not every New Orleanian waited for a rescue before or after said storm.
“The same people that chose to live on the coast, in homes built on land UNDER sea level.”
New Orleans has been here since 1718. Most who live here didn’t make a choice, we were born here and have deep roots. This kind of catastrophe, the flooding of the entire city, is a first for us. I can only hope that it doesn’t become a almost yearly occurrence, like the floods in some other parts of the country or the fires in California
“The same people that, in many cases, chose NOT to have flood insurance.”
Sadly, this is true, but on the other hand as flood insurance policies go, Louisiana at 482,802 has the third highest number of flood policies in force in the US, greatly exceeding the other gulf coast states of Alabama-55,362, Georgia-91,432 and Mississippi-75,297. Your state of Florida is #1 in that category with 2,159,500 and Texas is #2 with 682,502 , but you both have populations of about 14,000,000-20,000,000 more people than we do. Florida does seem to get many more tropical events than we do. I grew up in Miami, went to college there, worked there(Mercy Hospital) and was married there (Spanish Monastery), and though I have been married and living in New Orleans well over thirty years, most of my experience with hurricanes prior to Katrina comes from my time in Florida.
“The same people that elected incompetent city and state leaders. Not once but repeatedly.”
What exactly does this have to do with a hurricane knocking out a poorly designed levee system? See below.
“The same people that for decades have allowed corrupt politicians to funnel our tax dollars away from projects to build stronger protections.”
Not this time-
NEW ORLEANS, June 1, 2006
Katrina Report Blames Levees
Army Corps Of Engineers: ‘We’ve Had A Catastrophic Failure’
By Jennifer Hoar
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/01/national/main1675244.shtml
“The same people that allowed life saving transportation to sit idle while desperate people had no way out.”
City government’s lapses not withstanding, 80% of the population managed to get themselves out of the city before the storm. That was about 400,000 people, not too shabby as evacuations go. While there were some who could not leave, others chose to stay because there had been so many times in the past when New Orleans had beat the odds with near misses of hurricanes. Unfortunately some people here prior to Katrina, had no real experience with a dangerous hurricane. They were naive.
“I’ve been through 4 hurricanes in a period of less than 5 months. My life choices allowed me to weather the storm.”
Kudos to you on your unimpeachable wisdom
“The people of New Orleans have made their bed and they can lie in it.”
There is absolutely no satisfactory response that I can give to such a gracious statement. Enjoy your life in the tropical paradise that is Florida.
If you choose to live someplace knowing the risks then don’t cry when those risks come true. Likewise don’t expect others to pay for the risk you have chosen.
BTW, you failed to address the corruption. Federal tax dollars paid for those levees several times over.