Posted on 08/30/2005 12:46:00 PM PDT by Wolfstar
...why don't they rebuild using Venice as an example...
"No one is criticizing them nor did anyone make those kinds of remarks when the Dutch suffered catastrophic flooding from the North sea in the 1950s."
Yes, but in this case NO has been sitting on a ticking time bomb for decades, knowing it full well, and they haven't been willing to do anything significant about it. They have wanted the federal gov't to come in and fix the situation instead of doing it for themselves.
The leftist leader, a frequent critic of the United States and a target himself of US disapproval, said Venezuela could send aid workers with drinking water, food and fuel to US communities hit by the hurricane.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050829/wl_afp/usweathervenezuelaoil_050829235602
I guess I missed the smell when I was there, both times.
Actually Venezuela has offered aid.
The leftist leader, a frequent critic of the United States and a target himself of US disapproval, said Venezuela could send aid workers with drinking water, food and fuel to US communities hit by the hurricane.
Would you drink Venz water? I think Anheuser-Busch will help solve that problem soon.
If you take your thought to the next step of critical thinking, Venice does not have to deal with 1 million+ people having to evacuate periodically before hurricanes. Imagine trying to evacuate a million people with their most precious possesions, pets, etc., on tiny little boats.
If you take the critical thinking a bit further, there are other obvious reasons that will come to you...
I posted this on the Hurricane thread.....
Here's where it needs to be posted.
My post for the day is the revelation that dawned after looking at the map.
The hurricane narrowly missed NO. The miss is judged a miss only by defining a hit as being passed over by the eye structure. Katrina traveled north dumping rain as it went.
The rain fell, ran off to streams, to rivers, to the Mississippi river that runs right through the middle of NOLA.
Most the water that fell ended up in the Mississippi River basin and is destined for NOLA. It passed by as clouds but will return as runoff.
It's going to be a long time before it is dry enough down in that city for anything near normal life.
Nice.
Maybe it was a bad idea to build an orgiastic party city below sea level, eh?
Who ya gonna call?
....probably caused by gas lines that had not been shut off....
Or possibly set to recover on fire insurance. There might have been no flood insurance but there probably was fire insurance.
I understand why NO is there and I have no problem with them rebuilding but I want to know why they didn't maintain the levees better. I heard that they had sunk by many feet. Why aren't they constantly kept up?
It wasn't below sea level when they built it.
(NO CARS THERE)
and I really wasn't thinking of the whole city...just the historic parts...with the major parts of the city built on HIGH GROUND, all buildings skanked with concrete pylons and steel placed into bedrock...beyond the silt base.
"Why aren't they constantly kept up?"
My understanding (I have some friends who used to live in the area) is that the situation was more complex than just the levees. They have needed for many decades to do some major work down there and the state lawmakers kept saying that they didn't have the money, the federal gov't should do it. The feds offered to match funds but the LA lawmakers wouldn't get serious about putting up money for it, they wanted it done for free (i.e., the feds do it).
Bless your friend and I hope she and her family are safe. My brother is in the city too, and he was okay yesterday (he called my mom once the storm had passed), but his car was rapidly disappearing and there was a couple of inches of water on the first floor of his home. I haven't heard anything since, but these pictures scare the living daylights out of me.
Thank you so much for this thread- we all need to see these photos.
Someone would have to pick up the bill for that. Even though doomsdayers have been warning for years that New Orleans could get wiped out the human mind tends to lapse into denial. If it hasn't happened yet, people tend to think they'll miss it in their lifetimes. They judged wrong on this one. Living on low ground always carries that flood risk, although the big storms only come every so many years or so.
The US has a lot of overdeveloped coastal areas taking that risk.
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