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All four hurricanes that hit Florida in 2004....Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne destroyed about 27,000 homes COMBINED. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed 217,000 homes in Louisiana alone, not to mention the 69,000 homes destroyed in Mississippi. It's all a matter of scope. Sorry Florida but you have never seen this kind of widespread destruction. You should be thankful for that.

Look face facts. To get federal dollars to fix the flood walls you have to convince the people that the whole concept is a good idea. That is pretty tough. Most people without engineering background just think it is stupid to build a city below sea level. If you have an engineering background and do a study of the Dutch system, you know they found out that levees cannot be guaranteed to hold. You do not need wet lands. You need HUGE buffers of low lying DRY farm lands to back up and support levees.

We were devastated in Punta Gorda from Charley. The amount of homes may may not have been as high but it wrecked havoc. My house is new and to Dade county codes (better) and I went well above required minimum elevations. I had plenty of damage and paid for it out of pocket and insurance. I got squat from FEMA and that is fine. To build it I had to give up a ton of square footage to afford to make it secure and survivable, etc. BTW, 80% of commercial in PG was destroyed. If it is your house or your town it is the same. I'm not granting your numbers are correct, but it does not matter, we got whacked, by nature not some dopey flood wall concept. In fact we use a dredge and fill method to create high ground and I pay a special local assessment to maintain the seawall. No federal dollars.

We are building back very, very slowly. We are making sure we have tough codes and that means that houses need to be brought up above flood. I would be more sympathetic if people of NOLA gave up the the dopey levee system and put houses up on stilts and built to Dade County codes. If that were done I would support putting back the public infrastructure. NO way would I support tax money to rebuild private structures - that is what insurance is for.

Even though we were just a year out from Charley we gave in many ways to your Hurricane relief. What is grating is that people of NOLA want to as us to put you back where you were. That is too much to ask. We can't go through it again. The topography is not conducive to human habitation. I support your desire to live there you just can't realistically think most people would think it a good idea. Why don't you guys dredge and fill? It is great for property values. And it gets you up above flood. Use the Dade County wind codes and you will be snug.

The economic impact of ENTIRE parishes being wiped away, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, Cameron is incredible. Chalmette is a ghost town where once over 70,000 people lived, worked, and enjoyed the good life of home. We are not new to hurricanes down here in Louisiana and are quite familiar with the damages usually associated with their aftermath. The scale of devastation from both Katrina and from Rita is unimaginable. Other grizzled hurricane veterans from other areas might have a normal picture of a normal aftermath frozen in their minds. This is anything but normal.