The fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is upon us, and New Orleans continues to slowly rebound, with a smaller footprint than before but abundant community spirit. But, alarmingly, its long-term predicament remains unchanged, and the opportunity the nation had to confront it has been mostly squandered.
I refer, of course, to the challenge of protecting the city and surrounding coastlines from hurricanes. Three centuries of experience have proven time after time this is a deadly serious risk. And time after time, various government agencies - from New Orleans's earliest colonial administrations to the Obama White House - have responded in a haphazard fashion, doing just enough to make people feel safe again, but not enough to prevent the next big disaster.
Barge in Lower 9th Ward, December 2005
The Katrina disaster was deeply ironic. Turns out America, the nation that tamed rivers and the continent, won World War II and emerged as the globe's lone superpower, couldn't build a floodwall. America, the nation of the mass media and instantaneous communication, couldn't figure out where the New Orleans Convention Center was, or deliver food and water a few blocks to the thousands of people gathered there. Post-K, there was reason to believe these outrages might force a reassessment of how the nation handles not just emergency response - what you do after disaster strikes - but prevention. The rapidly-eroding Louisiana coast seems like an outlier, but this is deceptive - climate change is going to raise the risks not just for coastlines (higher sea levels and - possibly - stronger storms) but for any area where rapid environmental shifts take place and communities built for yesterday's conditions suddenly find themselves under water, consumed by fire or afflicted by drought or other problems. New Orleans is, in this sense, an important test case.
But no such reassessment took place. Instead, the same institution that screwed this up the first time - the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was put in charge of the effort to protect New Orleans and the surrounding coastline. This was crazy and irresponsible, and the results were predictable. The Corps is building a $14 billion stopgap levee system, an upgrade to the old one that is certainly better than what was there before, but not nearly enough to protect the city from a Category 5 hurricane storm surge.
The Corps has been studying the options for bigger and better protection, and how to integrate it with efforts to restore the rapidly-eroding marshlands of south Louisiana, for four years. This is an ambitious project, and (in my view) an essential one. It should have been fast-tracked. It should have gotten some stimulus money. Instead it bogged down. . But there's nobody really calling the shots at the upper levels of government. It's not a national priority. President Obama says it is, and is creating a task force that may cut through some of the seemingly hopeless skein of red tape. So, we'll see. But given the fiscal and political pressures on the Obama administration and the severe bureaucratic inertia holding this thing back (which results from basic power arrangements between Congress, the Corps, and successive administrations) I'm skeptical.
This is human nature, you might say, the way government institutions work. We're always preparing for the last disaster. We don't anticipate the "black swans." But that's no longer an adequate excuse given what's at stake - not just a unique American city and cultural treasure, but the shape and structure of the American community in an era of change. Do shrug off these challenges - about which we know a great deal - and consign the vulnerable parts of the country to a slow attrition by disaster? Or do we learn from history, and science, and our own mistakes?
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John Kerry: We Can't Ignore the Security Threat from Climate Change
The truth about climate change is that the threat we face is not an abstract concern for the future. It is already upon us and its effects are being felt worldwide, right now.
I will never understand how a great American city, with all of its cultural and historical richness and economic importance, can be allowed to die as it is slowly, but surely, devoured by the Gulf of Mexico.
New Orleans and south Louisiana is a test case, indeed. And, judging from how America and its leaders have acted to save it, the rest of us have a lot to worry about.
BUT don't expect to have gas prices stay the same because we'll be jacking the price and keeping the profits of our oil and gas. A tariff will be placed on all goods coming through our ports, so expect prices to rise on things those big ships bring in. No more good oysters or shrimp, we keeping that for ourselves, we don't feel like sharing anymore. Stop listening to rock n roll, funk, and jazz because it started here, we want it back now. Tell robert plant we want royalties for all the stealing done of our sounds. What does he know about breaking levees? Emeril, I want my grandmas recipes back and go back to Massachusetts if you won't pay! Y'all happy to steal from us so you can pretend like ya got culture.
And lastly, stop coming here and puking and pissing on my streets cause you can't handle your liquor!
New Orleans, black, white, Hispanic, Asian we all would be rich as Saudi's without you.
If first you don't secede, try, try again!
And below some of your compatriots are claiming the oil companies created much damage to the Delta and exacerbated the damage to NO. So are you going to get rid of the oil companies too?
Long live the Republic of Louisiana!
Contrast New Orleans to the record flooding that occurred last year in Iowa-no complaining, no blaming Bush, no pleas for handouts, and no race card by Iowans. They just pulled together and did the cleanup themselves.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marian-wright-edelman/katrinas-children---still_b_271216.html
Try reaching out to these areas. They will appreciate the help.
Today is the 4-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and while there are a number of stories marking it, few cover the huge news that 1) the hydraulic pumps don't work, 2) hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted, 3) and the Army Corps of Engineers is deliberately telling people the pumps work
The Army Corps has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on junk pumps--made by MWI (a David Eller/Jeb Bush creature). Even worse, the Army Corps is out there telling everyone that the pumps have been "battle-tested" and work just fine.Gen. Walsh says the pumps are to last 5 to seven years. Congress paid over a half billion dollars for a 50 year pump.The smoking gun documents are buried many clicks deep on the U.S. Office of Special Counsel website, http://(the fifth report from the bottom
The pumps in use 4 years ago are about 100 years old and were designed and built by A. Baldwin Wood, City Engineer of New Orleans. The City's pumps were cleaned up, put back into service and are working today.
The Corps' pumps are part of their thing. They built gates at the exits of New Orleans' drainage canals to prevent storm surges from busting their crappy levees. They need the MWI pumps to get rainwater out of the canals if they close the gates and the City pumps the streets dry.
The USA story is not new. The Corps bought at least two sets of pumps from MWI. The first set didn't work - even while still brand-new right from the box. Then they bought more new pumps from the same Friends of Jeb.
It was later disclosed that the Government copied the pump's specs. verbatim (even the typos)
into the bidding requirements.
Heck of a job W!
Also, has there been any consolidation in how the levee system is run? Currently it is managed in piecemeal fashion by municipal, ward, parish, state, and federal entities. How about one Levee Authority to be responsible for the whole system? That would decrease finger-pointing and shirking of responsibilities.
But the is a democrat and likes scare tactics but he still wrote it
So NO, call up Holland, get them to come down and draw up some plans for your levees or whatever you choose to call them in the future and then pay the Dutch to build them
America has helped many people in the past maybe they will do it out of their own generosity.
Should you need money hit up corporations and movie stars. Rename streets and avenues after them.
Get 20 million from Bill Clinton and rename the French quarter either Bill's place or Clinton quarter.
10 million from Alec Baldwin, to put toilets on the streets with the bars. Call these restrooms
Pizz on Al. $1 charge to use them A sure money maker whether they are used or not
Whole Foods would donate but the democrats are trying to put them out of business
We could
Auction the naming rights in the stadium
. Sell the Internet rights.
This is one auction I would want to watch.
Be sure and find a way to add a way so those of us who paid the internet fee to watch could add to the bids if we consider it necessary.
The only people spending money on New Orleans are the charities. Non-profit corporations are notorious for idealistic, impractical executives who don't have the slightest grasp of arithmetic, money, accounting, finance, or economics. Let them waste their money on New Orleans. It's all tax-deductible. They certainly won't accomplish anything important. Non-profit corporations are also infamous for their lack of achievement in the world, compared to profit-making companies.
The gigantic number of people who cannot see the facts in front of their eyes is amazing, too. Look at what is happening in New Orleans. What do you see? Nothing, of course, because no level of government in the US is stupid enough, or corrupt enough, to waste the taxpayers' money on a useless, worthless dump in a swamp.
If politicians hadn't been stuffing cash in freezers maybe they wouldn't have screwed up the environment while providing jobs that people demand in the oil and gas industries. You received the jobs but ruined the wetlands and thus increased the flooding problem.
Use the money to relocate people or more people will lose their lives. You can't make that area hurricane proof (don't tell me Norway could) unless you spend hundreds of billions. Let Louisiana spend the money in a recession if they want hurricane proof cities built in swamps.
You and many others greatly undervalue New Orleans. Pity.
I saw the city before the flood and after the hurricane, I know what damaged my city.
Go fill your tank with gas and think of me.
They should never have been built in the first place and are the cause of the coastal degradation which threatens New Orleans in hurricanes.
The people, the citizens and the local governments got an unprecedented level of warning with plenty of time to seek higher ground and to evacuate.
The great human tragedy is that more people did not participate in saving themselves and their loved ones before the storm hit or even in the first few hours after the storm cleared but before the levees broke.
It's hard to overcome someone else's indifference toward living or their apathy in getting out of the way of the storm. It's intensely frustrating to see one's fellow human beings intentionally subject themselves to that when they live in a region that knows quite well how destructive these storms are and were told how destructive Katrina was going to be before she was anywhere near New Orleans.
That should be our lesson on this fourth anniversary.
That's the irony and it doesn't stop there about the same institution. From this report earlier in the year
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1236835375293840.xml&coll=1&thispage=1
To this most recent report that boggles the mind.
http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/wwl082609cbcorps.11cf5ddfc.html
It was no secret these temp pumps, which took considerable time to get them to operate, were manufactured by a company in which Bush's brother had an interest.
The question might not be "should we rebuild NOLA where it is, because of the threat of hurricane", it could be "should we rebuild NOLA because of what it was, a desperately poor, violent and politically corrupt city that wouldn't justify the enormous expense to rebuild and repair".
There are many cities in the old industrial states that have fallen into such decline that there is no serious effort to rebuild them. Likewise, cities contaminated by toxins, blighted by crime and deserted by commerce are also left to fail. Heck, huge swaths of the farm belt, and the former Dust Bowl states have been abandoned. So why invest billions in a city that had extraordinarily high rates of concentrated urban poverty, nation-leading homicide rates, crumbling infrastructure (not including the levees), a deficient educational infrastructure and embarrassing corruption at all levels of government.
The citizens still in NOLA, and those dispersed by the deluge, ought to be supported in a more cost-efficient and productive way, than just left in place, high and dry.
Where exactly do you live? Cause I'd like to weigh in on whether your home is cost effective enough, rich enough, and non corrupt enough to continue existing.
Moreover, the question isn't can it continue to exist, the question is should enormous sums be spent to rebuild what USED to exist.
Stop sending them so much money.
Can not we protect New Orleans for what it is; a beautiful historic city with one of the most orinal pure cultures in the world. Oh, and should I add full of tax paying US citizens that have PAID for the right of protection. Sheesh!