So how did the destruction of New Orleans happen?

[chequita guevara]

There was no storm surge in NOLA, MOBIUS. It was the rain that did it. Nonetheless, NOLA was hit with the force of a Cat 2 hurricane (Biloxi got hit with a Cat 3, but with massive storm surge). The levees are supposed to be able to handle that.

[lightblue]

Well you spell d y k e in uk english iirc.

[Patroklos]

NEW ORLEANS -- Police shot eight people carrying guns on a New Orleans bridge Sunday, killing five or six of them, a deputy chief said.

Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said the shootings took place on the Danziger Bridge, which connects Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.

He said he had no other details.

hmmm....

[chequita guevara]

Just a thought, why do we need a bridge to connect two bodies of water?

[Alexander's Horse]

so does Dubya strum a mean guitar the way Nero plucked a mean fiddle? has that comparison been made yet?

[chequita guevara]

Damn, AH. Good observation.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by DanS


See page 4.

Page FOUR?

[Odin]

My God, N. O. is a lake and conservatives can do nothing else but complain how us lefties are somehow using it for political gain by holding people accountable for negligence while Shrub stops relief efforts so he can go in for a photo op. Talk about tasteless.

[chequita guevara]

NOLA isn't a lake. It's part of Lake Ponchetrain.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Odin
My God, N. O. is a lake and conservatives can do nothing else but complain how us lefties are somehow using it for political gain by holding people accountable for negligence while Shrub stops relief efforts so he can go in for a photo op. Talk about tasteless.

and can you imagine the outcry from the right if Clinton had ****ed up like this?



BURN HIM!!!!!

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Koyaanisqatsi
One rather disturbing trend I've noticed is that it seems that people who get on CNN/other news shows are the ones who have their family rescued. Obviously not exclusively, but there have been several cases where people show up on CNN saying that their family is trapped at this place or that, have been for days, they've been telling every official they can find to send help, then miraculously within the next 24 hours a Coast Guard chopper appears overhead and people are evacuated. It just happened again...last night a woman said her family was trapped in a certain Asian Catholic church, and now there's video of people being taken out of that same church (though the announcers didn't mention it was the same one.)

That being said, the one really amazing performance I've seen in all of this is from the Coast Guard. They've consistently been doing amazing work, and have been since the moment they could get their choppers back in the air.

The Coast Guard. Seahawk rescue team.

And yes, you are right, anyone that gets media attention will get rescued. I even saw someone on A Current Affair that this happened to.

[DanS]

Originally posted by techumseh


Page FOUR?

Sure. Page 4.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
so does Dubya strum a mean guitar the way Nero plucked a mean fiddle? has that comparison been made yet?

[Gatekeeper]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
There was no storm surge in NOLA, MOBIUS. It was the rain that did it. Nonetheless, NOLA was hit with the force of a Cat 2 hurricane (Biloxi got hit with a Cat 3, but with massive storm surge). The levees are supposed to be able to handle that.

Hmm. Everything I've read indicates that New Orleans was struck by a Category 4 hurricane that had previously been a Category 5 storm (it was weakened a bit by a puff of dry air coming in from the Upper Midwest). What "saved" NOLA was the fact that the storm's more-powerful east side missed the city.

WRT the levees, they were designed to withstand up to a Category 3 storm, but even then the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had concerns.

Gatekeeper

[Adam Smith]

I'm jumping in late, but just a couple of items.

First, levies. The damage was all on the Lake Ponchetrain side. It had nothing to do with the Mississippi River. While the storm surge itself did not strike the levies, it did fill Lake Ponchetrain with water, which topped the levies, eroding supports on the other side, and causing them to collapse.

Second, Corps of Engineers. The problem IS NOT that they don't have enough money. The problem IS that they don't spend it appropriately.
From a STATEMENT before the Environmental and Public Works Subcommittee of the US Senate, June 18, 2002:

During the past few years, increased scrutiny of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) projects has revealed a disturbing pattern of flawed economic and environmental analyses, biased and insupportable decision-making, and failed mitigation. These problems have been identified by the Army Inspector General, the National Academy of Sciences, the General Accounting Office, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the media, environmental and taxpayer organizations, and citizen activists.
....
Study after study has shown that the Corps’ economic and environmental analyses cannot be trusted. Indeed, the Army’s own Inspector General found that many Corps employees have no confidence in the integrity of the Corps’ planning process. Unfortunately, the impacts of flawed analyses go far beyond issues of trust and integrity. All too often, they are used to justify the construction of projects that unnecessarily harm the environment, and that divert tax dollars away from serving the real needs of the nation.

Several pages of examples follow this quote.

SIMILARLY from just last year:

Across the nation, hundreds of water projects are being planned and constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Many of these projects pose serious harm to wildlife, sensitive natural resources, and our quality of life, often at significant and unnecessary taxpayer expense. These projects continue despite credible and mounting evidence of numerous flaws in project designs and economic justification, and a growing concern for the price they will extract. The fact that damaging and wasteful proposals continue to receive federal funds and are proceeding is a dramatic testament to the need to overhaul the Corps of Engineers.

The agency that has changed the course of America's mightiest rivers must now itself change. The Corps must cease to be a tool for lawmakers to bring home pork-barrel projects for special interests, and instead become an agency that works towards a more environmentally and economically sustainable America.

edit: formatting