Iowa vs. Louisiana

RainDog

BamaPJFan wrote:

The ninth ward was the the area that was the most devastated. The area around Lakefront Arena/UNO was obviously hard hit. The downtown area, including the French Quarter came through quite nicely. The Garden District along Magazine Street where Archie and Olivia Manning live fared fairly well.

Mississippi's coastal area might as well have been hit with a nuclear bomb because that's what it looked like after the hurricane moved through.

Don't misinterpret what I'm saying about New Orleans. I love the city. Because I grew up in Mississippi, I made many trips down there over the years. The last time I was there was for the New Orleans Bowl in December 2006 and when driving toward downtown (from Slidell) it was hard to look at the devastation along the interstate. Even over a year later it still looked like the storm had just happened. A lot of pre-Katrina New Orleans residents now live in Meridian and in my current hometown of Montgomery, AL. I don't blame them for not wanting to go back because in many cases there's nothing to go back to and most of those folks don't have the means to rebuild or start over in New Orleans.

All I'm saying is I think it's foolish to compare what happened in Iowa to what happened in New Orleans.

It's arguable that the 9th ward was more devastated than Lakeview. I believe It was certainly more of an impact on the individual the lives of those in the 9th ward, mainly because of their financial resources (poor area). Probably easier for the Lakeview residents to "pick themselves up" as it were.

The "bomb" allegory applies here as well. My first view of the devastation was of Lakeview, 3 a.m., about a month after the storm. We were driving in from Texas (job had relocated temporarily), and didn't make it to the city limits before the Midnight curfew (missed it by about 15 minutes). After an 8 hour drive, and desperate to see what happened to our home, we weren't about to listen to the police and hang out in our car until sunrise. It took a few hours of driving, being turned around at every checkpoint, before we found an unwatched road into Orleans Parish by the lakefront. What we saw was shocking, to say the least. Pitch black, line of sight confined to the halo of our headlights, everything covered in an ashen gray, collapsed houses in the middle of the street. In fact, we almost hit one - didn't see or expect it until we turned a corner. Same thing happened a little later, only that time it was a boat (and a big one at that). After wandering around lost in an area that I actually knew only a month before, we were pulled over by the cops for violating curfew. They let us go, saying we weren't the kind of people they were looking for (gee, I wonder what that meant), and pointed us to a road that would lead into downtown. Driving in, we were flanked by soldiers in Humvees like it was some kind of war zone. Finally, downtown, where the power was back on, everything began looking familiar again. When we got home, we were ecstatic that our only major problem was a partially blown off roof.

Well, that's enough wandering down memory lane (i.e. rambling). All I'm saying is that when you compare Iowa and Katrina, or even different areas affected by Katrina, you don't end up with similar circumstances.

RainDog

69charger wrote:

Why?

From my post: Iowa (and much of the midwest) will always be living under the threat of flooding.

cincybearcat

RainDog wrote:

All I'm saying is I think it's foolish to compare what happened in Iowa to what happened in New Orleans.

This I agree with.

RainDog

cincybearcat wrote:

New Orleans was a city on the coast built below sea level...that's being set up to fail.

Was a city on the coast? Katrina was bad, but it wasn't that bad.

And the areas in Iowa are built on flood plains. Isn't that being set up to fail? The historical truth here is that humans tend to build near water. We drink it, we farm with it, we use it for transportation and shipping, we eat stuff out of it. And, we occasionally drown in it.

cincybearcat

RainDog wrote:

Was a city on the coast? Katrina was bad, but it wasn't that bad.

And the areas in Iowa are built on flood plains. Isn't that being set up to fail? The historical truth here is that humans tend to build near water. We drink it, we farm with it, we use it for transportation and shipping, we eat stuff out of it. And, we occasionally drown in it.

Are you seriously going to comapre building a city below sea level on the coast to being in the 500 year flood plain?

And when I used was, Katrina was in the past, so I used the past-tense.

inmytree

cincybearcat wrote:

Are you seriously going to comapre building a city below sea level on the coast to being in the 500 year flood plain?

And when I used was, Katrina was in the past, so I used the past-tense.

I see it as similar...flood plain vs. below sea level...

basically both are problems waiting to happen...

RainDog

cincybearcat wrote:

Are you seriously going to comapre building a city below sea level on the coast to being in the 500 year flood plain?

And when I used was, Katrina was in the past, so I used the past-tense.

Well, we're not exactly on the coast.

I'm not comparing the areas themselves. I'm saying that humans have a love-hate relationship with water. New Orleans was built where it was built for economic reasons (that's where you can use "was" - the city "was" built in the past ). The location comes with risks, sure; but the benefits must outweigh them or there wouldn't be so many people living here. That's about the only comparison between New Orleans and Iowa - we both flood (as does a vast portion of civilization itself - why do you think the story of Noah's flood resonates so much?). Comparing flood disasters themselves as similar - especially in this case - doesn't hold water, though (even I cringed at that pun).

What I'm saying is, it's never so simple as to say something shouldn't have been built where it was built. If we followed through with that, we wouldn't have much built at all (Manhattan is built on a sand bar, for example).

LikeAnOcean

69charger wrote:

Really? NO is under threat every hurricane season and you are freakin' below sea level. The folks down there should know better by now.

The Iowa floods were a once in 500 year anomaly yet the communities affected reacted to a similar set of circumstances in drastically different ways to that of the people affected by Katrina.

Yeah, but the chances that hurricane would hit New Orleans dead on and the levey's would break were very slim. People were less likely to evacuate, as in many hurricanes. Plus there's a lot of poor people in New Orleans who had nowhere to go.

cincybearcat

inmytree wrote:

I see it as similar...flood plain vs. below sea level...

basically both are problems waiting to happen...

So let's see here...as I agree, we shoudln't compare Katrina to the Iowa Floods...but it's okay to say they are in a similar position because one is below sea level on the Gulf and the areas in Iowa were built within the 500 year flood plain? 500 year flood plain?

I seriously wonder about some of you sometime.

That's like saying, earthquakes sometimes happen in Ohio so it's the same as building a house along a fault i California.

flywallyfly

I was wondering why all of the televangelists were not crying about how God hates Iowa because they accept the gay lifestyle.

RainDog

cincybearcat wrote:

So let's see here...as I agree, we shoudln't compare Katrina to the Iowa Floods...but it's okay to say they are in a similar position because one is below sea level on the Gulf and the areas in Iowa were built within the 500 year flood plain? 500 year flood plain?

I seriously wonder about some of you sometime.

That's like saying, earthquakes sometimes happen in Ohio so it's the same as building a house along a fault i California.

I just did a little research. According to the Army Corps of Engineers, Katrina was a 400 year storm.

cincybearcat

RainDog wrote:

I just did a little research. According to the Army Corps of Engineers, Katrina was a 400 year storm.

So there you go. 400 vs 500 thanks for showing how right I am.

Pacomc79

LikeAnOcean wrote:

Yeah, but the chances that hurricane would hit New Orleans dead on and the levey's would break were very slim. People were less likely to evacuate, as in many hurricanes. Plus there's a lot of poor people in New Orleans who had nowhere to go.

Ivan hit Pensacola the year before and was on path to hit NO until it turned... Katrina did the same thing. They just managed to get enough rain and storm surge to finally do what has pretty much been inevitable with all the expansion of that area, declination of wetlands, pathetic infrastructure the fault of poor local state and national politicians (and the voters that put them there) and then the people themselves.... for deciding to stay. The color of skin shouldn't absolve people from making stupid decisions.

If you stay in a soup bowl with a hurricane coming you're taking your life in your hands. The City failed the people that couldn't get out on thier own by not using the resources available to them.

Anyone who had the means to leave (most) that didn't can blame themselves period. Being poor doesn't make you stupid or absolve any blame from bad decisions.

New Orleans is a very poor city that largely depends on government for it's very existance as such many of the low lying areas were poorly conceived. 9th ward should NEVER have existed. Much of the suburbs of the city should never have been built. Army Corps of engineers or not. Levee's are essentially built to enable people to live or grow crops close to a river anything goes wrong... disaster.

Anytime there is a disaster people always look to a scapegoat. The Federal Government who performed quite poorly but also quite normaly given the size and scope of the disaster was the scapegoat. Hell the city reelected that idiot Nagin who was largely responsible for the failure to evacuate properly.

Am I sorry that such a nice city was flooded and destroyed. Of course, but to say there's no real threat of hurricanes or floods hitting an area is just not correct. It's at the mouth of the largest river in North America and south is a large warm body of water never mind the massive lake to the north either.. If any place other than Florida or California is a target for natural disaster it's New Orleans even if it has been a while.

Katrina and Rita were not normal occurances, the woman in the house next to us said in 36 years the water never made it over her doorstep. This was not any one failure it was catestrophic on all levels. I just don't think you can compare the Iowa floods to Katrina and Rita though the people are decidedly different in thier actions I think many in New Orleans were simply caught off guard due to the previous years false alarm. The whining about the government I think came more from celebrities (who love to bitch anyway) than the people in town. There are a lot of good people in new orleans. Most of the ones tough and resiliant enough to stick around anyway.

RainDog

cincybearcat wrote:

So there you go. 400 vs 500 thanks for showing how right I am.

Pretty freakin' right, too, boss. That's like a whole 1993 flood's worth of difference.

:cool:

Still, below sea-level or not, storms like Katrina aren't as common as often implied.

RainDog

Pacomc79 wrote:

The Iowa vs New Orleans debate is not quite fair because Iowan's largely are independant people who as a community depend on each other for help and they work toegther to achive solutions with thier government people who also have a strong sense of community.

Thanks for the broad brush there. And I used to think you were so cool.


And I swear that line sounded worse when I first hit "Quote."

Pacomc79

RainDog wrote:

Thanks for the broad brush there. And I used to think you were so cool.


And I swear that line sounded worse when I first hit "Quote."

I really didn't mean to paint with such a broad brush. I think the situations were far different as is the geography. Re reading what I wrote does sound pretty unfair. Sorry.

LikeAnOpeningBandForTheSun

The government of new orleans (and Louisiana in general) is notoriously corrupt. It was nearly at Boss Tweed levels. and the Levee board was the most corrupt board in the corrupt city. It wasn't suprising to me what happened at all.

On top of that New Orleans had the highest percentage of people completely reliant on the government for support (many of which were born into being overly reliant on the gov't and had no training or incentive to be independent). When the government failed they had no idea what to do. this is partly the fault of poor government welfare programs.

that disaster was one DECADES in the making. probably more like generations in the making. New Orleans was probably the least prepared area in the country for a natural disaster despite being in one of the worst danger zones.

In Mississippi the response was a lot better in part because of a less corrupt gevernment and in part because people dont rely on their government to dig them out. an hour after the storm people were out chainsawing trees and clearing roads and trying to figure out what the hell to do.

RainDog

Pacomc79 wrote:

I really didn't mean to paint with such a broad brush. I think the situations were far different as is the geography. Re reading what I wrote does sound pretty unfair. Sorry.

S'alright. There's always been plenty of blame to go around -- but I do get irritated when it only goes one way.

I guess I can still think you're cool. :cool:

cincybearcat

Pacomc79 wrote:

I really didn't mean to paint with such a broad brush. I think the situations were far different as is the geography. Re reading what I wrote does sound pretty unfair. Sorry.

I think what you said abotu Iowians was correct though...

RainDog

MrSmith wrote:

The government of new orleans (and Louisiana in general) is notoriously corrupt. It was nearly at Boss Tweed levels. and the Levee board was the most corrupt board in the corrupt city. It wasn't suprising to me what happened at all.

On top of that New Orleans had the highest percentage of people completely reliant on the government for support (many of which were born into being overly reliant on the gov't and had no training or incentive to be independent). When the government failed they had no idea what to do. this is partly the fault of poor government welfare programs.

that disaster was one DECADES in the making. probably more like generations in the making. New Orleans was probably the least prepared area in the country for a natural disaster despite being in one of the worst danger zones.

In Mississippi the response was a lot better in part because of a less corrupt gevernment and in part because people dont rely on their government to dig them out. an hour after the storm people were out chainsawing trees and clearing roads and trying to figure out what the hell to do.

Here's a good example of the differing circumstances I was talking about - though not in the way this particular poster intended (corruption aside).

An hour after the storm, New Orleans was taking on water. By the next day, that water had risen to 20 feet in some areas. 80% flooding here, people. Two weeks later, shit was still under water. But, yeah, chainsaws would have solved all our problems. :rolleyes: