Newt blames the Katrina victims

Vedderlution_Baby

farfromglorified wrote:

The same thing that happens with a "deep investigation into the failure of government" -- nothing.

That's what I figured. What you gonna do? Throw em in jail? From what I've seen and read, that'll atleast give them better shelter than the FEMA trailers.

farfromglorified

soulsinging wrote:

sued who? i recall reading somewhere that levee projects were proposed to congress several times in the 90s and voted down, nothing to do with judicial injunctions.

In 1977 they sued the Corp.

"The Army Corps of Engineers also designed a Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Barrier to shield the city with flood gates like those that protect the Netherlands from the North Sea. Congress provided funding and construction began in 1971, but work stopped in 1977 when a federal judge ruled, in a suit brought by Save Our Wetlands, that the Corps' environmental impact statement was deficient. In 1985, after nearly a decade of court battles, the Corps scrapped the plan, and decided on reinforcing the city’s levee system instead."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_preparedness_for_New_Orleans#Late_20th_century_hurricanes

soulsinging

farfromglorified wrote:

In 1977 they sued the Corp.

"The Army Corps of Engineers also designed a Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Barrier to shield the city with flood gates like those that protect the Netherlands from the North Sea. Congress provided funding and construction began in 1971, but work stopped in 1977 when a federal judge ruled, in a suit brought by Save Our Wetlands, that the Corps' environmental impact statement was deficient. In 1985, after nearly a decade of court battles, the Corps scrapped the plan, and decided on reinforcing the city’s levee system instead."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_preparedness_for_New_Orleans#Late_20th_century_hurricanes

that sucks. but it still doesn't explain why subsequent projects to reinforce the levees were shot down.

RainDog

New Orleans has about as much use for Gingrich's input as we do for a new subway system.

RainDog

farfromglorified wrote:

In 1977 they sued the Corp.

"The Army Corps of Engineers also designed a Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Barrier to shield the city with flood gates like those that protect the Netherlands from the North Sea. Congress provided funding and construction began in 1971, but work stopped in 1977 when a federal judge ruled, in a suit brought by Save Our Wetlands, that the Corps' environmental impact statement was deficient. In 1985, after nearly a decade of court battles, the Corps scrapped the plan, and decided on reinforcing the city’s levee system instead."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_preparedness_for_New_Orleans#Late_20th_century_hurricanes

Levees help, but so do the wetlands. The question is, how can we utilize both when often the strengthening of one leads to the weakening of the other?

onelongsong

soulsinging wrote:

what were the pictures for?

possible FEMA relief. and since i was leaving a lot of guns behind; i wanted record of them in case they were stolen.
the pics of the fire should be able to be sold and i'm looking into that. i've got mines exploding with fireballs going thousands of feet into the air.

farfromglorified

soulsinging wrote:

that sucks. but it still doesn't explain why subsequent projects to reinforce the levees were shot down.

They weren't. Those "projects" were still going on when Katrina hit.

farfromglorified

RainDog wrote:

Levees help, but so do the wetlands. The question is, how can we utilize both when often the strengthening of one leads to the weakening of the other?

How can you utilize a wetland? Well, you've already seen how wetlands can be utilized. Your city, for the most part, maximized the usage of wetlands over the usage of levees. Your town flooded. The wetlands served to make that flood less severe. So if you're happy with the results, stick with the wetlands.

You could, however, look beyond both and realize that neither wetlands nor levies are required to prevent a flood of that nature. You could look at more advanced drainage systems and dikes. Furthermore, you'd be wise to actually reclaim areas of the gulf by building off-shore barriers that suppress storm surges. But that's not going to happen here. Your town seems to be demanding more levies. And I'm not sure it's ready to give up its wetlands either.

onelongsong

Vedderlution_Baby! wrote:

But you gotta understand that not everyone would. and that the situation isn't as black as white as "The smart ones left, the dumb ones stayed".



By the way, what does this guy expect to happen with a "deep investigation into failure of citizenship"?

waste more taxpayer money i suppose.
when in a similar situation; i evacuated and slept in my truck. if i lost everything there would have been disaster loans and other help. my responsability was to save my life; and get out of the way for those sent to help. the firefighters needed to concentrate on the fire; not the hold out in the cabin on the hill. this is what happened with katrina. the attention was diverted to saving the people instead of controling the situation.

soulsinging

onelongsong wrote:

possible FEMA relief. and since i was leaving a lot of guns behind; i wanted record of them in case they were stolen.
the pics of the fire should be able to be sold and i'm looking into that. i've got mines exploding with fireballs going thousands of feet into the air.

ah, so you were expecting the government to replace your possessions? yet the new orleans residents are stupid for wanting the same thing?

mammasan

onelongsong wrote:

you stopped short of saying that bush caused the hurricane to divert attention from the war.
can you explain what responsabilities government has in natural disasters? in a disaster of this size; what could the government have done differently? especially after sending so much money to the tsunami victims. how much of the budget was spent trying to evacuate those who refused to leave? if the city was evacuated as ordered; the billions spent on post evacuation would have been spent on rebuilding.
when the government runs out of money it's because you don't want to pay higher taxes.

The responce after the hurricane was a crime and the parties responsible for that where local, state, and federal government officials and agencies. This is not some lame ass veiled attempt to blame Bush. Even he has admitted that the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina was horrible. Secondly, correct me if I'm wrong but Hurrican Katrina occured before the tsunami. Our response to bring aid to the tsumani victims was incredible. Within 2 days we had troops and supplies halfway around the world to help those people yet it took FEMA 3 days to get the same into New Orleans.

Pacomc79

RainDog wrote:

Levees help, but so do the wetlands. The question is, how can we utilize both when often the strengthening of one leads to the weakening of the other?

closing MR. GO would be a step foward, also not expanding the city foolishly and establishing new building codes like those along other coastal areas which do flood frequently would be a step foward too I think. (we have some similar issues in Atlanta, they just aren't magnified by being below sea level. There also has to be a way to clean up water leaving the greater NO area watersheds so that the pollution does not further weaken the coastal wetlands. I believe we've discussed the pump infrastructure ad nausem

I don't believe the city allowing for building in 9th ward was a good idea in the first place.

I hate seeing stuff like this in general because it seeks to make that disaster cut and dried and or black and white. There are hundreds of causes and millions of effects. Mistakes were made at every single level from macro and city planning to individual citizens, at this point, it's rather counterproductive, I'm disapointed in Newt for making it a focus.

Getting people to stop behaving like victims is one thing, salt in the wounds is another.

I wonder if we went back to everyones response to Ivan the year before, we might see a better response from the citizen to the governmental level (except for the highway gridlock anyway which is probably another reason people stayed in town)

The various governments screwed up by severely underestimating the situation in the first place prior to the storm and the subsequent holding of the levee's in the hours just after the hurricane before they broke. By then it was too late, had they been on the ground immediately before the storm hit, lots of lives would have been saved. The money was there, the people were there, the failure of infrastructure came from management on down and we all know how people in high places love to pass the buck.

RainDog

farfromglorified wrote:

How can you utilize a wetland? Well, you've already seen how wetlands can be utilized. Your city, for the most part, maximized the usage of wetlands over the usage of levees. Your town flooded. The wetlands served to make that flood less severe. So if you're happy with the results, stick with the wetlands.

Not exactly. We have less wetland protection now than we did when the suit was filed.

farfromglorified wrote:

You could look at more advanced drainage systems and dikes.

We didn't send a committee to the Netherlands for nothing.
Well, at least I hope it wasn't for nothing.

And, the Netherlands use drainage system and dikes as well as natural barriers (we have wetlands, they have something I can't remember the name of right now).

But I best step out of this. It's a topic that, once started, is likely to get me banned.

farfromglorified

RainDog wrote:

Not exactly. We have less wetland protection now than we did when the suit was filed.

Hehe..ok. Then tear down the levies. Shit, leave half the town as-is now -- you'll get more wetlands than you know what to do with.

We didn't send a committee to the Netherlands for nothing.
Well, at least I hope it wasn't for nothing.

We'll see. The origninally proposed systems in the 70s resembled the Netherlands' system. But the wetlands were deemed more important.

RainDog

farfromglorified wrote:

Hehe..ok. Then tear down the levies. Shit, leave half the town as-is now -- you'll get more wetlands than you know what to do with.

hehe...yeah. Thanks for the input. Now that I know this is an black/white, either/or situation, I'll inform the city planners.

callen

Vedderlution_Baby! wrote:

I don't really get this "You shoulda left, dumbass" point of view. People worked their entire lives for what they owned, for a home that supported them and their family, and items that to them would never be able to be replaced. So you had two options, especially if you were poorer. You either got to leave everything behind, with the possibility of losing it to the storm or the looting. Or you can stay, hope that the storm is either exaggerated or by some miracle that it diverts its path. I don't argue that they should have left, I don't think even the katrina victims would argue that. I just think there was more to it than them being to uneduated and stupid to get out.

Your exactly right....and you know Ole Newt probably agrees...but there are so many in this country that don't have a clue...and want to lame blame..they eat this sh#t up....thus he'll get support for such narrow minded views.

onelongsong

soulsinging wrote:

ah, so you were expecting the government to replace your possessions? yet the new orleans residents are stupid for wanting the same thing?

i was expecting low interest government loans. that's what we get around here for disaster help. but then we're white.
the residents are stupid for not evacuating. if the city was evacuated the government could have waited until it was safe to re-enter and had time to come up with a disaster plan.

farfromglorified

RainDog wrote:

hehe...yeah. Thanks for the input. Now that I know this is an black/white, either/or situation, I'll inform the city planners.

Why do you continue to ask me questions when you know you won't like the answer?

onelongsong

mammasan wrote:

The responce after the hurricane was a crime and the parties responsible for that where local, state, and federal government officials and agencies. This is not some lame ass veiled attempt to blame Bush. Even he has admitted that the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina was horrible. Secondly, correct me if I'm wrong but Hurrican Katrina occured before the tsunami. Our response to bring aid to the tsumani victims was incredible. Within 2 days we had troops and supplies halfway around the world to help those people yet it took FEMA 3 days to get the same into New Orleans.

the government should not have had to enter the area to begin with. there was a dumbass mayor telling people they didn't need to evacuate; but the bottom line is that the area was unsafe to enter when they did. you may be right about the dates. i thought katrina was the summer after the tsunami but i could be wrong. in any event; if the people would have evacuated; the money spent on trying to get in and save lives could have been used to help these people. instead the government had to buy boats and other equipment to get to these people. in the case of the tsunami; the water returned to the ocean. we had ground to walk on. not so with katrina. you have to see the situation for what it was. a water rescue in then a massive hazardous waste site.

RainDog

farfromglorified wrote:

Why do you continue to ask me questions when you know you won't like the answer?

Speaking of either/or, people either ask questions or they don't. I didn't. :cool: