Nawlins/Katrina + 1 yr. : What did we learn for NEXT TIME?

What lesson was learned?  Never elect liberal politicians that use money that is set aside for levy construction and use it to build casinos.  The most memorable moment?  Run Negan, Run!  Run to Texas and get out of Dodge while your people suffer!

RB

The whole below sea level thing is why I never went and likely never will visit New Orleans. They have to pump out a light rain. the very definition of unfavorable terrain.

We talked about the levies in 1988 in some of my engineering classes. The levies never ever had a chance. Anyone who is saying “it wouldn’t take that much to rebuild them and make them better” is spinning it. My memory is a little foggy but we are talking six story building high and again as wide at the base or soemthing.

While I don’t wish to be unsympathetic in the face of catastrophe, please move to higher ground.

As for what we learned for “next time.”

What we all know, no plan survives contact with the enemy. Although it is reasonable to make a plan in the first place. And practice and drill. You get on a cruise ship you have lifeboat drills right? We had fire drills in school. You look it in the face and figure out what you have to do to beat it or at least not lose to it and you practice it.  And if you aren’t willing to undertake that then you hope you are as lucky “next time” as the first time.

So, where do we draw the line on places that should be inhabited?
What of:

• California & San Andreas fault, or even the coast with rising water levels

• Any city in the “Tornado Alley”

• New York as a target of terrorist attack

• Southwest with it’s brush fires

• Hawaii with its active volcanoes and remote location (also the fact that it’s a chain of islands)

I think there’s many reasons to keep people from living somewhere (e.g. see: Love Canal), but nature rarely is so inhospitable as to not be accommodating.  It’s their money.  They may have to pay more on insurance and more to protect their investments/purchases, but they can choose where to live (for the most part).

@frimmel:

We talked about the levies in 1988 in some of my engineering classes. The levies never ever had a chance. Anyone who is saying “it wouldn’t take that much to rebuild them and make them better” is spinning it. My memory is a little foggy but we are talking six story building high and again as wide at the base or soemthing.

That doesn’t sound too difficult in reference to some of the engineering marvels that have occurred in human history…

How about just giving them a disclaimer that if you live here, and mother nature kills you, destroys your stuff and/or makes your life hell, you cannot come to the federal government for assistance?

Now you’re free to be a moron, but the government is protected from your idiocy through legislation you signed when you moved there.

So we are out for only ourselves? We should watch people die and say, that will show them. So if anyone in America is attacked, be it terrorists or mother nature, no one should help them? I am not religious at all and I think that is an asinine way of looking at life. It is one thing to build a home in a flooded area but what of tornados or huge floods like '94.

@CrazyHomer87:

So we are out for only ourselves? We should watch people die and say, that will show them. So if anyone in America is attacked, be it terrorists or mother nature, no one should help them? I am not religious at all and I think that is an asinine way of looking at life. It is one thing to build a home in a flooded area but what of tornados or huge floods like '94.

No one said that.  Straw man if I ever heard one.

What I was saying was that we KNOW New Orleans is in a bowel below sea level.  We KNOW that a hurricane can hit it.  We KNOW they cannot take adequate measures against this with any reasonable certainty.

Thus, if you WANT to live there, you do so at your own risk.  Don’t EXPECT any help from teh government because YOU chose to live in a death trap.  You’ll probably still get some, but don’t expect it.  Actually, you should sign away your rights to it during teh closing process on your home/lease, just so you are dead sure to have been told you are on your own if you live there.

Sorry, but stupidity in the populace is not a liability the government should have to pay for.  It’s this typical liberal philosiphy that the US Govvernment should be mommy and daddy to every Tom, Dick and Harry and bale you out of trouble every time you fall down that has gotten us our overly inflated debt and poor GDP and excessive taxes (though not as excessive as Europe’s!)

By your logic, Jen, screw everyone in WTC for continue to work there after it was bombed in the 90’s.  They should have known better.

That is exactly what I was saying Jermo.

Jen, I am pretty sure you are religious. Can you tell me that you can watch people die, be it any situation, flood, tornado, terrorist, ect. and not care at all? You do not feel sad at all and wish to help them? As for the liberal view of government comment, what is the role of government? Is it not to help protect society, all of our society, not the few or many, but all. America became the world power house that it is today through the ideas of democrats like Woodrow Wilson and FDR, expanding the roles of the government. The idea of a conservative government died with the stock market crashing in 1929. The limited government watched the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. After that, the government decided that without its help, that America would turn into chaos. The government then got involved with big business to ensure that it would not fail. If the businesses fail, then the government fails. They watch out for each now. So, let us go to a conservative government then Jen, where the government does very little and the greed of people will destroy democracy.

@Jermofoot:

By your logic, Jen, screw everyone in WTC for continue to work there after it was bombed in the 90’s.  They should have known better.

Terrorism isn’t the same as recurring natural disasters and you know it.

When the mississippi floods we tell people to get their own flood insurance so they arn’t a liability to the government.  I am saying we do the same in New Orleans.  Stop trying to make it sound like I advocate the public flogging of 3 year olds already.  I’m not comming out with some radicle statement or idea that hasn’t been done in the country before.

And yes I am religious.  I believe it is the responsibility of the citizens to donate what they can (like they did) to assist victems of natural disasters.  It’s not the duty of the government.

It’s no secret that i think that Jen is off on her beliefs that citizens are “good” enough that governments are not needed to help provide for our in-need citizens.
At the same time, floods happen here in Manitoba with relative frequency.  The smart Manitobans have learned something - “if you’re going to build on a floodplain, then prepare for a flood”.  Still, our government looks after those people without the IQ-wherewithal to yield to this.  How do i feel about this?  Not sure - i make a LOT of money from the gov’t off of the stupidity off of people, and i can live with that for now.

@Jennifer:

@Jermofoot:

By your logic, Jen, screw everyone in WTC for continue to work there after it was bombed in the 90’s.  They should have known better.

Terrorism isn’t the same as recurring natural disasters and you know it.

No, but in terms of risk and unpredictability, they are.  Like I said before, I’m sure insurance companies take in the fact that they are below sea level and could be wiped out by a hurricane.  It would happen eventually, but I don’t think it’s frequent enough to warrant a claim that they don’t deserve help.

And concerning government assistance:  I’d much rather have people who need help taking advantage of the gov’t than people who don’t need it (the rich) raping everyone else in the arse.  Every time I think about the S&L deal, which we are still paying on, it pisses me off.  I think the worst thing about Katrina shows that while we’ll talk and talk about how great we are and all the good things we do, we can’t even clean up the mess in our own backyard.  Imagine the after effects if we weren’t pouring money & personnel into Iraq - something I could really be proud of.    Look at the disaster of 9/11 compared to Katrina.  A world of difference, where more people needed help in the latter, although I believe more died in the former.  Since it wasn’t terrorist related, I guess it was secondary to our aims.

Thats a ridiculous comparison, they work there, and its not a hazard all the time.  It was just attacked again, how did anyone know for certain it would be.  for certain, new orleans will have more problems with water.

WTC had less people die then the average deaths in the Civil War.  Should we prepare for civil war casualties again???

Of course not.  We have to look at the real world, not fictional scenarios.  We know that New Orleans WILL be hit by a hurricane in the future.  We KNOW that it will cost billions in damage and hundreds of lives again.  So we do one of two things:

1)  We tell the people they are on their own if they are hit again.  Don’t come crying to the government EXPECTING a hand out. (they might still get one, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.)

or

2)  We tell them it is illegal to move there.  Turn it into camp ground and force them to move above sea level.

still pretty harsh.

@balungaloaf:

Thats a ridiculous comparison, they work there, and its not a hazard all the time.  It was just attacked again, how did anyone know for certain it would be.  for certain, new orleans will have more problems with water.

People work in NO, and it’s obviously not a hazard to live there…otherwise no one would.
Surely New York will have more problems with terrorists, which we won’t know, just like the next Cat 5 Hurricane to hit NO.

@Jennifer:

WTC had less people die then the average deaths in the Civil War.  Should we prepare for civil war casualties again???

Of course not.  We have to look at the real world, not fictional scenarios.  We know that New Orleans WILL be hit by a hurricane in the future.  We KNOW that it will cost billions in damage and hundreds of lives again.  So we do one of two things:

1)  We tell the people they are on their own if they are hit again.  Don’t come crying to the government EXPECTING a hand out. (they might still get one, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.)

or

2)  We tell them it is illegal to move there.  Turn it into camp ground and force them to move above sea level.

What is your comparison supposed to mean?
Terrorist attacks aren’t fictional scenarios.  They’ve happened, and they will happen.  They’ve happened multiple times in NYC, in the same building, no less.  Why doesn’t it meet your argument?
You’d better make a law before telling people it’s illegal to move there.  By the way, are you against people paying taxes towards the gov’t in NO because they are also located in the doomed delta?

Jerm,

Calm down.  I’m not flogging babies in the street.

Yes, as I said, we’d pass a LAW to make it illegal to live in the basin in New Orleans.  Hence the term, it would be illegal to live there.  We could make it a national park, wouldn’t that be grand?  Meanwhile, the people too stupid to figure out they’re living in the bottom of a cereal bowl, would be forced to live in safer (at least from nature) areas.  Win/Win/Win (sicne the eco-freaks would get another park!)

It’s not like we’re talking about moving the city.  We’re talking about not rebuilding it in the flood plains, but rather up on the hills.  How many times you gunna build that sand castle at the edge of the water during low tide and expect it to be standing the next day???

Common, you gotta use common sense.  Stop building strawmen, take a look at what’s really being said, not what you perceive is being said, run it through the machine of your brain and then see if you have a valid arguement against it.

I mean really, would you prefer letting them build the city where we know, beyond a doubt, that it will get flooded out again?  I mean, I view the average person as a compassionate individual willing to help out his or her fellow man, I never said I thought they were intelligent or had common sense! (if they had either, there would be no governments!)

@Jennifer:

Jerm,

Calm down.  I’m not flogging babies in the street.

Don’t worry, I’m not riled up.  I’m enjoying this.  :-D  Plus we are working on our debating skills.

Now, maybe I went too far on a tangent, but my point is: how does one decide an area is unfit to live in, and on what basis?  If you think NO should not be populated because of its elevation, then why not other areas of the US?  I just don’t agree that they are complete idiots for where the chose to live, and, subsequently, don’t deserve any help.

Living ON THE COAST below sea level is a rather unique situation.

When yiu have to go uphill to surf, that is a pretty good clue that you are not in the most safe place from flooding.

And yes, that goes for the Netherlands too.

People think that Bagladesh is “asking for it” with all their flood deaths, yet they are at least a few feet ABOVE sea level, unlike NO.

The problem with getting flood insurance Jen is many. Insurance companies will argue and say it was a hurricane, not a flood. And if you require flood insurance for anybody living below sea level, then insurances would be able to charge more because they know you have no other choice. The government should not support a city like New Orleans by building levies and accepting their tax money, and then when the city becomes flooded you watch them die for a week for two. The government cant take taxes from people and not help them when they are in extreme danger, epically in such mass numbers.

it took 72 hours after the breech of the levees for the National gaurd to get there in mass.  After the storm came many people thought the city dodged a bullet. At the last moments the levees collapsed, water was coming in quickly in the first days.  What do you do, send in troops and other people and resources while the water is rising, so they can get stuck in the city also.  You had to wait a while, for logistics and so you dont have to take extra time saving the men who are supposed to be saving others.  Also there were so many reports of looting, gang activity and other terrible crimes going on, you had an all white heirarchy that did not want to go in there and get swamped by largely african amercian crowds and have to try and fend them off.  They would look terrible trying to do what they had to do, they knew the liberal media would have a hey day on such an occurance.  It would look terrible for america as a whole if you sent in some troops and trucks to the dome and they were over run by thousands of people looking for help at once.  Then what do you do, let all your equipment and resources immdediately be pillaged?  They would then fight each other for the foodstuffs and medical supplies.  Chaos.  Or do you order troops to fight back, white troops on black crowds, let me tell you that’s the last thing the powers to be wanted and they were terrified of it.  Just remember, its all bush’s fault, thats all that is said now and all you need to know i guess.