Originally posted by Dedwrekka
I do find peoples reactions to things like this strange though. From a professional perspective, if they rebuild NO they are insane. Abandon those bits below sea level, its only gonna get worse with rising sea levels. Anything else is stupid and irresponsible, simple as that.
A) New Orleans is a popular tourist spot of course they will rebuild
Yep - have friends who have family in N.O. and there\'s already talk of how a \"killing\" can be made by developers - buy cheap, sell high.
B) It would have survived the storm had Louisiana (Who incidentaly receives the highest amount of money for flood prevention) spent the government money that was given to them for the purpose of preventing flooding, on flood prevention instead of pet projects. The levies did not break, it was the inadiquate walls that connect the levies that broke. (I probably mispelled levies)
I find this a little hard to believe considering Scientific American had a large story in a 2001 issue about N.O. Apparently, an \"audit\" was done (at N.O./state\'s expense) to target all the areas/projects that needed to be done to protect N.O. and the surrounding areas. For example, the Mississippi river has been dredged for years to keep it a deep water river for trade boats. Normally, the silt that would was down the river and empty into the sea would re-build the sandbars/islands/marshy areas south of N.O. and those help protect the city from hurricanes. This article listed re-building those islands, etc. as ONE way to help protect the area.
Anyway, all the projects were just too expensive for the city to do - especially considering that most of the people that lived in the city were below poverty level and they just weren\'t getting enough taxes. They asked the federal government for help and yet none was forthcoming.
I\'m very personally pissed off that George W. went through all the money Clinton had saved (\"can we say no deficit\") in just a few years. That\'s a HUGE fact that people just don\'t seem to remember. If we still had all that money there would have been more than enough to help rebuild N.O.\'s defenses.
C) That place is a mad house now, people have been firing at the cops who try to get them out. People are being trampled while getting onto the buses that lead out. Not many cities are willing to accept evacuees anymore due to either overcrowding or the fact that the crimes being comited in New Orleans now (Looting, theft, murder, numerous others that I will not mention) are following the evacuees like a specter and are reaching new hights in Houston and Dallas, where many have fled too.
See above note about most of the people in N.O. being below poverty level - enough said. Basically, it just sucks.
D) The National Guard took so long to get out there mainly because New Orleans was not the worst hit place by the storm, though it has been the most televised.
The National Guard took so long because they were in damned Iraq. But, there were plenty of other options that the FEMA officials should have thought of - even if it was just to bring over MP\'s from neighboring Forts. Here again - the guy heading FEMA is totally useless AND a buddy of George W.\'s - enough said.
E) The president was on vacation, what did you expect him to do? Command the storm to stop? Run into an unstable place that could rightly be called a war zone now that people have split into gangs for survival against the other gangs? I\'m not particularly pro-Bush or even pro-anything, but I\'m tired of people blameing this one guy when something goes wrong.
No, but you do expect the jackass to at least say SOMETHING in light of the tragedy. Yes, he was on vacation, but he\'s the President for goodness sakes! Of course, all this backlash against the Pres. for this one incident shows you how PERSPECTIVE can play into a situation. It SEEMS the President doesn\'t care - whether he does or not the people of the U.S. now PERCEIVE that he doesn\'t. He\'s a politician and knows how that game is played. Vacation or not he should\'ve done something sooner.
F) If your going to photoshop a picture at least remove the reflected image of the cameraman and the open sea from his glasses.
Well nobody\'s perfect (look under George W. in the dictionary).
Thanks Finn! I personally laughed when I saw it because I can\'t stand the man (in case no one else has figured that out

) and I thought it was very fitting - if tasteless.
@Trevor - I had the exact same thought - why the heck build there again! I\'m hoping that the city gets bulldozed so that they can start all over again and if they do build they\'ll do it smarter next time. (Although I have many doubts about that! Greed always seems to win out vs. human needs/common-sense.)
*gets down off soap-box now*