no its not but I don't see why it has to be directly on the gulf, I maybe wrong. can some ships not make it up the river? if there is a port, a city will grow.
maybe a port similar to houston?? with a man-made ship channel? hey, it's a creative idea. worth exploring. i feel like an ass everytime is say that we shouldn't be rebuilding NOLA in NOLA. i love NOLA. i miss it already. but i don't think it's the best use of resources. and i think you're setting up people for more tragedy.
If you haven't been, Max, I would suggest taking a trip to the Netherlands, which is well worth a visit anyway, and tour their flood control system. We did just that while visiting my wife's relatives there, who took us to different facilities and were amazingly informative. I guess if you're well educated, and you live in a country almost entirely below sea level (where the people live, at any rate), the subject is one of great interest. I will say, without equivocation, that we can make New Orleans, and the area, safe from Cat. 5 hurricanes. All it requires is the political will, and spending the money. A fraction of the tax cuts the Administration has passed since it came into office would cover the cost easily. It's something the nation has a moral obligation to do, in my opinion. Keep D&D Civil.
MadMax; You may be right that New Orleans may never be the same but there is lots of the city that isn't in the bowl, the French Quarter for instance. I think many, even in New Orleans, are starting to realize that New Orleans can't be what it was but in the meantime I think its wrong to not help the city and its residents. Whether much of New Orleans is developed elsewhere we're still looking at figuring out how to relocate those people and get them back on their feet economically and socially. Contrary to the image that most of these people came from nothing so nothing is lost many displaced New Orleaneans are people who've lost years of savings built up in homes and other possesions and now being paid ridiculously low fractions of the value of their homes from insurance and FEMA. You can't just expect someone who's been paying a mortgage for years and now only is getting pennies on the dollar to be able to up and start their lives over again somewhere else. This doesn't just apply to New Orleans but also to many of those along the gulf coast who've been affected.
The Netherlands don't face the kinds of hurricanes NOLA do. I don't see how you can say "without equivocation" we can rebuild it to be safe from Cat 5 hurricanes, when most scientists can not make that claim. Do you know something the rest of us don't?
Look, I didn't mean to imply that we could prevent damage from a storm, but I have no doubt that we could prevent what we have seen happen to New Orleans. It requires the will to do it. I see nothing like the will and the competence required in this Administration to take the steps necessary to make that a reality. Keep D&D Civil.
I get annoyed when the news broadcast programs where people spend ridiculous amounts of money for ocean front real estate, get their homes wiped out by storm, and then the government bails them out every 5 years. Maybe that's what some people are thinking of and blowing it up bigger. The difference here is that the aftermath of Katrina was an engineering failure rather than a case of irresponsible human behavior built upon the assumption that Big Government can pay back their investment. The levees broke and the wetlands (natural levees) were destroyed for human use. We know all this stuff of how not to make a Cat 5 devastate NO.... I live in Socal, and if the big one ever hits, 15 million people are pretty much screwed double over. Are those 15 million fools for living on a fault line? What if Boston froze over, or NY had to build giant walls to prevent itself from sinking? Everywhere we live, there's a battle with nature. It's one reason why people get attached to their location. And yeah, the government should pay. If Big Government and its supporters believe in spying on each and every American for their supposed safety, then they should spend every ****ing cent to get these Americans back on their feet. They're not safe right now. There's no "what if". It's happening. NO Republicans should start up some Swift Boat-like campaign to get their message across: "Spending money on others sound bad, but even you can end up like me."
No, the government should not have to pay. First and most importantly, that is what insurance is for. Second, why should people who choose to live in a safer place foot the bill for those who insistantly live in a known natural disaster zone? This goes for earthquakes, hurricanes or volcanos.
The gov has programs for federal insurance and they already subsidize insurance companies for this kind of thing. Why don't we have a terrorism insurance for people in high metropolitan areas to go along with it? The people who evacuated Houston a couple months ago might believe otherwise. If NO had suffered this type of disaster twice, then you might convince me. This is just a ****ty luck from a circumstance that our current technology could have prevented. Personally, I wouldn't mind a libertarian society where the people foot everything, but that won't happen any time soon the way our budget is balooning. Taking it out on NO from past hurricane disasters seems pretty rough from an outsider's point of view....
As promised I've posted some photos on my company's website here at: http://www.c3homedesign.com/nola/
I can tell you where ours is going.. this was from the 2nd trip down... Along with actually taking items down there physically, we have a link to donate on our website, and the church there in Franklin (outside of NOLA) is an official FEMA shelter and works as a distribution center... they have helped several families relocate temporarily to houses along the Teche corridor. So anyway, you can kind of know where the donations go if you can trust fellow BBSer. btw- You can guess who I am there. When you're a Rockets fan it shows up everywhere...
