Levees of Decline
In New Orleans these days there's a quiet conversation taking place unmasking a deep almost primal fear of a Thursday not too far away... Hurricane season 2006 begins on Thursday June 1st and everyone is either ancy or getting depressed as that date looms and nears.
You hear it in conversations left and right over coffee, drinks or dinner - it always seems to come up and everyone feels it, senses that we're probably going to take another hit. It could simply be the post traumatic stress - but that fear is tangible.
It certainly does not help when articles come out in the Washington Post stating that the Army Corps of Engineeers is either screwing up the levee repairs or defering some obvious weakened levee re-construction for some date down the road and the fact that even now, six months later, the decayed, skeletal remains of people are still being pulled down out of attics or found behind couches.
New Orleans can not take another hit.
And if we do, the already colossal failure by the Army Corps to adequately and by law protect us from hurricanes will be but a footnote in the history of a truly colossal government screw-up.
New Orleans will cease to exist and the price will be paid by everyone in this country in the cost of oil, gas, wheat, steel - you name it.
Newt Gingrich has even opined how the Federal Government must wake up to the fact that South Louisiana's thoroughly weakened coasts is the most crucial issue facing this country and that he is sickened that the United States is spending more money to rebuild Iraq's wetlands than on our own soil.
We must force our government to realize that rebuilding the levees and wetlands of New Orleans and Louisiana is one of the greatest, unescapable challenges to ever face this republic. If we fail at this, it will be the defining moment for the decline of the United States of America.
________
You hear it in conversations left and right over coffee, drinks or dinner - it always seems to come up and everyone feels it, senses that we're probably going to take another hit. It could simply be the post traumatic stress - but that fear is tangible.
It certainly does not help when articles come out in the Washington Post stating that the Army Corps of Engineeers is either screwing up the levee repairs or defering some obvious weakened levee re-construction for some date down the road and the fact that even now, six months later, the decayed, skeletal remains of people are still being pulled down out of attics or found behind couches.
New Orleans can not take another hit.
And if we do, the already colossal failure by the Army Corps to adequately and by law protect us from hurricanes will be but a footnote in the history of a truly colossal government screw-up.
New Orleans will cease to exist and the price will be paid by everyone in this country in the cost of oil, gas, wheat, steel - you name it.
Newt Gingrich has even opined how the Federal Government must wake up to the fact that South Louisiana's thoroughly weakened coasts is the most crucial issue facing this country and that he is sickened that the United States is spending more money to rebuild Iraq's wetlands than on our own soil.
We must force our government to realize that rebuilding the levees and wetlands of New Orleans and Louisiana is one of the greatest, unescapable challenges to ever face this republic. If we fail at this, it will be the defining moment for the decline of the United States of America.
________
Tags:
posted by TAG at 11:44 AM
4 Comments:
Too late, my friend. That happened 1/20/2001. Or, if you want to be racist about it, 1954.
Hey Cousin , I drove the wife and her sister through LAKE VIEW Sunday. They could not belive the damage. They just were overwelmed with what they saw .
Regarding your link to the article about the body in Lakeview last weekend, the gist of the following CNN video link (3/9/06) is that the best cadaver dog teams in the country, having just FINALLY arrived, are being forced out of their NOLA hotel because FEMA won't foot the bill.
Anderson Cooper Video Link
State shares responsibility for the team leaving 12 or so days earlier than expected, but one would think FEMA could learn to think outside the box and juggle a hotel room or two for such an important recovery mission...SIX MONTHS LATER.
CNN story here:
New Orleans dog search teams losing their hotel rooms,
NEW ORLEANS (CNN) -- One of three canine search-and-rescue teams trained to look for bodies left by Hurricane Katrina plans to leave New Orleans after just a few days on the job because there won't be a hotel room to stay in, the men said Wednesday.
Game wardens Wayde Carter and Roger Guay said Louisiana apparently didn't make the proper arrangements with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to guarantee them housing after Thursday night, and their supervisor, Maj. Greg Sanborn, has called them back to Maine. The wardens were to stay in New Orleans until March 21.
Carter and Guay, on loan from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, arrived in Louisiana late last week. On Sunday, their search dogs led firefighters to a man's body in the attic of a house in the flood-swept Lakeview neighborhood. It was the first such discovery in five days of a new hunt for victims. (Posted 1:29 a.m.)
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