I'm gong to do something a little different with the section of the Oread Daily now known either as 1)Dispatches from America, 2)Class War in America, 3)The Lawson File (named after an old working class guy who used to live down the street from us way back in the early 70 in Lawrence, Kansas who to be honest I just remember as Mr. Lawson). Anyway, whatever you want to call it today's version will be about the continuing debates in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina's visit to New Orleans (the city is pictured here from way up in space). I'm going to start with an introduction, which is actually an email from a friend who resides in New Orleans, Lance Hill (who is the Executive Director of the Southern Institute for Education and Research at Tulane University). I think his comments and the op/ed piece and following discussion he refers to fit well the idea of bringing to the "left" issues that impact real everyday Americans...The op/ed piece and the ensuing back and forth come from the Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin. It's really, really long so it is all I'm posting today.
Okay, first from Lance:
And now below is the op/ed piece and the discussion that followed.
New Orleans must be on candidates' agendas
Jeanne Carpenter, guest columnist — 10/04/2007 11:18 am
More than two years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans continues to struggle with rebuilding homes, hospitals and businesses and at the same time is undergoing a colossal shift in the cultural makeup of the city.
As a member of the Wisconsin Rural Leadership Program, I joined 34 other leaders-in-training and spent seven days recently in New Orleans, meeting with state and community leaders to discuss the aftereffects of the hurricane. We also spent a day at a work site, helping to remove mold-covered walls and interiors from a home in the 6th Ward and helping paint another home.
One of the most important things we learned was that the majority of those affected by the aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina were middle-class homeowners and taxpayers. Whether you lived in the Lower 9th Ward, which was predominantly African-American, or uptown, which was a mixture of whites, Creoles and African-Americans, Katrina knew no color boundaries. Thousands of families lost their homes to floodwaters.
Today, the majority of those homeowners are still struggling to navigate the federal bureaucracy and rebuild their lives.
One of the most disturbing things we learned was that the Red Cross was not allowed to enter the city during the five days after the levees broke. They stood at the city limits, wanting to give people water, food and medical service. Who did their orders come from? The federal government.
The feds were working on their own evacuation plan, which was to wait until they had enough buses to evacuate all 20,000 people from the Superdome and Convention Center at the same time. It took five days for that to happen. In the meantime, you know what happened. Those who had no way to leave the city sat in the baking sun and suffered. Several died of dehydration and lack of medical care.
We met with a number of elected officials, including Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, a New Orleans City Council member. Her district, which includes the Upper 9th Ward and Gentilly neighborhood, transformed into some of the city's most devastated neighborhoods after more than 12 feet of water poured into parts of it.
Today, with the city dotted with FEMA trailers and hundreds of front doors still marked with a spray-painted "X" that includes the number of bodies found inside, Hedge-Morrell continues to work with her constituents and help them move home. Her district lost the majority of its taxpayers and homeowners. In an emotional speech, she told us she felt she had even lost her city.
We met with Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, who is pushing for Congress to appoint an "8/29 Commission" to investigate what went wrong before and after the levees broke. There were as many as 28 breaches in the levees around the city in the hours after Hurricane Katrina hit. Weeks later, more than 1,800 were dead, hundreds of homes were simply washed away, and thousands more were uninhabitable.
We heard from Lance Hill, executive director of the Southern Institute for Education and Research at Tulane University. He remained in the city during the hurricane, and afterward made four trips to the Superdome to deliver water, baby formula and other items to those waiting to be evacuated. He went back a fifth time only to be ordered to retreat at gunpoint by National Guard members who were "protecting" those stranded at the Superdome.
It is still remarkably easy to witness the physical destruction the breaking of the levees caused. Homes are abandoned, businesses shuttered, hospitals torn down. Less noticeable, however, is the effect the disaster has had on the cultural makeup of the city.
New Orleans is emerging with a white political majority, where African-Americans once comprised 70 percent of the population. In addition, we witnessed firsthand that the trust among the city's ethnic groups is gone. Crime is skyrocketing. City services are still limited. I talked with an elderly lady whose house burned down last month because when firefighters arrived, they could not find a working fire hydrant to which they could hook their hoses.
We need to have higher expectations for the leaders we elect and hold them to those standards. We need to work with our national and local leaders to make sure America does not forget the city of New Orleans. This should be on the platform of every presidential candidate. Please join me in ensuring the people of New Orleans are not forgotten.
Jeanne Carpenter lives in Oregon and is a member of the Wisconsin Rural Leadership Program.
COMMENTS: (hope you can follow this, but if you can't just go to http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/249378 and it'll be easier )
Bill says:
Why are the US government and we taxpayers rebuilding a city that is below sea level and is still in danger of being devastated again due to its geography? This is similar to our insane federal flood insurance program that allows homeowners to rebuild on barrier islands that are repeatedly hit by hurricanes.
I recently read that the federal govt. has spent over $450,000 per New Orleans citizen so far due to Katrina. Enough is enough.
I will personally vote for the politician that has the guts to pull the plug on New Orleans.
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Will says:
For that matter, let's pull the plug on all the government subsidized, unsustainable projects out there . . . lessee . . . the oil corporations, the automobile corporations, the clearcutting industry, hell, let's just yank Wall Street while we're at it.
What? Oh, yeah. Those guys aren't poor, or black.
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doctorj says:
Bill,
$450,000? What a joke! It is amazing that Americans get their news from viral e-mails. These are the facts Bill. About $100 billion dollars were spent in the ENTIRE Gulf South. Most of this was spent directly after the storm in rescue and debris removal. 35 billion is 'allocated' for recovery efforts such as rebuilding efforts like sewerage and electrical grids. Only half of this money has been spent. The rest is tied up in mountains of red tape. Of the tax relief incentives, less than 1% has been used in New Orleans. If you don't want to help your fellow TAX PAYING citizens, let us go. We will be glad to tax America for taking our oil and gas (30% of this nations reserve). We will be glad to put tariffs on all the grain that goes through our port. We will be glad to make sure you pay throught he nose for seafood produced in our fisheries. Then we could use proceeds to make our citizens safe, rebuilding our levees THE RIGHT WAY and restoring wetlands that our own government had a hand in destroying. Is this the America you want? American against American. Is this what we have become?
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doctorj says:
Here is a video of the reality of New Orleans 2 years after the storm. It shows the worst and the best of America. Bill, notice all the money flowing around. We are having the BEST time on your tax dollar. The building project shown is the largest organized rebuilding project, the Musician's Village. In two years volunteers have built 50 houses.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=VzPnZW0_mPQ
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Bill says:
I'm for helping our fellow citizens but I'm not for wasting billions of dollar to try to rebuild a geographic mistake. How many times does New Orleans have to be destroyed before we decide not to keep throwing money at it.
I'm specifically talking about the City of New Orleans and the fact it is built in a bowl below sea level. Everyday I hear and read about this crisis or that crisis that needs funding. Some I agree with, others I do not, but, spending money to rebuild another disaster in waiting is wasteful.
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doctorj says:
Are you for deserting the state of California too? The Big One WILL happen in San Francisco. Are you for deserting Miami, New York and Washington, DC? They will go under with rising sea levels. Where do you draw the line? And, just to let you know, 50% of New Orleans is at or above sea level.
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Anonymous says:
Echo Bill. As for Dr.J, San Fran already rebuilt after a quake w/o the gov't. Why don't you just write the checks for everyone everywhere you think may be 'deserted'. Leave us out of it.
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Bill says:
DoctorJ- You are right with the question- 'where do you draw the line'. Basically we will bankrupt the country if we take out all the financial risk and bail out every bad decision made by these communities that want to live in geographic areas that are not suitable for long-term human habitation. I thought this is one of the big issues the environmentalists are concerned about.
Don't get me wrong, San Francisco is in a beautiful location, but it is another disaster waiting to happen. Would you build a large city at the foot of an active volcano? No, its all about time frames and assuming that the next disaster won't happen while you are around, or if it happens, the federal govt. will bail you out.
Liberals are always trying to get tax money for social costs associated with bad decisions, why aren't they doing the same for bad decisions to locate in dangerous areas?
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Sandi
Bill:
Why are the US government and we taxpayers rebuilding a city that is below sea level and is still in danger of being devastated again due to its geography?
Because if we don't we will be called "racist" which is fine with me. I know I am not.
doctorj:
Are you for deserting the state of California too? The Big One WILL happen in San Francisco. Are you for deserting Miami, New York and Washington, DC? They will go under with rising sea levels. Where do you draw the line?
Yes, yes, yes, and yes. As Bill says, S Fran has been destroyed before without our help, and will again. The people who live there know it is coming. As for sea levels rising, if it does, it will happen over years, not hours or days. I think that gives them plenty of time to move out.
One thing I will never understand. When a natural disaster strikes, why is the cumulative pain of many, considered worse that each individuals pain. A fire that destroys one house and kills a loved one, can be equally as painful to them as each and every Katrina victim's pain. Truth is, it isn't that their pain is more, it's that our feelings are stirred more.
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Bayou Bob says:
There is nothing unsafe about living in New Orleans that prudent policies on coastal erosion (caused by the oil companies)and global warming (caused by the energy and construction companies) cannot solve through reasonable environmental policies and properly built and maintained flood controls. We could elevate the entire state of Louisiana fifty feet for the $190 billion we are spending to reduce Iraq to rubble. The government underwrites the oil industry so people can live warmly in frigid climates unfit for human habitation. No place on the planet is safe these days from some man-made or natural disaster, be it wind, water, or pandemic. I live in New Orleans and you couldn't pay me to live in New York after 9/11. But I sure as hell support spending billions to make New York safe for those who choose to live in harms way. We don't expect people to invent and produce their own bird flu vaccine, do we? Let's use our inventivness and compassion which has defined us as a nation from the beginning to solve our problems rather than tell people to move every time in rains or a tick bites someone. We are a great nation built by pioneers and visionaries who overcame conditions that rest of Europe thought were insurmountable and insane to endure. What has happened to that spirit? Japan and other countries have build virtual cities out of garbage dumps in the middle of the sea and the Neatherlands are much safer surrounded by well-engineered dikes than any American in a double-wide trailer in tornado alley. Maybe we should all move to Wisconsin?
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Donna
Bill wrote:
Why are the US government and we taxpayers rebuilding a city that is below sea level and is still in danger of being devastated again due to its geography?
Sandi replied:
Because if we don't we will be called "racist" which is fine with me. I know I am not.
No, not racist. Simply uninformed.
Take out a map and look at the location of New Orleans. You will see that it's located at the conjunction of the Mississippi River and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. Our agricultural products from the Midwest flow down the Mississippi and are exported through the port of New Orleans. It's where we import many of the goods critical for our country, such as steel and crude oil. There are tens of thousands of cargo ships, barges and cruise ships that come through this port every year. This spot is arguably the most critical for the economy of our entire country. You can't move a major port away from sea level and you can't have a port of this size without it being connected to a city. Otherwise, where do you expect all of the people who work at the port to work? Do you expect them to move a hundred miles inland and commute to work every day?
All of our major ports are very close to sea level, including some that are below (Boston, New York, and Miami, for example). In fact, the major port cities throughout the world are, by definition, close to sea level.
New Orleans is also central to the oil industry. About 15% of the country's oil comes from Louisiana's gulf region. The refineries are in the New Orleans area and the oil is shipped up the Mississippi. Again, the people who work at the refineries and in the oil industries need a place to live.
It's simply ignorant to imply that we can move a major port city to a place away from the water. The challenge is to protect it from flooding. The Netherlands has solved that problem, as half of their country is below sea level. With global warming we need to start working on improving our infrastructure to protect our port cities from rising sea levels. If we don't, it's going to destroy our economy.
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Sandi
Donna:
Take out a map and look at the location of New Orleans. You will see that it's located at the conjunction of the Mississippi River and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.
It is also below sea level, and unlike the Dutch we don't build proper levees to allow safe living below sea level.
Donna:
Our agricultural products from the Midwest flow down the Mississippi and are exported through the port of New Orleans. It's where we import many of the goods critical for our country, such as steel and crude oil.
True. So how is traffic flow on the Mississippi dependent on residents living below sea level in NO? It isn't, port support people could just as easily live in close areas above sea level.
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Donna
Donna wrote:
Take out a map and look at the location of New Orleans. You will see that it's located at the conjunction of the Mississippi River and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.
Sandi replied:
It is also below sea level, and unlike the Dutch we don't build proper levees to allow safe living below sea level
Part of New Orleans is a couple of feet below sea level. The rest, where most of the people live, is above sea level.
Yes, we don't build proper levees. That's not the same as saying that we CAN'T build proper levees. Given the choice between actually doing the job right and just deciding not to rebuild a major port city that is crucial to our economy, I choose doing the job right. That includes building proper levees and re-building the wetlands.
Donna wrote:
Our agricultural products from the Midwest flow down the Mississippi and are exported through the port of New Orleans. It's where we import many of the goods critical for our country, such as steel and crude oil.
Sandi replied:
True. So how is traffic flow on the Mississippi dependent on residents living below sea level in NO? It isn't, port support people could just as easily live in close areas above sea level.
Yes, and most people in NO do live in areas above sea level. Only a very small portion of the city is as much as ten feet below sea level. About half is above sea level, some at sea level, and the rest is less only one or two feet below.
Keep in mind that the problem with the flooding after Katrina was not the sea or even the hurricane. It was that the city was below the level of the lake and the levees holding back the lake failed. The elevation relative to the sea was irrelevant.
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Sandi
Yes, and most people in NO do live in areas above sea level. Only a very small portion of the city is as much as ten feet below sea level. About half is above sea level, some at sea level, and the rest is less only one or two feet below.
Two feet or ten makes little difference. And where was the greater damage, below or above sea level? I think you have made my point.
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Donna
I'm not sure what your point is, Sandi.
In any case, if you located next to a lake when the levees that are holding it back break, and you're at an elevation lower than the lake, you're going to get flooded whether your elevation is 5 feet below sea level or 500 feet above seal level.
The places that got flooded were closest to the levee breaches.
The Times-Picayune has a great interactive site that shows how all of this happened. Note the areas that were flooded were between the lakes and the river. Also note that as long as they were below the lakes, they were going to get flooded. As the paper pointed out
An estimated 98 percent of the damaged property in St. Bernard sustained major damage, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency statistics. The storm surge combined with canal breaches to inundate Chalmette and Arabi, even where land was several feet above sea level.
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Sandi
The more you argue the better my position looks.
Donna:
In any case, if you located next to a lake when the levees that are holding it back break, and you're at an elevation lower than the lake, you're going to get flooded whether your elevation is 5 feet below sea level or 500 feet above seal level.
Umm.. Donna anyone 500 feet above sea level would be safe from all but a tsunami, and a bad one at that.
The places that got flooded were closest to the levee breaches.
Yes, thank you.
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Donna
Sandi, it is clear to me that you don't have a clue what I'm talking about. I assumed you knew too much. I'll take it one step at a time.
1) Sea level measures elevation in comparison to the sea (ocean). For sea level to be relevant, the water that caused the flood would have had to come from the sea. In Katrina, it did not. The levees were holding back lakes. They were not holding back the ocean.
2) The places that got flooded were next to the lakes--not the ocean.
3) What was important in terms of flooding from water in the lakes is the relative height according to the lakes. These neighborhoods were lower than the lakes, so they got flooded. Whether or not they were lower than the sea had nothing to do with it.
Sandi said:
Umm.. Donna anyone 500 feet above sea level would be safe from all but a tsunami, and a bad one at that.
Again, you are assuming the water came from the sea. It came from the lakes.
Imagine a lake at the top of a mountain with a dam holding it back. Think of a town in the valley below. The lake is 4,000 feet above sea level. The town is 1,000 feet above see level. The dam breaks. The water falls down from the lake and floods the town.
The town is not safe from flooding just because the water in some distant ocean can't reach it.
I don't know how much simpler I can make this. -
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Sandi
Imagine a lake at the top of a mountain with a dam holding it back. Think of a town in the valley below. The lake is 4,000 feet above sea level. The town is 1,000 feet above see level. The dam breaks. The water falls down from the lake and floods the town.
WTF has that to do with anything? There is no place around NO that is 1000 feet let alone 4000.
:roll: :roll: :roll:
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Donna
Sorry, Sandi. I forgot. You traditionally aren't very good with understanding analogies. I'll try to make it more clear so you can understand.
Here's the original post.
Imagine a lake at the top of a mountain with a dam holding it back. Think of a town in the valley below. The lake is 4,000 feet above sea level. The town is 1,000 feet above see level. The dam breaks. The water falls down from the lake and floods the town.
The ocean is, by definition, at sea level. The flooded areas of the city are anywhere from a couple of feet below sea level to a couple of feet above it.
When Katrina hit, these places were not flooded in spite of storm surges.
These parishes are right next to two lakes. These are held back by levees up to sixty feet above sea level. The levees failed, dumping the contents of the lakes on the parishes below.
Neighborhoods that were a couple of feet below sea level got flooded just as badly as those that were a couple of feet above sea level. The reason they were flooded is that they were at a lower elevation than the lake and they were close to the lake.
The only way they could have avoided flooding is by being higher than the lake (i.e., above 60 feet). Whether or not they were higher than the ocean (sea level) had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
(Sandi, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you don't understand, but, really, I think you are yanking my chain.)
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Skyflynn
Sandi:
Two feet or ten makes little difference. And where was the greater damage, below or above sea level? I think you have made my point.
Can you really not understand this? Your only point seems to be on top of your head.
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Rocksolid
I don't give a rats ass about the people in that city complaining. They decided to live there and were subject to a natural disaster. Deal with it. Don't ask for others to pay for your mistake on living there. In a perfect world the whole area would have been submerged under water like it should be, but that's not the case. Instead, since land is available people build and bitch when it goes under. I choose to live in WI where some tornados come through. If my house gets demolished I don't expect others to pay for my misfortune. That's why I have INSURANCE!
In summary, I don't care where you live just don't expect ME to pay for your stupid decisions!!! You can live under sea level, but if you get wiped out don't expect MY money to bail you out!!!
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Donna
Wow, rocksolid. I hope for your sake you don't have some sort of a disaster and find out what many of the Katrina victims discovered. Insurance companies aren't necessarily honest. Many of these victims actually were insured. In fact, if they had mortgages, which just about everyone does, they would have been required to have insurance. The problem is that homeowners insurance companies refuse to pay for floods. Flood insurance companies say the damage wasn't flood damage, it was caused by the hurricane. So the homeowners are stuck in the middle. Or, the companies are giving them low-ball, take-it-or-leave-it offers for settlements much lower than their properties are worth.
In any case, here's why we should pay. These properties weren't destroyed by the hurricane. They were destroyed two days later when the levees broke. It was our government that built the levees and was responsible for maintaining them. Our government blew it. Our government is ultimately responsible and should pay for their mistake.
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Sandi
Donna:
Wow, rocksolid. I hope for your sake you don't have some sort of a disaster and find out what many of the Katrina victims discovered.
What many of the Katrina victims found out is that it doesn't always work to sit on your ass as wait for the good old government to come and save you. Sometimes you have to get off your ass and do something for yourself.
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Donna
What many of the Katrina victims found out is that it doesn't always work to sit on your ass as wait for the good old government to come and save you. Sometimes you have to get off your ass and do something for yourself.
Sandi, you sound like Marie Antoinette saying "let them eat cake".
Keep in mind that most of these people survived the hurricane. It's the flooding from the levee failures that killed them.
In any big city a very large percentage of the population does not have cars. They move around the city itself either by walking, riding bicycles or taking public transportation. They can't just hop in their cars and drive away. They can't just walk from NO to Baton Rouge. The airports were shut down early. You can't get tens of thousands of people on a couple of Greyhound buses. What, exactly, do you expect them to do? Grow wings and fly out of town?
There are also plenty of people who had very good reasons to stay. Nursing home and hospital patients could not leave, nor could the staff who had responsibility for caring for them. Other people had medical reasons to stay near the hospitals, such as scheduled dialysis or chemotherapy. Some of the women were about to give birth. Some city workers were required to stay.
I'm sure you, Sandi, would have been in the "personal responsibility" crowd trying to get out on your own. Many people tried to walk out of town but were prevented from doing so by the police. These were the people who ended up stranded on highway overpasses or sent back to the Convention Center. One group of tourists actually got together and chartered a bus to pick them up, but the government hijacked the bus to rescue other people. Others left their homes and walked to the SuperDome or the Convention Center, as they were instructed to do. We all saw how that turned out.
It's very easy to sit up here in Wisconsin and judge others. As long as you can find some way to label them inferior, then you can feel smug and not feel any responsibility for helping them. You can feel justified in demanding that your tax dollars not be spent on helping these irresponsible people. Lord save us from the compassionate conservatives and Social Darwinists.
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Sandi
Keep in mind that most of these people survived the hurricane. It's the flooding from the levee failures that killed them.
No shit! :roll:
In any big city a very large percentage of the population does not have cars. They move around the city itself either by walking, riding bicycles or taking public transportation.
Then why didn't they walk or bike their way out? Because they were sitting on their ass with their arms folded. The government is my daddy. Come and save me.
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Donna
Quote:
Keep in mind that most of these people survived the hurricane. It's the flooding from the levee failures that killed them.
Sandi replied:
No shit!
Good. I'm glad you understand that. Now let's take it a step further.
If you are talking about the fact that they did not leave before the levees broke, then you are faulting them for deciding their shelter was strong enough to hold them trhough a hurricane. If that's your argument, then my point is that people made the right choice--they actually did survive the hurricane. They did not realize the levees were going to also break.
If you are talking about the fact that they did not leave after the levees broke, then you're ignoring the fact that it was too late. Their homes filled up with water and their only way out was through the roof.
Which point are you trying to make?
Then why didn't they walk or bike their way out? Because they were sitting on their ass with their arms folded. The government is my daddy. Come and save me.
If you are asking why they didn't walk or bike their way out before the hurricane, let's assume they are able-bodied. A high number were not. But, for the sake of argument, you don't get out of the way of a hurricane by walking a couple of miles. To get completely out of the way would mean going, perhaps, to Baton Rouge. That's about 75 miles. They certainly would have gotten caught in the storm on their way. The smarter move was to go to some sort of shelter strong enough to withstand the storm, such as the SuperDome.
If you are asking why they didn't walk or bike their way out after the levees broke, then the massive flooding is the obvious answer. For those able to find their way, they were prevented from leaving by the police blocking the overpass.
You choose to see these people as lazy and dependent. I see them as pretty resourceful people. Imagine your home is flooding quickly. Your only hope is to run up to attic. While the water is actually rushing up to the attic level, now your only hope is to find some sort of a tool to smash a hole in the roof and climb out. Anyone who made it that far is a survivor--not a lazy person unable to think and dependent on the government. By the time they make it all the way up to their rooftops, I'm not going to fault them for needing help to get rescued.
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Sandi
If you are talking about the fact that they did not leave before the levees broke, then you are faulting them for deciding their shelter was strong enough to hold them trhough a hurricane. If that's your argument, then my point is that people made the right choice--they actually did survive the hurricane. They did not realize the levees were going to also break.
If you are talking about the fact that they did not leave after the levees broke, then you're ignoring the fact that it was too late. Their homes filled up with water and their only way out was through the roof.
Please let me make my own argument. No, I'm not arguing when they left. Only that many didn't leave at all, because daddy didn't come and get them.
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Donna
Ahh, that explains it, Sandi. You haven't thought your own argument through.
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Sandi
donna:
Ahh, that explains it, Sandi. You haven't thought your own argument through.
Translation. I haven't agreed with you. :)
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Donna
Sandi, you don't even know your own argument, so how can I agree or disagree with it?
As far as I can see, it's that people should have left on their own. OK. When? Before the hurricane? Between the time that Katrina hit and the levees failed? After the levees failed?
Who, specifically are you talking about? The people on the roofs? The people in Charity Hospitals and nursing homes? The people in the SuperDome and Convention Center? The people stuck under the overpasses?
And, how, exactly, do you propose that they leave? The only indication I have is that you think they should have walked or biked 75 miles to Baton Rouge.
Your argument is that "many didn't leave at all because Daddy didn't come and get them". All that I'm asking you to do is define who you mean by "many", when they should have left, and what other options they had.
Have the courage of your own convictions to stand up and explain why you think the way you do. Otherwise it just comes across as yet another one of your unsubstantiated attacks on the character of other people.
Okay, first from Lance:
Here's a recent op-ed by a member of a Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce leadership group that visited a few weeks ago. They got some of the facts wrong but the conclusion is heartening. I think that "Katrina Fatigue" (a term invented by right wing Bay Buchannan--Pat Buchanan's sister--to prematurely head off the debate on Busch's bungling of the recovery) is largely a disease of older white Americans. I sense just the opposite among young people, African Americans, and women. They comprise a growing social justice movement that views New Orleans as the symbol of our nation's misplaced priorities and domestic failures. Over one million volunteers have come to the gulf coast in the last two years and their future plans are even more expansive.
The remarkable turn-out for the Jena 6 case protest, and the widespread interest in the issue among young New Orleans' blacks, is reflective of a generation is search of a cause and a movement. In one sense, the local excitement about the Jena 6 case represents displaced anger at post-Katrina racism in New Orleans, which is more subtle and harder to organize around. There are no hangmans nooses hanging from the shuttered Charity Hospital in New Orleans, yet this policy of neglect inflicts real suffering and even death upon poor, uninsured blacks.
I found the exchange by the op-ed readers telling--one Wisconsinite makes a very eloquent case against the misleading argument that building below sea-level is foolish. He points out that trade-nations need ocean ports and ports are by definition at or below sea level and inherently vulnerable. Protecting a port city like New Orleans and the people who make it work is the price we pay for international trade. I would add much of the fertile farmland in the United states is alluvial bottomland created by river flooding, and that living and farming under the protection of levees has contributed greatly to the economic prosperity of the nation. As I have pointed out before, the only thing protecting Uptown New Orleans from a tsunamic flood when the Mississippi River is at its highest stage in the spring is the Mississippi River levee. Every neighborhood in New Orleans deserves the same protection and security. We are a city of faith in more ways than one (consider the performance of the Saints football team).
There is no "safe place" in the world today: only "safer places" made so by compassionate and caring citizens and their governments.
And now below is the op/ed piece and the discussion that followed.
New Orleans must be on candidates' agendas
Jeanne Carpenter, guest columnist — 10/04/2007 11:18 am
More than two years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans continues to struggle with rebuilding homes, hospitals and businesses and at the same time is undergoing a colossal shift in the cultural makeup of the city.
As a member of the Wisconsin Rural Leadership Program, I joined 34 other leaders-in-training and spent seven days recently in New Orleans, meeting with state and community leaders to discuss the aftereffects of the hurricane. We also spent a day at a work site, helping to remove mold-covered walls and interiors from a home in the 6th Ward and helping paint another home.
One of the most important things we learned was that the majority of those affected by the aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina were middle-class homeowners and taxpayers. Whether you lived in the Lower 9th Ward, which was predominantly African-American, or uptown, which was a mixture of whites, Creoles and African-Americans, Katrina knew no color boundaries. Thousands of families lost their homes to floodwaters.
Today, the majority of those homeowners are still struggling to navigate the federal bureaucracy and rebuild their lives.
One of the most disturbing things we learned was that the Red Cross was not allowed to enter the city during the five days after the levees broke. They stood at the city limits, wanting to give people water, food and medical service. Who did their orders come from? The federal government.
The feds were working on their own evacuation plan, which was to wait until they had enough buses to evacuate all 20,000 people from the Superdome and Convention Center at the same time. It took five days for that to happen. In the meantime, you know what happened. Those who had no way to leave the city sat in the baking sun and suffered. Several died of dehydration and lack of medical care.
We met with a number of elected officials, including Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, a New Orleans City Council member. Her district, which includes the Upper 9th Ward and Gentilly neighborhood, transformed into some of the city's most devastated neighborhoods after more than 12 feet of water poured into parts of it.
Today, with the city dotted with FEMA trailers and hundreds of front doors still marked with a spray-painted "X" that includes the number of bodies found inside, Hedge-Morrell continues to work with her constituents and help them move home. Her district lost the majority of its taxpayers and homeowners. In an emotional speech, she told us she felt she had even lost her city.
We met with Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, who is pushing for Congress to appoint an "8/29 Commission" to investigate what went wrong before and after the levees broke. There were as many as 28 breaches in the levees around the city in the hours after Hurricane Katrina hit. Weeks later, more than 1,800 were dead, hundreds of homes were simply washed away, and thousands more were uninhabitable.
We heard from Lance Hill, executive director of the Southern Institute for Education and Research at Tulane University. He remained in the city during the hurricane, and afterward made four trips to the Superdome to deliver water, baby formula and other items to those waiting to be evacuated. He went back a fifth time only to be ordered to retreat at gunpoint by National Guard members who were "protecting" those stranded at the Superdome.
It is still remarkably easy to witness the physical destruction the breaking of the levees caused. Homes are abandoned, businesses shuttered, hospitals torn down. Less noticeable, however, is the effect the disaster has had on the cultural makeup of the city.
New Orleans is emerging with a white political majority, where African-Americans once comprised 70 percent of the population. In addition, we witnessed firsthand that the trust among the city's ethnic groups is gone. Crime is skyrocketing. City services are still limited. I talked with an elderly lady whose house burned down last month because when firefighters arrived, they could not find a working fire hydrant to which they could hook their hoses.
We need to have higher expectations for the leaders we elect and hold them to those standards. We need to work with our national and local leaders to make sure America does not forget the city of New Orleans. This should be on the platform of every presidential candidate. Please join me in ensuring the people of New Orleans are not forgotten.
Jeanne Carpenter lives in Oregon and is a member of the Wisconsin Rural Leadership Program.
COMMENTS: (hope you can follow this, but if you can't just go to http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/249378 and it'll be easier )
Bill says:
Why are the US government and we taxpayers rebuilding a city that is below sea level and is still in danger of being devastated again due to its geography? This is similar to our insane federal flood insurance program that allows homeowners to rebuild on barrier islands that are repeatedly hit by hurricanes.
I recently read that the federal govt. has spent over $450,000 per New Orleans citizen so far due to Katrina. Enough is enough.
I will personally vote for the politician that has the guts to pull the plug on New Orleans.
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Will says:
For that matter, let's pull the plug on all the government subsidized, unsustainable projects out there . . . lessee . . . the oil corporations, the automobile corporations, the clearcutting industry, hell, let's just yank Wall Street while we're at it.
What? Oh, yeah. Those guys aren't poor, or black.
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doctorj says:
Bill,
$450,000? What a joke! It is amazing that Americans get their news from viral e-mails. These are the facts Bill. About $100 billion dollars were spent in the ENTIRE Gulf South. Most of this was spent directly after the storm in rescue and debris removal. 35 billion is 'allocated' for recovery efforts such as rebuilding efforts like sewerage and electrical grids. Only half of this money has been spent. The rest is tied up in mountains of red tape. Of the tax relief incentives, less than 1% has been used in New Orleans. If you don't want to help your fellow TAX PAYING citizens, let us go. We will be glad to tax America for taking our oil and gas (30% of this nations reserve). We will be glad to put tariffs on all the grain that goes through our port. We will be glad to make sure you pay throught he nose for seafood produced in our fisheries. Then we could use proceeds to make our citizens safe, rebuilding our levees THE RIGHT WAY and restoring wetlands that our own government had a hand in destroying. Is this the America you want? American against American. Is this what we have become?
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doctorj says:
Here is a video of the reality of New Orleans 2 years after the storm. It shows the worst and the best of America. Bill, notice all the money flowing around. We are having the BEST time on your tax dollar. The building project shown is the largest organized rebuilding project, the Musician's Village. In two years volunteers have built 50 houses.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=VzPnZW0_mPQ
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Bill says:
I'm for helping our fellow citizens but I'm not for wasting billions of dollar to try to rebuild a geographic mistake. How many times does New Orleans have to be destroyed before we decide not to keep throwing money at it.
I'm specifically talking about the City of New Orleans and the fact it is built in a bowl below sea level. Everyday I hear and read about this crisis or that crisis that needs funding. Some I agree with, others I do not, but, spending money to rebuild another disaster in waiting is wasteful.
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doctorj says:
Are you for deserting the state of California too? The Big One WILL happen in San Francisco. Are you for deserting Miami, New York and Washington, DC? They will go under with rising sea levels. Where do you draw the line? And, just to let you know, 50% of New Orleans is at or above sea level.
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Anonymous says:
Echo Bill. As for Dr.J, San Fran already rebuilt after a quake w/o the gov't. Why don't you just write the checks for everyone everywhere you think may be 'deserted'. Leave us out of it.
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Bill says:
DoctorJ- You are right with the question- 'where do you draw the line'. Basically we will bankrupt the country if we take out all the financial risk and bail out every bad decision made by these communities that want to live in geographic areas that are not suitable for long-term human habitation. I thought this is one of the big issues the environmentalists are concerned about.
Don't get me wrong, San Francisco is in a beautiful location, but it is another disaster waiting to happen. Would you build a large city at the foot of an active volcano? No, its all about time frames and assuming that the next disaster won't happen while you are around, or if it happens, the federal govt. will bail you out.
Liberals are always trying to get tax money for social costs associated with bad decisions, why aren't they doing the same for bad decisions to locate in dangerous areas?
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Sandi
Bill:
Why are the US government and we taxpayers rebuilding a city that is below sea level and is still in danger of being devastated again due to its geography?
Because if we don't we will be called "racist" which is fine with me. I know I am not.
doctorj:
Are you for deserting the state of California too? The Big One WILL happen in San Francisco. Are you for deserting Miami, New York and Washington, DC? They will go under with rising sea levels. Where do you draw the line?
Yes, yes, yes, and yes. As Bill says, S Fran has been destroyed before without our help, and will again. The people who live there know it is coming. As for sea levels rising, if it does, it will happen over years, not hours or days. I think that gives them plenty of time to move out.
One thing I will never understand. When a natural disaster strikes, why is the cumulative pain of many, considered worse that each individuals pain. A fire that destroys one house and kills a loved one, can be equally as painful to them as each and every Katrina victim's pain. Truth is, it isn't that their pain is more, it's that our feelings are stirred more.
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Bayou Bob says:
There is nothing unsafe about living in New Orleans that prudent policies on coastal erosion (caused by the oil companies)and global warming (caused by the energy and construction companies) cannot solve through reasonable environmental policies and properly built and maintained flood controls. We could elevate the entire state of Louisiana fifty feet for the $190 billion we are spending to reduce Iraq to rubble. The government underwrites the oil industry so people can live warmly in frigid climates unfit for human habitation. No place on the planet is safe these days from some man-made or natural disaster, be it wind, water, or pandemic. I live in New Orleans and you couldn't pay me to live in New York after 9/11. But I sure as hell support spending billions to make New York safe for those who choose to live in harms way. We don't expect people to invent and produce their own bird flu vaccine, do we? Let's use our inventivness and compassion which has defined us as a nation from the beginning to solve our problems rather than tell people to move every time in rains or a tick bites someone. We are a great nation built by pioneers and visionaries who overcame conditions that rest of Europe thought were insurmountable and insane to endure. What has happened to that spirit? Japan and other countries have build virtual cities out of garbage dumps in the middle of the sea and the Neatherlands are much safer surrounded by well-engineered dikes than any American in a double-wide trailer in tornado alley. Maybe we should all move to Wisconsin?
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Donna
Bill wrote:
Why are the US government and we taxpayers rebuilding a city that is below sea level and is still in danger of being devastated again due to its geography?
Sandi replied:
Because if we don't we will be called "racist" which is fine with me. I know I am not.
No, not racist. Simply uninformed.
Take out a map and look at the location of New Orleans. You will see that it's located at the conjunction of the Mississippi River and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. Our agricultural products from the Midwest flow down the Mississippi and are exported through the port of New Orleans. It's where we import many of the goods critical for our country, such as steel and crude oil. There are tens of thousands of cargo ships, barges and cruise ships that come through this port every year. This spot is arguably the most critical for the economy of our entire country. You can't move a major port away from sea level and you can't have a port of this size without it being connected to a city. Otherwise, where do you expect all of the people who work at the port to work? Do you expect them to move a hundred miles inland and commute to work every day?
All of our major ports are very close to sea level, including some that are below (Boston, New York, and Miami, for example). In fact, the major port cities throughout the world are, by definition, close to sea level.
New Orleans is also central to the oil industry. About 15% of the country's oil comes from Louisiana's gulf region. The refineries are in the New Orleans area and the oil is shipped up the Mississippi. Again, the people who work at the refineries and in the oil industries need a place to live.
It's simply ignorant to imply that we can move a major port city to a place away from the water. The challenge is to protect it from flooding. The Netherlands has solved that problem, as half of their country is below sea level. With global warming we need to start working on improving our infrastructure to protect our port cities from rising sea levels. If we don't, it's going to destroy our economy.
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Sandi
Donna:
Take out a map and look at the location of New Orleans. You will see that it's located at the conjunction of the Mississippi River and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.
It is also below sea level, and unlike the Dutch we don't build proper levees to allow safe living below sea level.
Donna:
Our agricultural products from the Midwest flow down the Mississippi and are exported through the port of New Orleans. It's where we import many of the goods critical for our country, such as steel and crude oil.
True. So how is traffic flow on the Mississippi dependent on residents living below sea level in NO? It isn't, port support people could just as easily live in close areas above sea level.
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Donna
Donna wrote:
Take out a map and look at the location of New Orleans. You will see that it's located at the conjunction of the Mississippi River and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.
Sandi replied:
It is also below sea level, and unlike the Dutch we don't build proper levees to allow safe living below sea level
Part of New Orleans is a couple of feet below sea level. The rest, where most of the people live, is above sea level.
Yes, we don't build proper levees. That's not the same as saying that we CAN'T build proper levees. Given the choice between actually doing the job right and just deciding not to rebuild a major port city that is crucial to our economy, I choose doing the job right. That includes building proper levees and re-building the wetlands.
Donna wrote:
Our agricultural products from the Midwest flow down the Mississippi and are exported through the port of New Orleans. It's where we import many of the goods critical for our country, such as steel and crude oil.
Sandi replied:
True. So how is traffic flow on the Mississippi dependent on residents living below sea level in NO? It isn't, port support people could just as easily live in close areas above sea level.
Yes, and most people in NO do live in areas above sea level. Only a very small portion of the city is as much as ten feet below sea level. About half is above sea level, some at sea level, and the rest is less only one or two feet below.
Keep in mind that the problem with the flooding after Katrina was not the sea or even the hurricane. It was that the city was below the level of the lake and the levees holding back the lake failed. The elevation relative to the sea was irrelevant.
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Sandi
Yes, and most people in NO do live in areas above sea level. Only a very small portion of the city is as much as ten feet below sea level. About half is above sea level, some at sea level, and the rest is less only one or two feet below.
Two feet or ten makes little difference. And where was the greater damage, below or above sea level? I think you have made my point.
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Donna
I'm not sure what your point is, Sandi.
In any case, if you located next to a lake when the levees that are holding it back break, and you're at an elevation lower than the lake, you're going to get flooded whether your elevation is 5 feet below sea level or 500 feet above seal level.
The places that got flooded were closest to the levee breaches.
The Times-Picayune has a great interactive site that shows how all of this happened. Note the areas that were flooded were between the lakes and the river. Also note that as long as they were below the lakes, they were going to get flooded. As the paper pointed out
An estimated 98 percent of the damaged property in St. Bernard sustained major damage, according to Federal Emergency Management Agency statistics. The storm surge combined with canal breaches to inundate Chalmette and Arabi, even where land was several feet above sea level.
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Sandi
The more you argue the better my position looks.
Donna:
In any case, if you located next to a lake when the levees that are holding it back break, and you're at an elevation lower than the lake, you're going to get flooded whether your elevation is 5 feet below sea level or 500 feet above seal level.
Umm.. Donna anyone 500 feet above sea level would be safe from all but a tsunami, and a bad one at that.
The places that got flooded were closest to the levee breaches.
Yes, thank you.
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Donna
Sandi, it is clear to me that you don't have a clue what I'm talking about. I assumed you knew too much. I'll take it one step at a time.
1) Sea level measures elevation in comparison to the sea (ocean). For sea level to be relevant, the water that caused the flood would have had to come from the sea. In Katrina, it did not. The levees were holding back lakes. They were not holding back the ocean.
2) The places that got flooded were next to the lakes--not the ocean.
3) What was important in terms of flooding from water in the lakes is the relative height according to the lakes. These neighborhoods were lower than the lakes, so they got flooded. Whether or not they were lower than the sea had nothing to do with it.
Sandi said:
Umm.. Donna anyone 500 feet above sea level would be safe from all but a tsunami, and a bad one at that.
Again, you are assuming the water came from the sea. It came from the lakes.
Imagine a lake at the top of a mountain with a dam holding it back. Think of a town in the valley below. The lake is 4,000 feet above sea level. The town is 1,000 feet above see level. The dam breaks. The water falls down from the lake and floods the town.
The town is not safe from flooding just because the water in some distant ocean can't reach it.
I don't know how much simpler I can make this. -
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Sandi
Imagine a lake at the top of a mountain with a dam holding it back. Think of a town in the valley below. The lake is 4,000 feet above sea level. The town is 1,000 feet above see level. The dam breaks. The water falls down from the lake and floods the town.
WTF has that to do with anything? There is no place around NO that is 1000 feet let alone 4000.
:roll: :roll: :roll:
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Donna
Sorry, Sandi. I forgot. You traditionally aren't very good with understanding analogies. I'll try to make it more clear so you can understand.
Here's the original post.
Imagine a lake at the top of a mountain with a dam holding it back. Think of a town in the valley below. The lake is 4,000 feet above sea level. The town is 1,000 feet above see level. The dam breaks. The water falls down from the lake and floods the town.
The ocean is, by definition, at sea level. The flooded areas of the city are anywhere from a couple of feet below sea level to a couple of feet above it.
When Katrina hit, these places were not flooded in spite of storm surges.
These parishes are right next to two lakes. These are held back by levees up to sixty feet above sea level. The levees failed, dumping the contents of the lakes on the parishes below.
Neighborhoods that were a couple of feet below sea level got flooded just as badly as those that were a couple of feet above sea level. The reason they were flooded is that they were at a lower elevation than the lake and they were close to the lake.
The only way they could have avoided flooding is by being higher than the lake (i.e., above 60 feet). Whether or not they were higher than the ocean (sea level) had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
(Sandi, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you don't understand, but, really, I think you are yanking my chain.)
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Skyflynn
Sandi:
Two feet or ten makes little difference. And where was the greater damage, below or above sea level? I think you have made my point.
Can you really not understand this? Your only point seems to be on top of your head.
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Rocksolid
I don't give a rats ass about the people in that city complaining. They decided to live there and were subject to a natural disaster. Deal with it. Don't ask for others to pay for your mistake on living there. In a perfect world the whole area would have been submerged under water like it should be, but that's not the case. Instead, since land is available people build and bitch when it goes under. I choose to live in WI where some tornados come through. If my house gets demolished I don't expect others to pay for my misfortune. That's why I have INSURANCE!
In summary, I don't care where you live just don't expect ME to pay for your stupid decisions!!! You can live under sea level, but if you get wiped out don't expect MY money to bail you out!!!
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Donna
Wow, rocksolid. I hope for your sake you don't have some sort of a disaster and find out what many of the Katrina victims discovered. Insurance companies aren't necessarily honest. Many of these victims actually were insured. In fact, if they had mortgages, which just about everyone does, they would have been required to have insurance. The problem is that homeowners insurance companies refuse to pay for floods. Flood insurance companies say the damage wasn't flood damage, it was caused by the hurricane. So the homeowners are stuck in the middle. Or, the companies are giving them low-ball, take-it-or-leave-it offers for settlements much lower than their properties are worth.
In any case, here's why we should pay. These properties weren't destroyed by the hurricane. They were destroyed two days later when the levees broke. It was our government that built the levees and was responsible for maintaining them. Our government blew it. Our government is ultimately responsible and should pay for their mistake.
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Sandi
Donna:
Wow, rocksolid. I hope for your sake you don't have some sort of a disaster and find out what many of the Katrina victims discovered.
What many of the Katrina victims found out is that it doesn't always work to sit on your ass as wait for the good old government to come and save you. Sometimes you have to get off your ass and do something for yourself.
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Donna
What many of the Katrina victims found out is that it doesn't always work to sit on your ass as wait for the good old government to come and save you. Sometimes you have to get off your ass and do something for yourself.
Sandi, you sound like Marie Antoinette saying "let them eat cake".
Keep in mind that most of these people survived the hurricane. It's the flooding from the levee failures that killed them.
In any big city a very large percentage of the population does not have cars. They move around the city itself either by walking, riding bicycles or taking public transportation. They can't just hop in their cars and drive away. They can't just walk from NO to Baton Rouge. The airports were shut down early. You can't get tens of thousands of people on a couple of Greyhound buses. What, exactly, do you expect them to do? Grow wings and fly out of town?
There are also plenty of people who had very good reasons to stay. Nursing home and hospital patients could not leave, nor could the staff who had responsibility for caring for them. Other people had medical reasons to stay near the hospitals, such as scheduled dialysis or chemotherapy. Some of the women were about to give birth. Some city workers were required to stay.
I'm sure you, Sandi, would have been in the "personal responsibility" crowd trying to get out on your own. Many people tried to walk out of town but were prevented from doing so by the police. These were the people who ended up stranded on highway overpasses or sent back to the Convention Center. One group of tourists actually got together and chartered a bus to pick them up, but the government hijacked the bus to rescue other people. Others left their homes and walked to the SuperDome or the Convention Center, as they were instructed to do. We all saw how that turned out.
It's very easy to sit up here in Wisconsin and judge others. As long as you can find some way to label them inferior, then you can feel smug and not feel any responsibility for helping them. You can feel justified in demanding that your tax dollars not be spent on helping these irresponsible people. Lord save us from the compassionate conservatives and Social Darwinists.
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Sandi
Keep in mind that most of these people survived the hurricane. It's the flooding from the levee failures that killed them.
No shit! :roll:
In any big city a very large percentage of the population does not have cars. They move around the city itself either by walking, riding bicycles or taking public transportation.
Then why didn't they walk or bike their way out? Because they were sitting on their ass with their arms folded. The government is my daddy. Come and save me.
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Donna
Quote:
Keep in mind that most of these people survived the hurricane. It's the flooding from the levee failures that killed them.
Sandi replied:
No shit!
Good. I'm glad you understand that. Now let's take it a step further.
If you are talking about the fact that they did not leave before the levees broke, then you are faulting them for deciding their shelter was strong enough to hold them trhough a hurricane. If that's your argument, then my point is that people made the right choice--they actually did survive the hurricane. They did not realize the levees were going to also break.
If you are talking about the fact that they did not leave after the levees broke, then you're ignoring the fact that it was too late. Their homes filled up with water and their only way out was through the roof.
Which point are you trying to make?
Then why didn't they walk or bike their way out? Because they were sitting on their ass with their arms folded. The government is my daddy. Come and save me.
If you are asking why they didn't walk or bike their way out before the hurricane, let's assume they are able-bodied. A high number were not. But, for the sake of argument, you don't get out of the way of a hurricane by walking a couple of miles. To get completely out of the way would mean going, perhaps, to Baton Rouge. That's about 75 miles. They certainly would have gotten caught in the storm on their way. The smarter move was to go to some sort of shelter strong enough to withstand the storm, such as the SuperDome.
If you are asking why they didn't walk or bike their way out after the levees broke, then the massive flooding is the obvious answer. For those able to find their way, they were prevented from leaving by the police blocking the overpass.
You choose to see these people as lazy and dependent. I see them as pretty resourceful people. Imagine your home is flooding quickly. Your only hope is to run up to attic. While the water is actually rushing up to the attic level, now your only hope is to find some sort of a tool to smash a hole in the roof and climb out. Anyone who made it that far is a survivor--not a lazy person unable to think and dependent on the government. By the time they make it all the way up to their rooftops, I'm not going to fault them for needing help to get rescued.
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Sandi
If you are talking about the fact that they did not leave before the levees broke, then you are faulting them for deciding their shelter was strong enough to hold them trhough a hurricane. If that's your argument, then my point is that people made the right choice--they actually did survive the hurricane. They did not realize the levees were going to also break.
If you are talking about the fact that they did not leave after the levees broke, then you're ignoring the fact that it was too late. Their homes filled up with water and their only way out was through the roof.
Please let me make my own argument. No, I'm not arguing when they left. Only that many didn't leave at all, because daddy didn't come and get them.
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Donna
Ahh, that explains it, Sandi. You haven't thought your own argument through.
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Sandi
donna:
Ahh, that explains it, Sandi. You haven't thought your own argument through.
Translation. I haven't agreed with you. :)
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Donna
Sandi, you don't even know your own argument, so how can I agree or disagree with it?
As far as I can see, it's that people should have left on their own. OK. When? Before the hurricane? Between the time that Katrina hit and the levees failed? After the levees failed?
Who, specifically are you talking about? The people on the roofs? The people in Charity Hospitals and nursing homes? The people in the SuperDome and Convention Center? The people stuck under the overpasses?
And, how, exactly, do you propose that they leave? The only indication I have is that you think they should have walked or biked 75 miles to Baton Rouge.
Your argument is that "many didn't leave at all because Daddy didn't come and get them". All that I'm asking you to do is define who you mean by "many", when they should have left, and what other options they had.
Have the courage of your own convictions to stand up and explain why you think the way you do. Otherwise it just comes across as yet another one of your unsubstantiated attacks on the character of other people.
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