Will New Orleans be abandoned/politics of Huricane Katrina [mega merged thread]

Hobbes

I think after the initial shock (and some of the stuff I am hearing is disturbing, bodies of parents/children/babies floating in the streets) it will start turning to outrage.

Apart from the fact the sheer lack of national guard at the start who are in Iraq it turns out Bush cut the funding last year to fix the Leeves which *might* of stopped the flooding. There was a report around that time calling New Orleans "An accident waiting to happen".

Spotted a comment in a blog about how last year the mayor had said that the funding had been cut for Iraq. That made me have a wander around..

http://www.alligator.org/pt2/050901eddy.php
http://www.workers.org/2005/editorials/hurricane-edit-0908/
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-050831corps-story,1,2364215.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

MrPudding

Given that George is very religious and in charge and storms are considered to be an act of God, is this not an indication that God is not happy with something George has done?

MrP

krattapopov

god is punishing the people for supporting bush....

but seriously if you look at the geography of the area it was an accident waiting to happen and if funding for the defense of the city was cut to support the war the no doubt it will have further repercussions for george.

Hobbes

krattapopov wrote:

it was an accident waiting to happen

Oddly enough one of the studies done was called just that.

According to news stories turned out FEMA warned him of this in 2001 in the same report he was warned of possible terrorist attacks in NYC.

Can't wait to see how he is going to spin this.

MrPudding

MrPudding wrote:

Given that George is very religious and in charge and storms are considered to be an act of God, is this not an indication that God is not happy with something George has done?

MrP

I was waiting for someone to say that.
The whole thing looks apalling at this stage.
I note from the ITN lunchtime news that the UN are now saying this disaster is worse than the Aisan one-well we'll see when the body count is done in a few months.
From the aerial shots of the devastation,it certainly looks as bad.

Fox news were reading out the emails last night of people asking where the "foreign" offers of help were :rolleyes:

I'm not sure what political implications there are surrounding this, the rescue and help seems very slow for the largest economic power in the world.Search and rescue helicopters and boats only brought in a 1000 from roof tops etc (ITN today) so far, that doesnt seem a lot for 3 days.

sovtek

Earthman wrote:

Fox news were reading out the emails last night of people asking where the "foreign" offers of help were :rolleyes:

Can you believe it?

http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/afx/2005/08/31/afx2199612.html

exactiv

I can't believe the USA. They're being handed money, help and fuel and they won't take it...

A woman coming down to the police, close to hysterics, saying, "My elderly mother is in a building over there, she needs dialysis. She can't get it. She is dying. Can you help me?"

And the police had to say, "There is absolutely nothing we can do. We don't have a precinct house. We don't have communication. There is absolutely nothing we can do for you."

From CNN.com

Hard to believe that the likes of that is happening in the western worlds richest country.

Hobbes

Pretty sure I saw on the news the other day that troops are being sent to the US to help (UK? UN?)

Hobbes

Earthman wrote:

From CNN.com

Hard to believe that the likes of that is happening in the western worlds richest country.

Try this...

http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/

Has photo's too. Better if you go to the last page and work your way backwards.

murphaph

Idle chat on Sky'news' at this stage, but some (probably nobody) senators have stated that New Orleans should not be rebuilt. Their reasoning seems to stem from the fact that this scenario could just happen again and basically all the engineering in the world can't change the fact that New Orleans is well below sea level and once the levies are breached-you're fcuked! I reckon it will be rebuilt but the population won't be what it was-many will choose to leave and make a new life elsewhere. The devastation is only really coming to light now. The city was home to half a million afaik.

Sleipnir

No. Abandon a city? Dresden wasn't abandoned and it was practically leveled.
They'll just build bigger levies.

Zombrex

I would say the cost of moving and then building a completely new city would be far more than the cost of rebuilding the city

exactiv

They'll re-build I'd say. Even with the level of devastation, there has to be something left worth re-building. Anyway, people own that property, they're not going to abandon it...

tba

the venice of the states?

could be popular

biko

I'm sure they will rebuild, no matter the cost. The people living in NO would not want to leave their belongings behind.
Also, it's not really the "American Way" to just give up and give in.

Flukey

Definitely the authorities messed up in not having proper protection for the city. I was watching some reports over there where they were saying the Dutch have much better flood prevention than America has. After the floods in 1927 much should have been done to protect New Orleans but it hasn't. Blame can certainly be put on the authorities for that kind of thing, but they can't be blamed for the weather. It is their preparations for it and their response to it that are in question.

I am sure citizens in places like San Francisco and Los Angeles won't be filled with confidence with this over what could happen if the big one comes! Whatever about hurricanes, they'd have very little warning of the actual earthquake, although it can be said that they have decades of warning. Are they ready for it and for addressing the aftermath? The lessons from New Orleans will go far beyond it and far beyond hurricanes.

Flukey

I was in New Orleans just 5 months ago. It was a great few days that we had. It is a wonderful city, very lively. It will be a long slog to get it back to that again, but like anywhere they'll try hard to do so. I have a friend from Slidell, which is near New Orleans and got badly hit. He got out in time. Some of his family have been back since and apparently their homes have not been too badly affected.

murphaph

Hmmm, I'm not so sure. It's a place that's surrounded by high water. The ocean is on one side and a huge ocean connected lake is on the other. It doesn't appear to be the wealthiest place in the US. The people may want to remain, but will they have the funds to rebuild? There's nowhere to rent. The levees are breached in 2 places. they have to dam the gaps in it, restore power and only then can they begin pumping all the water out. Are people going to wait that long only to move back (remember, every single citizen has been ordered to leave the city-it's not optional) to a city that may flood again, especially with global warming and it's consequent higher sea levels in the backs of people's minds. I know I'd think twice about putting money into a plot of land (that's all many people have now).

I this was a NY or Chicago I'd believe 100% that it'd be rebuilt, but NY and Chicago are economic powerhouses. I wonder how low down on the list NO falls with the federal government.

The comparisons to Dresden etc. don't work. That was a manmade disaster, completely within the control of mankind. This isn't. Have we any precenents for this type of thing?

Time will tell.

Flukey

Happier times. I took this shot as I flew out of New Orleans last April, looking southwards. You can clearly see the Superdome just right of centre. Above left of that is where all the sky scrapers are and to the left of that, on the bend of the river, is where the French Quarter is. You can see a square area just left of the Superdome, at almost the dead centre of the photo, which is Louis Armstrong Park. Way out on the left edge is the race track. I saw an image of that being flooded too.

It's an image that unfortunately we are all getting used to over the past few days.

http://homepage.eircom.net/~flukey/Pictures/NewOrleans50.jpg

We had a great time there. Little did we know what would happen. I remember when we were talking to our friend one day about the heat and humidity and he commented that we wouldn't like to be there in August. How right he was in this instance.

Flukey

I just heard from my friend again. He said that some guy just walked into the hotel where they are staying and paid the bills for all the refugees there. He paid them through until Sept 8. Just some annonymous nice guy. Disasters bring out the goodness in people. It is unfortunate that we have to go through the disasters to get that. Fair play to him. He also said that the breakdown of civilization in New Orleans is beyond belief.

mr_angry

murphaph wrote:

The comparisons to Dresden etc. don't work. That was a manmade disaster, completely within the control of mankind. This isn't. Have we any precenents for this type of thing?

Time will tell.

Vesuvius maybe?

lostexpectation

looking at the pics you can see NO was just a spit of land, i guess a load of people live on deltas, think of bangladesh, and that would be ok if it was just open farmland that needs replenishment, people will say the poor can't afford to move...

its if it happens repeatedly that i wouldn't understand peopel coming back, im not sure i want to live in florida where it seems to get wrecked every year...

murphaph

mr_angry wrote:

Vesuvius maybe?

Well you might be right there. The Tsunami was obviously far worse as the human catastrophe that it was (still is), but there were no major cities struck. As Flukey points out, law and order is going out the window as people begin to panic and realise that although they live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, help is not arriving quickly enough.

What's left there? The housing stock is mostly timer frame suburbia-that's probably all fcuked now that it's been submerged and will be for some time. All possesions will be destroyed in the water.

I think the city exists because it was at the mouth of the Misissippi (that's right isn't it?) and it was a french trading post. I don't think it is noted for anything now other than tourism. Flukey-you can probably enlighten us bit more on that?

DadaKopf

I hope the government's seen The Omega Man.

Hobbes

Bush was just on TV. trying to get the speech as I missed a bit of it but from what I heard the US is running out of oil?!

Karl Hungus

With all the US funds being squandered in "The war on Terrer" in Iraq, I think they're just shrug and say tough luck, ye's all ****ed.

mike65

Karl is that a philosophical thought or just a silly off the cuff one?

I imagine there is no serious consideration of moving the city but then they have'nt done a survey or a cost/benifit analyses yet.

It would also require the government to realise that such an event may be more likely in the future as climate change promotes such events as a 5 scale hurricane. What chance of that?

Mike.

Nevyn

Once the army takes over and they hunt down and remove all the people
they will shut up the city and take thier time doing anything at all.

Wonder if the government in the US will take another look at gobal warming,
climate shift, weather change and the oil situation now.

well maybe it is lack of sleep but it is all looking very like Transmet comics over there.

UU

Karl Hungus wrote:

With all the US funds being squandered in "The war on Terrer" in Iraq, I think they're just shrug and say tough luck, ye's all ****ed.

Well, hopefully this disaster in their own country will open there eyes and expenses will be cut dramatically on the "War on Terror" and I very much doubt they'd just shug shug and say tough luck to their own people.
As for New Orleans being abandoned? Well, I don't think any amount of making dams bigger will suffice as they will flood again and again and everyone knows it. I say New Orleans will end up being dramatically smaller as not many people would want to live in fear. That's why reclaiming land from the sea is a very bad idea, look at Amsterdam, Tokyo and now New Orleans.

P.S. I hope this disaster will open USA's eyes to Global Warming as they're the biggest polluter in the world.

shotamoose

I've been watching coverage of the aftermath on Newsnight and ITN tonight and I just cannot believe what I've been seeing. There are thousands of people - possibly tens of thousands - stuck in New Orleans without food, water, medicine or shelter. And that's leaving out towns like Biloxi and Gulfport which have been completely flattened. According to the reports and the people interviewed, so far the relief effort has amounted to a big fat zilch. People are literally starving. It's bad enough that the various authorities seem to have ignored warnings about the dangers of such a disaster and neglected to build the levees up to the required levels, but they seem to have had absolutely no plan in place to respond either.

It's early days, but I think this may go down as a defining moment of Bush's tenure, and indeed of this era in American society. Look at the pictures of the people left behind - they are overwhelmingly poor and black. When New Orleans was given the evacuation warning, the people who could afford to get out did, and everyone else was left to dangle. The poor, the elderly, the infirm - tough, if you can't look after yourself don't expect anyone else to lift a hand. We're seeing the consequences of that, and of chronic short-termism (there's even reasonable evidence that global warming increases the intensity of tropical storms).

Bush's performance in the last couple of days, what I've seen of it anyway, has been pretty terrible. He says a massive relief effort is underway. I hope he's right, and I've no doubt there are a lot of people working their asses off to help New Orleans right now. He may end needing a bit of a rescue too.