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On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:40:32 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:


wrote in message
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On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 11:37:50 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:





I suggested the solution but it is not my idea, it is FEDERAL LAW.
No place else in the country will allow you to rebuild a house below
sea level. If you do any kind of addition or repair that exceeds 50%
of the value of your home you need a FEMA certificate from an
engineering company saying your finished floor is a specified distance
above the local datum plane. The neighbor 3 doors up from me had to
have his whole house raised 4 feet to build on an addition.

Most of the homes were there for decades. At some point, if you try to
enforce that law, you'll be requiring people to relocate. Is the gov't
going
to pay for that?

The government is paying a lot to let them stay there. I am saying it
would have been cheaper to elevate the lots before they rebuilt the
houses. That is the law everywhere else.


Don't give me **** about Holland. When was the last Category 3
hurricane there? They also do not live, sandwiched, between a huge
salt water lake and the sea.

?? You brought it up. The technology exists and environmental processes
can
exist to make it a safer place.

That is not a dike or a levee, it is elevation according to FEMA.

Huh? It's about restoring the surrounding wetlands.

The wetlands had absolutely NOTHING to do with it. The water came from
Lake Pontchartrain, a direct connection to the Gulf.
Those were the levees that failed. Have you ever been to New Orleans
or seen a map of the area. The places that flooded were on the lake
and the industrial canal.

It's a pretty well-known fact that the wetlands surrounding the entire area
have been degraded to the point that they're no long viable to dampen storm
surge. Sure. The water came from the lake. Where do you think the water in
the lake came from on that fateful occasion?



This gets back to my original statement. we have generations of
people
who have never had anything bad happen to them so they assume things
will turn out OK.

So, being poor, with lousy if any health care coverage, with barely
enough
to eat equates in your mind to people who've never had anything bad
happen
to them? Good grief!


You are talking like Bob now.
I am talking about 3 generations of Americans in all social strata.

Really? Most of the people who were trapped were poor not rich. Some
were
in
the middle somewhere.

The reason you heard about the poor was because they did not have the
resources to survive, they still don't. Why did we let them move back
into that death trap?

We? Who's we? Oh that pesky gov't again. The ones the Teabaggers hate so
much. I get it.

The same government that makes me wear a seatbelt before I can move my
car and requires that I have a dead man's switch on my lawnmower CAN
enforce a federal law can't it?

Not if the right-wingers have their way. We'll be able to build bombs
aplenty, but GOD FORBID we have any regulations with teeth. Too bad about
your lawnmower. I'm sure that's a hardship.


Most people impacted by hurricanes are rich, simply because that is
usually who can afford water front property. New Orleans is such a
contrast to that, we should have taken extraordinary measures to
remove the risk. The fix was DIRT, lots of it as required by federal
law.

Who supplies the dirt, money, etc.?

The same people who underwrite their flood insurance You and Me

BTW nobody would supply my dirt if I had to rebuild my house under the
same circumstances and I would be doing it at the point of a
government gun.

The gun is owned by you and I. If you don't like it, vote for another
Congressman or Senator.

The community Judy built required over 4 feet of dirt to be brought in
over the whole development, just for the road surface height and the
houses were 3 feet above that on a stem wall.

The rich (certainly better off) community...

If you were poor you would have to follow the same laws, everywhere
but NOLA

You know that's not the case. There are almost always differences in regs
and enforcement, depending upon the situation/location.


We assume no matter what happens, the government will swoop in and
save us. That is just a post WWII feeling in the US. Most of the world
and anyone alive in the 30s, still knows bad things happen and the
government is not always going to save them.

Firstly, very few people believe that NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, the gov't
will
"swoop in." What people do believe is that gov't is supposed to help!
Why
do
we have a gov't? It seems to me that effective gov't is what we need. We
sure didn't get that then. Using words like no matter what and always is
a
quick indication of lack of substance in an argument. Things are rarely
always.

We have more of this coming in the future, not less.

And, your fix?

People better learn a little more about self preservation like their
grandparents knew.

Like being able to survive on a minimal amount of money? Ah for those good
old days when disease was rampant, sweatshops abounded, and the gov't did
nothing.

Our government is broke.

And, your fix?

If you think this little correction we are in is anything like the
depression you are deluded and I really believe we ain't seen nothing
yet. 10 years from now we may be calling these the good old days.

?? Total non sequitur. For the people currently unemployed and losing
their
homes/life savings, it's pretty much a depression.


Of course you also have the criminal negligence of FEMA for even
letting them live there and particularly letting them build it
back
below sea level.

? FEMA was certainly at fault for not getting their act together,
but
that's
got nothing to do with post-Katrina.

We have been told for years that you CAN NOT expect any help for
days,
up to a week.
FEMA can not move enough supplies to keep a half a million people
alive overnight, particularly when roads and bridges are out.
The real FEMA problem was allowing the situation to exist in the
first
place. We are in no better shape today than we were in 2005 in that
regard.
I guarantee you that if a CAT 3 hits New Orleans this month, the
result will be largely the same, particularly if it also hit several
other areas like Katrina did.

Who is "we"? Those who watch TV and the news on a regular basis, but
not
those who are living hand to mouth. You're continuing to blame the
poor
for
a failure of government. If another storm hits, it's likely the pumps
will
fail, so I suppose you're going to blame the poor again and not the
people
who put in the flawed pumping equipment.

"WE" in this case is anyone who lives in the southeast near the coast.
We get lots of information about what to expect during and after a
hurricane and they always say you need 3 days to a week of supplies if
you don't get out and if you go to a shelter you better bring those
supplies with you. They may not have them there either.
Other than the reported violence, the Superdome was a typical storm
shelter. Around here it will be a school gym as a general rule and we
are warned not to expect anything to be there except, hopefully, a
building that will not blow over. During Wilma, they didn't even get
that in Arcadia. They lost the roof on shelter.

You watch the news. You're informed. Many people are just trying to get
by.

Other that the minor amount of violence, the Superdome was a disgrace.
No
one came to help. People were shipped there and abandoned.



I am 9 feet above sea level, 5 miles from the coast and if my
house
was 50% damaged, I could not build it back without raising it 5
feet.
They should have scraped the flooded parts of New Orleans clean,
barged in 10-15 feet of dirt and then built all the new houses on
pilings above the FEMA elevation that the rest of the country has
to
abide by.

And, this rant has what to do with people who are poor before
Katrina?

They would have been living ABOVE sea level; and they would not have
flooded. Storm surge comes in and goes out within hours. It is not a
flood that lasts months like they had in that fetid bowl. There
really
was not that much surge in New Orleans, it was totally a failure of
the levees.

So, what is your point? You're blaming the poor for living in New
Orleans?
Perhaps they should have moved to Chicago?


Perhaps, or at least Baton Rouge but surviving hurricanes is for
people who can and will prepare not people who do nothing and assume
someone will be there to help right away.

More bs. Lots of people are unable to do much for themselves. They have
family members who they support and who can't leave easily. I'm not
going
to
list all the reasons why some couldn't leave. Look it up.

So you are saying it is the right thing to do to leave people in a
death trap.

Who's going to remove them? Which branch of gov't?


FEMA orders it, the local cops enforce it. It happened here after
Wilma.


If you are the government and you put the poorest people in the most
vulnerable spot, the crime is not the speed of the response, it is
putting them there in the first place. That is why I said we should
have bulldozed that place, barged in 20 feet of dirt and built it back
on high ground. I know in 100 years it might sink back down a couple
of feet but it will still be above sea level.
It would have been a bargain compared to what we will spend next time
... and there will be a next time.

What?? The gov't put poor people in NOLA? Who is "we" in we should have
bulldozed the place? Sounds like a lot of gov't intervention to me!

Yes it was a Jim Crow government that put them there.

WHAT?? When? In the 1800s, 1900s? Families have lived in NOLA for
generations.

Did you watch the CNN show about rebuilding Ponchartrain Park? It is
probably still running. The area hardest hit was developed in the 40s
and 50s ... under Jim Crow.

The government allowed these people to live in a death trap and then
people were surprised when they died. It was bad enough that it
happened the first time but the crime was letting them do it again.

There is a federal law that requires these houses should have been
condemned and rebuilt above the datum plane. That was ignored.

When? Before which event? Come on. You're just upset because gov't is
either
too big or not big enough.


That is the law for any event that damaged your home greater than 50%
I bet you have a similar law about earthquake damage and building back
to your current seismic code.