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


wrote in message
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On Sun, 22 Aug 2010 11:23:46 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:




Completely false. Most did want to go and tried. They ended up in the
stadium.


That was AFTER the storm started. You evacuate before the storm,
preferably a day before the storm. They the whole school bus fleet
staged to take people inland and few people came.
Once high winds closed that bridge out to the north across lake
Ponchartrain they were not going anywhere.

Most people in states in the area don't evacuate, esp. given that they've
been through storms like these before. You're just blaming the victims.


Virtually ALL of them DO NOT live below sea level.



In this case, a flood was the LIKELY scenario. We were hearing about
that probability for New Orleans 1000 miles away. I am sure they were
told there.

That's also not true. They had the walls that were protecting the city.
Those walls failed.


Levees not walls and saying the were "protected" is simply wishful
thinking.

And, for all those with college educations, perhaps that would be obvious
(perhaps not), but claiming that people understand this is not looking at
the facts on the ground.

Now you are saying the victims do not understand water flows downhill

I'm saying that they're living day-to-day, and were not sophisticated enough
to understand the real dangers. They do now, and the last time there was an
evacuation, people did leave in greater numbers.

That place was and is still a death trap. Nobody should be allowed to
live there until they get it above sea level.

Feel free to try and change that.


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?

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.

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.

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 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...


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?


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.

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.