Fifth largest city in the country- I knew that didn't sount right so I had to go look it up.

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/...06.html#table2
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet...-format=US-10S

Granted, the city table says you're 6th- I was pretty sure Philly was still 5th and didn't realize Phoenix had shot that far up the list. But that second link says you're 14th in metro area and that's a bit more of a realistic stat. That said, I always tend to use the Houston as 4th stat so I can't fault you for using the city measurement ;)

And in an attempt to put this back on topic, using metro area, New Orleans was 34th with 1,337,726.

Sorry just had to go look it up because it didn't sound right to me. :)

SI

Of course it was a guess. That's why I said possibility, especially seeing how I believe the actual storm came in at Cat-3 or 4.

The plan should of been in place for YEARS, and only prepared in the last week. And don't put words into my mouth. Apologists like you make this country weaker. I'll end this point with you now, I don't feel like turning into Jon or Chinaski.

Better get the City of Phoenix to change their website then ;)

http://phoenix.gov/CITYGOV/stats.html

From what I can see on maps of the area (admittedly I'm not terribly familiar with the area's geography) I wonder if the best plan wouldn't be to rebuild the New Orleans downtown, port and French Quarter, but move as much of the residential population as possible back toward Baton Rouge. Set up some sort of high speed rail into downtown and go from there. That or hire some Dutch engineers.

I imagine the city is going to shrink some if for no other reason than because I doubt any insurance agency will be willing to back rebuilding in the worst of the flooded areas.

I'm actually not an apologists I'd rather focus on the news and information and play the blame game later. I jsut responded to your post because I a) didn't agree with you, and b) you didn't seem to have a big political agenda behind it so I thought the "debate" if you will would go smoothly.

Meh, I'm just a bit fustrated by the whole thing so I'm probably a bit snippy. In any case, yes I think this thing far and away transcends right vrs. left.

I didn't say Democrats would be better than Republicans. I said this administration is incompetant and an embaressment. And it is. And other Republicans are starting to see that now too.

The advisory 72 hours before landfall predicted a catagory 2 hurricane in the Florida panhandle.

It was not until 48 hours in advance that the forecast shifted significantly to the west and the intensity upped. Still the forecast greatly underestimated the strength. The storm intensified very rapidly in the 36 hours prior to landfall.

Question about rebuilding N.O. - why isn't it possible to fill in N.O. with sand or something to bring it closer to sea level? Make it the same level as the top of the levees so it can't flood again? I think most of these buildings are going to have to be torn down and rebuild from scratch, especially if they're sitting in water for a while. Why not try to raise the elevation of the city?

Cannibalism?

I had an opportunity to hear an evacuee who evacuated Tuesday morning(after the levee's broke) speak. He said he felt the response and preparation were so bad was that the storm was not predicted to hit N.O.until 48 hours before it hit, and then was not a Cat 5 until 24 hours before. Also, he talked about the "New Orleans attitude" about the possibility of a Hurricane hit. They regard it as an unlikely possibillity and joke that the hurricanes always turn. He said that the weathermen and the minor officials interviewed in the leadup to the hurricane on Sunday joked about how it would still turn, and to him, New Orleans didn't truly believe it would be be hit. Also, he said the looting started almost immediatly after the hard wind and rain stopped, and that when he evacuated Tuesday morning there was already unrest in some areas. A truly eye opening experience for me.

Obviously not enough pets left behind.

In all seriousness, haven't seen this anywhere other than the Huffington Post. Nor did he list his source. I'm a tad skeptical.

The LA national guard was on the scene Sunday , getting people into the places of last resort and out of the city. This compares to the hurricanes, where the Florida National Guard was almost immediatly on the scene. The problem here is that many more NG troops are needed, and they need to come from other states. So, the NG was there at the same time both times, but in this case more NG troops were needed from neighboring states, and thus they took some time to get in, but only one and a half days, which is actually a pretty fast response.

Randall Robinson is a social
justice advocate and author
whose works include The Debt –
What America Owes to Blacks

gee that guy doesn't have an agenda already or anything...

A couple of points

1. I've followed this situation very closely, and watched a lot of TV in my spare time, and I didn't see a thing or hear a thing about the Convention Center until midweek at the earliest. I heard all about the Superdome being a place of last resort, but not until much later about the convention center.

2. I do blame this on a lack of communication. Why would Brown or anyone involved in the relief effort be watching TV. They should and probably are working 24 hours a day. The word about the situation in the city should come to them through briefings, not through the TV. Somebody didn't brief the people who needed to know.

Just my .02 cents worth.

This really hits the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned. Blame whomever you want, but the bottom line is that when humans thumb their noses at mother nature they tend to get their asses kicked sooner or later.

From my own experience, predicting hurricanes - whether it's windspeed, speed of movement, or direction - is like trying to predict a butterfly's flight pattern. They are terribly unpredictable, and can change multiple times in all three categories over very short periods. We used to keep hurricane tracking charts and follow along with the ones that were "predicted" to threaten Cape Hatteras; when you connected the dots of their course it often looked like a butterfly flew across the Atlantic. Then there was Emily (1993), who came out of Africa, danced a bit, and then took a bee-line right at Cape Hatteras. Literally, the bitch came right at us the whole way across the Atlantic, like it had a radar lock. We evacuated and proceeded to freak out, basically kissing our house and belongings goodbye, because it was seemingly on a unflinching course. But 75 miles off the cape, God must have put his hand down and said, "WOE THERE," because it took a sharp north turn and veered away. Here's the track:

Cannabalism? After 4 days? I call bullshit.

I can think of a whole slew of places in town that I could loot in an attempt to get food.. I sure as hell don't think I'd be eating someone that quick...

"Mmm... great party! Thanks to Phil!"

If accurate, then yeah, the guy heading up FEMA needs to get his ass fired on the spot. It's one thing to struggle with New Orleans and all its problems, but to completely ignore other ones?

Um, why don't they call FEMA?

They may have tried and gotten an "All our lines are busy" automated message? :)

Things that I am kinda wondering being totally amazed by the scale of what's happening, after intially thinking it was nowhere near as bad as people had predicted, then the levees broke... :(

(And I apologise if I am oversimplistic in my thoughts: I have never been to NO, and only really know what I have picked up this week about the city)

For those wondering about the local response: wouldn't a lot of the machinery and infrastructure needed for the relief effort be located in areas that are now either underwater or totally cut off due to the water, as the levees were not expected to fail?

From the content and tone of some of the posts here on an internet message board merely discussing the subject, is it all that surprising that in a town in the midst of a crisis situation unimaginable to the rest of us, that some people have reacted in an extreme way and caused a breakdown of law and order? Especially when there may be drug withdrawal factors involved as well?

From the cross sections I have seen, there is no way that sand can be used to build up the lower levels of the city: sand is not a stable base for construction (the phrase 'don't build your castle in the sand'?). The usual way that levels can be built up is by using hardcore aggregate, and the huge, huge tonnages required would probably be prohibitive.

I now know what a levee is, but can anybody explain what a coulee is please?

EF and anybody directly or indirectly affected by this catastrophe, I sincerely wish you all the best, and hope that you, your families and friends (and pets I guess) all remain safe and sheltered.

Good to know the Senate has their priorities in order...

Senate Finance Committee members were informed this morning that Sen. Bill Frist will move forward with a vote to permanently repeal the estate tax next week, likely on Tuesday, ThinkProgress has learned.

One stands in awe of Sen. Frist's timing. Permanently repealing the estate tax would be a major blow to the nation's charities. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has "found that the estate tax encourages wealthy individuals to donate considerably more to charity , since estate tax liability is reduced through donations made both during life and at death." If there were no estate tax in 2000, for example, "charitable donations would have been between $13 billion to $25 billion lower than they actually were."

coulee

A dry canyon eroded by Pleistocene floods that cut into the lava beds of the Columbia Plateau in the western United States.
odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/GEO/glossary.htm

a dry or intermittent stream valley or a long, trench-like gorge that once carried meltwater from an ice sheet.
www.tc.umn.edu/~smith213/Glossary%20A%20F.htm

A dry trench-like intermittent streambed or wash.
www.nps.gov/iceagefloods/app-b.htm

A deep gulch or ravine formed by water erosion. Today they are often dry or have an underfit stream flowing through them. In Alberta, many coulees resulted from rapid flow of glacial melt water.
collections.ic.gc.ca/abnature/glossary.htm

ND Zip code(s): 58746
dictionary.reference.com/search

A coulee (or coul e) is a deep steep-sided ravine formed by erosion, commonly found in the northwestern United States and southwestern Canada. Most coulees were originally formed during the rapid melting of the glaciers at the end of the last Ice age. Some coulees are dry for most of the year; others may contain small streams.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coulee

Excellent point.

Why? How many times must it be said that it was known the levees were in danger of breaking and leaving New Orleans flooded for years? It's "minor" details like that I would hope planners, if they exist, would keep in mind.

Are you really surprised that the idiots we have in congess didn't promise 10 billion dollars in aide to the gulf states preemptively....before anything hit? Because lets face it...congress controls the amount of aide granted , the amount of aide granted controls the amount of resources available..not the president ...he actually did declare a state of emergency preemptively. This world revolves around peoples pocket books and the amount of grace we show others is in direct correlation to that. Case in point New Orleans.
Color me not surprised.

With or without money you at least need a sense of leadership and order, which was non-existent. Who's fault that is I don't know and we'll probably never be able to cut through the BS to find out.

One of the buses carrying evacuees just crashed killing at least 1 :(

Was just about to post this. And this is the first time I heard the Saints first 'home game' will be an extra home game for the Giants, as the game is moved to NY.

The federal government can't babysit every municipality in the country. If you're going to fix blame with regards to disaster preparedness, you need to start at the local and state level.

I think EVERYONE who can help is indeed trying to help at this point. But this is not just the city of New Orleans with a few thousand homeless folks - we're talking about a flooded disaster area with no electricity, no running water, no telco, few reliable roads, no airports, and limited gas supplies covering TENS OF THOUSANDS of square miles along the gulf coast (CNN & Fox News report 90,000 square miles - that's 10,000 square miles larger than Idaho) . This is a disaster of epic proportions, and it is a logistical nightmare to mobilize men and material across the affected area. There is no way any nation could be adequately prepared for a disaster like this.

Personally, I wish that we'd stop seeing the idiots on TV bitching about Bush, the government, etc. Stop complaining. Stop blaming everyone else. Get to work, help your fellow man, and maintain a positive attitude. The negative B.S. isn't helping anybody right now.

Bush is blaming the underlings, the underlings are blaming Bush, and people are dying. Sounds like democracy to me :p.

I take it this Pasta place is out this world, and in Little Rock?

Dola, not to sound invassive, but you work for LSU previously, correct? Why would they stop paying its employees (does it include every single in the system, from professors to doctors to financial aid assitants to the sports staff?)? Wouldn't this collaspe LSU? If they decide to stop paying, would you look for a new job? Can you practice outside of Lousiana?

Galaxy,

It's the Olive Garden which of course is where JeeberD works (well not this one.)

Yes, this particular Olive Garden is in North Little Rock near our hotel.

LSU Medical School is a seperate entity from LSU University in Baton Rouge. For financial purposes, administrative purposes, and all other purposes they are completely seperate.

Furthermore, LSU New Orleans is a completely seperate medical school than LSU Shreveport. Right now, LSU-New Orleans Medical School is out of commission. There plan is to relocate to Baton Rouge which they have already started doing. They plan on restarting classes for their students in the next few weeks. That doesn't mean they will need all of the professors. Also, teaching only paid a *slight* part of my salary. A large portion of my salary was paid by working the Saint Bernard Mental Health Clinic. That clinic is definitely under water. Another portion of my salary was paid for by a grant for my Autism clinic as LSU Medical School in New Orleans. That clinic is currently unreachable and out of commission. There may not be anyplace for me to work.

However, I know that in the past LSU-Shreveport Medical School has been looking to hire professors. I know the head of their psychiatry department from some governmental committees that we have served on together. I'm hopeful that she can get me a temporary job in the Shreveport area. If that doesn't happen, I'm hopeful that LSU Medical School in New Orleans which has significant (but not unlimited) financial clout will pay it's employees even though they are unable to work (like the Wyndham chain of hotels is doing for my wife.) Even if they only pay me 25 or 50% of my salary, it would be very helpful and would keep a positive cash flow going more or less (it would be close if they only pay 25% of my salary.)

Dola -

Another part of my salary was paid by a grant to go to schools in Plaquemines parish. Those schools are under water. I just hope my patients all got out.

I can practice medicine anywhere in Louisiana currently, and I could even hang my own shingle if LSU is unable to pay me, but it takes time to build up a private practice (plus you need space.)

However, this hurricane has accelerated my plan to obtain a license in NJ and a few other states (which cost money and involves paperwork, but nothing else since I have graduated from medical school in the last 10 years, I've never had any negative marks on my record, and I've passed all of the various licensing exams.)

Franklinnoble -- your closing comment is well received, at least by this one party. I left this thread earlier with a mental vow to get as far away from coverage as I could, lest I lose it completely. A little while later, I get another email from my son's school -- one of the board members is heading for Mississippi tomorrow morning with a truckload of relief supplies but was accepting donations (appears he getting stuff from local grocery at cost, so he can do more with my money than I could do with it myself) A direct to MS relief effort was something I'd been trying to find for 2 days & this came right on cue.

We're leaving for Big Lots now, looking to load up on the kids entertainment stuff that was specifically requested by the nearest shelter to us.

Little things, nothing glamorous, nothing that'll impress the masses, but somebody somewhere will get at least a tiny bit of help from it ... and a helluva lot better than sitting here getting angrier & angrier.

Eaglesfan -- Glad to hear you'll get a moment of normalcy, no matter how brief.
When you get back to work, I imagine you'll have challenges far beyond the norm. You gotta keep yourself fit (and relatively sane) to meet those challenges, don't forget that amidst everything else.

My GF just learned her great aunt most likely died in the hurricane :( She hunkered down with all of her friends in Pascagula (sp?). Her mom just called and said the place was completely destroyed and all who stayed in that area couldnt have survived.

Partly true, but the President also submits the budget to congress, and in Bush's budgets the money for disaster preparedness in New Orleans was slashed by as much as 80%. Money was diverted from those programs into Iraq.

That's great... our church has a group called UTurn4Christ that does relief missions like this - they were in Thailand after the tsunami hit - and I'm going to see if they're going down to Louisiana, and what we can do to support the effort.

If you were planning for a flood, would you put the machinery and infrastructure needed for the relief effort where it would be under water? That would be like putting the tornado shelter in a shack in the trailer park. It would be terrible planning if that were the case.

Give me a break. Congress puts more crap in the budget than the President does. How do you think all those criminals get re-elected? Local pork projects.

Let me guess... you're the sort that blasts the fed for not spending enough money for armored vehicles in Iraq... and now you're saying we shouldn't have taken money from some phantom "disaster relief fund" and spent it in Iraq.

I think perhaps you don't understand the federal spending model as well as you think you do...

IMO...theres one of those crying pocketbooks "pointing at Mrbigglesworth", that I was talking about...just like congress has a fit whenever bush requests more money to better arm, better equip the soldiers in Iraq ...congress starts squeeking like lil girls, along with most of the liberal democrats.

Phantom? Are you on drugs? It was the budget for the Army Corps of Engineers who were planning construction on levees on the Lake Ponchatarian area. It's been being cut since 2000. Phantom, it most assuredly not.

1. That's not disaster relief.
2. It is the responsibility of the Louisiana representatives in the US Congress to protect those line-items in the federal budget.
3. Bush was elected in 2000, and couldn't have started cutting any budget until 2001. Blame Clinton.

1. It's disaster prevention (which what Bigglesworth said, not what you twisted it as)
2. It's the responsibility for the President to listen to FEMA who called a cat-5 hurricane in New Orleans as one of the biggest disasters that could hit the US (along with terrorist attack in NYC and earthquake in San Fran) and try to prevent disasters that have a national scope
3. The budget has been falling every year since then, unless Clinton had responsibily for the 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 budgets.

Now you are calling strengthening the levees 'local pork projects'? The money was supposed to go to the Army Corps of Engineers and was specifically for repairing and strengthening the levees. I think perhaps you aren't aware of the relevant facts:


At least one of the two levee sections in New Orleans that failed was under repair at the time, should have been done two years ago, but wasn't because the funding wasn't there. It can be argued whether or not at the time the federal government should have put more money towards the Army Corps of Engineers for New Orleans (obviously they can't fund everything and make the country impenetrable against every possible disaster), but the fact is that his administration cut the budget and that has cost numerous live and cost billions of dollars. I also think that it is obvious that the Iraq war made this disaster much worse, both in terms of budget and in terms of National Guard manpower, which is exactly the thing that critics of the Iraq war have been saying all along, that it makes us vulnerable.

Wow...Glad to see this informative thread turn to political crap.

http://www.alertnet.org/printable.ht.../N01279059.htm

Read every word of that article and it becomes very clear.

Ok... so, who do we blame for not making the WTC strong enough to keep from collapsing?

I guess we should just assume an isolationist stance in global politics... let's not waste any money or manpower helping out anyone else, lest we need it for ourselves here.

Well that's straight out of left field.