New Orleans may face extinction

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Didn't Bush say "Noone could have predicted the breach of the levees?"

Hasn't it been sufficiently shown that that was an ignorant statement at best and an outright lie at worst?

[kc456 0]

I'm leaning towards ignorance/incompetence/living in a bubble, rather than lying. But slim has an interesting "conspiracy theory" that have not crossed my mind yet.

Whatever the cause, NO will be definitely a much whiter city, because it's predominantly the minorities who would not have either the means or the place to return to.

[slim 1,525]

We've got more important things to spend $5 Billion on (like Iraq).

Bush did say "no one could've predicted the breach of the levees." However, they knew several days before Katrina made landfall that it was going to breach the levees. Scott McClellan has covered that one up nicely, "spinning" it into (paraphrasing here) "The president has taken full responsibility for the New Orleans response on the Federal level. The important thing here is that we concentrate on the rebuilding effort and learning from the mistakes that we made, and this administration is doing that."

(He failed to mention that they're "doing that" by awarding no-bid contracts to.... (who else) HALLIBURTON!)

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Didn't Bush say "Noone could have predicted the breach of the levees?"

Hasn't it been sufficiently shown that that was an ignorant statement at best and an outright lie at worst?

He really meant. "Noone wanted to predict the breach of the levees"

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Didn't Bush say "Noone could have predicted the breach of the levees?"

Hasn't it been sufficiently shown that that was an ignorant statement at best and an outright lie at worst?

He really meant. "Noone wanted to predict the breach of the levees"

I think "I didn't care to hear that prediction since I was on vacation at the time" would be more fitting.

[Chicky 0]

Hmmmm that makes me think of the "I don't want to hear any more about terrorists flying planes into New York City" statement he once made

[ChristinaM 0]

You can't realistically talk about not rebuilding New Orleans because of a fluky occurence like Katrina without then saying "Why do they keep rebuilding San Francisco on the San Andreas fault line?" and "We shouldn't let anyone live in Florida because they suffer regularly in the hurricane season".

I think the demographic has a lot to do with all the talk of not rebuilding - I doubt that people would have any qualms about rebuilding Miami under the same circumstances.

JMHO.

[kc456 0]

You can't realistically talk about not rebuilding New Orleans because of a fluky occurence like Katrina without then saying "Why do they keep rebuilding San Francisco on the San Andreas fault line?"

New Orleans was devastated not because of the hurricane, but because of the flood. The flood was not fluke:

- NO is surrounded by two major bodies of water

- Much of it is below sea level

- It's sinking

- The marshlands that protect NO are diappearing fast, and Katrina accelerated the loss by one year

- The levees started failing as the water was still rising, prompting the scientist to suggest that the levees were not good enough even for a Cat 1 hurricane

So... if the city is rebuilt, would it not likely stand a chance of being destroyed again? Especially if the sea level continues to rise due to global warming. That is why scientists say that some coastal areas will have to be abandoned some time in the future. Including San Francisco -- as of now, it's not destroyed, but if a major earthquake occurs, it may well suffer the fate of New Orleans.

If the sea le since much of NO is below sea leave

[ChristinaM 0]

What happened in 1989 in San Francisco sounds a lot like what happened in New Orleans:

October 17, 1989

A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck the Bay Area just before the third game of the World Series at Candlestick Park; the worst earthquake since 1906. The tremor collapsed a section of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Six of the deaths occurred when the exterior of a brick building collapsed at 6th and Bluxome streets in the South of Market District. Damage was estimated at almost three billion dollars in San Francisco, which was approximately one-half of the total damage figure for the entire earthquake zone.

The earthquake knocked out power to San Francisco, and the city was dark for the first time since the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. Power was fully restored by October 20. Emergency telephone service became sporadic because a fire broke out in the 9-1-1 telephone equipment room, and citizens had to rely on fire alarm boxes for three days for emergency protection from fire. The quake killed 62 people throughout Central California, injured 3757 and left more than 12,000 homeless.

At least 27 fires broke out across the City, including a major blaze in the Marina District where apartment buildings sank into a lagoon filled with bay mud in preparation for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915. Dozens of people were rescued by firefighters from fallen buildings in the area that were imperiled by the flames. As they had done in 1906, citizens formed a bucket brigade to help firefighters who were without water because of broken mains. A magnitude 5.2 aftershock struck 37 minutes after the initial shock.

Interstate 280 rocked so viciously during the earthquake that sections of the freeway slammed into one another, cracking off pieces. Some columns actually fractured, exposing the reinforcing steel in places where the concrete disintegrated. The Embarcadero Freeway along the Waterfront was nearly destroyed by the shaking, though Caltrans said it could be repaired.

Sporadic but minor looting broke out in the downtown Shopping District near Fifth and Market streets, the Inner Mission and Hunters Point areas. District Attorney Arlo Smith said, "If there's anyone arrested tonight for burglary or looting, tomorrow morning we're going to go into court and demand that there be no bail. Anyone engaged in that kind of conduct can expect maximum sentences." 24-year-old DeSoto Barker was shot and killed by a motorist upset by the earthquake chaos. DeSoto was at first depicted as a Good Samaritan, but Police Inspector Michael Byrne later said he had stolen traffic flares from legitimate volunteers and provoked his own shooting death.

The earthquake triggered a four-foot tsunami wave in Monterey Bay as well as a huge undersea landslide. The sea level at Santa Cruz dropped three feet as water rushed out of the harbor. The tsunami wave took 20 minutes to travel from Santa Cruz to Monterey.

http://www.travelsf.com/earthquakes.asp

I don't see that anybody questioned rebuilding there. Why was that? I mean, the San Andreas fault isn't going to go away.

I'm not insisting that NO has to be put back in harms way, because that's just plain madness. But I think to lose the city, which has a richer and more vibrant history and heritage than many other cities in the US, would be a terrible, terrible shame. If that means relocating it back a few miles, then so be it. I come from the south coast of England, I know about coastal erosion - and that there are ways to combat it.

We have a wonderful opportunity to make New Orleans so much. It would be a diservice to the city to let it go like this.

[Yodrak 7]

pedroh,

Aren't you the fellow who took me to task for posting what you interpreted to be racist comments?

Yodrak

....

besides.. if New Orleans is gonna be rebuilt as a chocolate city, i doubt it'll last

[pedroh 21]

I didn't say that chocolate city #######. that was the dumbass major or whatever he is from NO.. and I was mocking his dumb racist commentary, which later he tried to fix..

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

pedroh,

Aren't you the fellow who took me to task for posting what you interpreted to be racist comments?

Yodrak

....

besides.. if New Orleans is gonna be rebuilt as a chocolate city, i doubt it'll last

Pedro,

You've been PWNED.

[pedroh 21]

nope.. not yet.. read my reply..

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

nope.. not yet.. read my reply..

Why do you think NO won't last if it is rebuilt as a chocolate city?

Are you implying that Chocolate-Americans can't run a city?

[Yodrak 7]

clmarsh,

The level of destruction and disruption doesn't sound even close to me.

What percentage of San Francisco was made un-inhabitable by that earthquake? What percentage of the population had to leave the city to find shelter elsewhere fo months, and were still unable to return 6 months later?

Yodrak

What happened in 1989 in San Francisco sounds a lot like what happened in New Orleans:

...

pedroh,

My applologies, then. (There were no quote marks or anything else in the post to indicate that someone other than you had written the comment.)

Yodrak

I didn't say that chocolate city #######. that was the dumbass major or whatever he is from NO.. and I was mocking his dumb racist commentary, which later he tried to fix..