From Breitbart / AP:
Everyone has known New Orleans is a sinking city. Now new research suggests parts of the city are sinking even faster than many scientists imagined _ more than an inch a year.
That may explain some of the levee failures during Hurricane Katrina and it raises more worries about the future.
The research, reported in the journal Nature, is based on new satellite radar data for the three years before Katrina struck in The data show that some areas are sinking four or five times faster than the rest of the city. And that, experts say, can be deadly.
“My concern is the very low-lying areas,” said lead author Tim Dixon, a University of Miami geophysicist. “I think those areas are death traps. I don’t think those areas should be rebuilt.”
The blame for this phenomenon, called subsidence, includes overdevelopment, drainage and natural seismic shifts.
For years, scientists figured the city on average was sinking about one-fifth of an inch a year based on 100 measurements of the region, Dixon said. The new data from 150,000 measurements taken from space finds that about 10 percent to 20 percent of the region had yearly subsidence in the inch-a-year range, he said.
As the ground in those areas sinks, protection from levees also falls, scientists and engineers said.
For example, the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, built more than three decades ago, has sunk by more than 3 feet since its construction, Dixon said, explaining why water poured over the levee and part of it failed.
“The people in St. Bernard got wiped out because the levee was too low,” said co-author Roy Dokka, director of the Louisiana Spatial Center at Louisiana State University. “It’s as simple as that.”
The subsidence “is making the land more vulnerable; it’s also screwed up our ability to figure out where the land is,” Dokka said. And it means some evacuation roads, hospitals and shelters are further below sea level than emergency planners thought.
So when government officials talk of rebuilding levees to pre-Katrina levels, it may really still be several feet below what’s needed, Dokka and others say.
“Levees that are subsiding at a high rate are prone to failure,” Dixon said.
[…]
The Army Corps of Engineers is adding extra height to earthen levees to compensate for sinking and is setting benchmark measurements of all levees for regular monitoring of how much they sink, corps spokesman Gene Pawlik said.
“It’s something post-Katrina, we’re much more focused on,” Pawlik said Wednesday. “It’s certainly an engineering challenge.”
Too bad. Because “Bush fiddled while New Orleans slowly sunk below previously-expected levels thanks to subsidence, the result of hundreds of years of overdevelopment, drainage and natural seismic shifts, as well as a failure to detect the problem earlier and bolster the earthen levees in advance of a powerful hurricane,” just doesn’t have the same ring to it as “Bush fiddled as brown people died. Died! Because he hates the brown people. The racist chimp.”
Reached for comment, erstwhile Katrina hero RoboShep merely brushed this new information aside and went about his work of preparing for next hurricane season, which consists largely of some refurbishing of his titanium exoskeleton and a series of quick outpatient surgeries to have octopus-like tentacles, complete with barnacle-grip suckers, grafted to his chest, back, and arms. That way, when the next big natural disaster hits, he can report on the Bush administration’s failure to save the locals from within the storm itself, simply by attaching himself to any piece of flotsam big enough to hold his bulk. Who knows? Maybe he can even help rescue a few of them. Not that he’d want any credit for his heroism, mind. After all, he’s just doing his job.
And really, who can resist that level of caring?
(h/t AJ Strata, who has more)
Mother Earth doesn’t care about black people. The racist bitch.
When I used to travel to New Orleans (and other fun places like Bogalusa) on business I didn’t like the place.
When I was deployed to help post-Katrina (and got to sit on the edge of Rita) I thought there were large swaths of the place that should be allowed to remain unreconstructed. I thought “Compensate the owners, help the displaced and let it go.”
Good to see some scientific backing for my purely emotional reaction to the place.
I blame Bush.
BECAUSE OF THE FASCISM!!!!!!!!
But what about the thousands of people who died of starvation or were forced to resort to eating each other after a tortuous day without manna from the Chimperor?
Have you no compassion, sir?
BECAUSE OF THE CANNIBALISM!!!
tw: wrong
Heh.
So I guess Nagin’s of the hook too, then?
Was Nagin ever on the hook for the hurricane? Or was it for a failure to evacuate the city, leaving buses unused, etc?
I don’t think nature left the buses idle. That was more likely a failure to turn the ignition.
Survey says: Yes.
I dunno about the “too” part, though. Chimpy still has Rove trying to steal the place so they can hide all the innocent kidnapped goatheders.
Paste isn’t food. Paste is what food eats.
You fools. Rove had the satellite data. He knew precisely how low NO had sunk. He also knew precisely how strong a storm it would take to breach the levies. But what he could not have known is that his crack hurricane generating team had been infiltrated by Valerie Plame who was able, at the last minute, to notch the intensifier back to a Cat 3.
But Rove was prepared for just such an occurence. Those alleged explosions that Al Sharpton reported just before the levies breached were not explosions at all, but rather the start up of a massive gravity amplifier that Bush I had installed under the football stadium at Tulane in 1991. And presto, the added gravity was precisly enough to sink the city the necessary three additional milimeters, and the rest is, shall we say, history
It didn’t have a hand in the bungled federal response either.
Those damn distal deltas, don’t they know that erosion is a crime against people of color? Meanwhile, those bastards in Hawaii and Washington get to enjoy all that magmatic upthrust.
You’d almost think mother earth liked the polynesians and starbucks drinking grunge rockers more…
tb,
If you are refering to FEMA’s performance from say a month or so after the storm to the present, well then I’m with you, and support your snark. However, what did the federal government botch in the two to three days after the storm? What did the federal government not do specifically that made the situation worse?
I BLAME BUSH FOR THE LACK OF SPARK!!!!!
FEMA’s imcompetence in the Katrina aftermath is well documented. Google “FEMA failure katrina” for starters. Then try “levees new.orleans funding”.
New Orleans should take advantage of this. Make it a tourist hook…
“Ladies and gentlemen, come and witness the incredible sinking Chocolate City!”
They could change their city icon to a sink.
I don’t believe you answered the question posed, tb. If there’s plenty of documentation, please make your point and source the supporting documentation. Also, I’m not sure how levee funding relates to a “bungled response”. If you’d clear that up in your own words, I’d be obliged.
Rich, creamy, dark and wet. Mayor Ray has a vision. It looks a little like Atlantis, apparently.
Someone should interview Celine Dion about this.
http://storiesinamerica.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/4/24513/73662
Up to this point I’ve never read the kos entry on it, only seen the video. That write-up is pure gold.
Its a question I have posed many times, Pablo. Rarely do I recieve an actual answer. Usually its “lack of leadership”, “Bush went to Arizona”, and the like. What I am looking for is what did the federal government not do that it was supposed to in the immedaite aftermath of the storm. Also, what was not done as quickly as was possible when considering the scale of the dissaster, the logistical challenges faced by organizations attempting to bring relief from outside the disaster area, and the wildly innacurate and sensationalized media portrayals of conditions in New Orleans.
So the levee funding should have been never messed with, right? It should have beed done way before that, right?
Maybe they have a scetion on that at the Clinton Memorial Library since he was the guy that dropped that ball first. Although to be fair, the levee system was deemed inadequte for a level 5 huricane at the time it was built.
“It didn’t have a hand in the bungled federal response either.”
I guess asking the Gov. of the state if she needed assistance repeatedly was a bad response as well. Just think if she accepted it tb. How would you channel your hate then? Jackhole…..
It’s a question you’re not going to get an answer to nawoods, which is precisely why I pressed our friend tb to explain himself.
Of course, the reason that you won’t get an answer is that the response was enormous and conducted about as quickly as it could have been, at least according to those rabid partisans at Popular Mechanics.
tb,
I did find this and this that seem to disagree with your assertion re. levee funding.
What I did not find was an online paper I’d read months ago that admits that, while federal levee funding has decreased during the Bush administration, it had also decreased under all adminstrations for the past 25 years, including the administrations of both Carter and Clinton.
I don’t expect anything as trivial as facts to change your mind, however.
TW: Louisiana’s famous sense of fiscal responsibility makes them above reproach, natch.
There’s a Lovecraft joke in there, but damned if I’m going to be the geek who makes it.
OOOHHH facts Pablo, don’t confuse them with facts. Remember rhetoric is all they understand…
Of course, if the federal government were limited to a more Constitutional size and mission, there would have been no federal response at all. Build below sea level, take your chances.
Ah well, wishful thinking.
I was part of that response. What did we bungle? What id you see that I didn’t?
It didn’t have a hand in the bungled federal response either.
Well, if by bungled you mean “had to clear roads of debris and check bridges for structural damage before transporting goods and personnel to the effected area”, well then, yes, it did have a hand.
Oops. Sorry. I started using logic and facts there. I know how difficult those are for you to handle.
I’ll try harder next time.
Nimrod.
The fact that we are still having this discussion validates Jeff’s initial assesments of the “emerging narrative”, and why it was important to push back against it. Now that the history seems to have been written, at least in many of the places I visit, the contributions of folks like RTO, and the thousands of National Guard, police, and fire department personel who arrived on the scene as fast as was possible (many of them voluntarily), and worked their asses off to provide relief, is not even a footnote in the story. And thats an absolute travesty.
Then I will be.
“I’m Sheppard Dexter Ward reporting for Miskatonic News”
Isn’t this redundant? I mean, they already reported Nagin being re-elected.
tw: soviet. Heh.
Let us not forget the Levee Board that spent it’s money on a private jet and partial interest in a casino, rather than on reinforcing the levee it was created to maintain. But somehow, I guess that’s Bush’s fault too, eh?
BECAUSE OF THE MALFEASANCE AND CORRUPTION!
Oh, sorry, I forgot that malfeasance and corruption were synonymous with New Orleans, er, “Chocolate city”….
Thanks nawood. It wasn’t fun, but we got ‘er done. Personally, I think the Coast Guard never got enough credit. Those guys were flat out inspiring.
Damn straight. First in, last out, 24 hour ops, no down time for weather (which is no small thing flying choppers), doing whatever was necessary to get the job done.
The LA Guard doesn’t get half the credit they deserve either.
Bungled? What are you talking about? I know of one federal official who was able to get to his own home in Louisiana in the aftermath (with assistance from the NG) to rescue money from his freezer!
If we could just get it to sink a little faster, we could completely solve the whole corruption, rebuilding mess.
Just stop and think of that poor money! $90 grand! Sitting there freezing, wondering if it would ever be rescued!
Just goes to show the compassion of a certain federal official risking his own life and limb, for the money!
Cold. Hard. Money.
Makes me wonder what ever happened to that brave federal official.
Maybe someone in Congress could shed some spotlight on that brave federal official.
Too much to ask probably.
Speaking of New Orleans, I know where to find Jesse MacBeth. He’s gone to work for Aaron Broussard.
Yeah, they bungled some twenty-two thousand people off of the roofs of their flooded houses in the first 72 hours. That’s right, the only reason there were only 1000+ New Orleans instead of TWENTY THOUSAND was because of the “bungled Federal response.”
thanks anyway/
peter.
Hmmmm.
Frankly I thought the levee funding was supposed to decrease as the levee’s were built.
If the levee funding was supposed to stay the same or increase, then I’d be asking WTF and where the hell is my damn levee already.
M. Scott, I don’t have a link handy either, but the “federal levee funding” tends to go through the Corps of Engineers, which is the primary flood control agency in the country. The funding of that agency, as it applies to flood control works (generally known as “Civil Works”) has generally shrunk over the past 25 years. You might try that avenue of research. Other agencies do some levee work, but not as much.
That budget hasn’t been drastically cut, but the total increases in the budget generally fall short of inflation. Mixed with other factors (e.g., increased competition for maintenance funds as that infrastructure grows older, pork barrel politics, etc), this becomes a significant cut.
And let add my heartfelt thanks to the first responders who deployed into the Gulf States (and not just NOLA). I watched this unfold from Kuwait, and the logistics folks (who supply the daily needs for several hundred thousand people spread over three nations) there were simply in awe over that response. This in spite of the sputtering response from the state and local elected officials.
That would be 1000+ dead of course…
T/W: response, of course.
By the way, for anyone who hasn’t seen it, NOLA.com has a neat little flash animation that illustrates precisely which parts of New Orleans flooded when and why. It’s a pretty complex series of events.
yours/
peter.
Yes, some 22 thousand people who had the physical ability to climb on the roof, but not the good sense to get the hell out of a soup bowl in the path of a Cat 5 storm.
That complete disregard for their own personal safety and the risk at which they put those who then had to rescue them is the fault of the rescuers, somehow.
To paraphrase Kanye West, black people don’t care about black people. They left themselves there to die.
Spoken with crystal clear 20/20 hindsight Pablo. New Orleans had been waiting for the “big one” for 300 years. Audry, Betsie, Camille and a hundred others came and went. There were plenty of white people who stayed, and plenty more that couldn’t leave for one reason or another. They had their reasons, and you aren’t really qualified to second-guess them. Don’t be so reactionary.
– One of the common tricks beneath the serface of the Libturds Katrina screed, at least where FEMA is concerned is that FEMA is an AFTER the fact, not a firts responder. I see the moonbats yammering incorrectly about this all the time.
– I’d say Blanco’s documented stubborn refusal to give Bush the go ahead at Martializing was the 700 lb Gorilla in the Katrina tent. Funny how the Left seems to keep losing that little tidbit in their howls of “Bungling”. Old news.
Looks like you guys cured ‘tb’. Well done!
Historian Douglas Brinkley’s “The Great Deluge” is the defintitve work on Katrina and New Orleans. As a Tulane professor and long-time NO resident, he used his pres credentials to go out with the first responders and documents the failures, particularly at the city (Nagin) and state(Blanco)levels.
For instance, Nagin, afriad of being sued if he’d ordered evacuations and thereby harmed the hotels, casino and other tourists industry interests, didn’t order anybody out until it was too late. Also, the city and the Bus Drivers Union were in a contract dispute (haven’t heard this out of the “mainstream media” have you?) and the decision was made to leave them off-duty and the buses in parking lots below sea level because they didn’t want to have to pay the drivers overtime! AMTRAK offered it’s capacity to help evacuate poorer citizens and Nagin turned them down.
NO had 4(!) people assigned to hurricane mgmt, a fraction of what cities like Miami had, despite the history of Camille, Andrew, etc.
The levee board were rife with corruption and diverted funds for maintenence and improvement
into all sorts of boondoggles.
If you really want to know what went down in The Big Easy during Katrina, read “The Great Deluge”.
While we’re kicking Katrina over again, anybody got a guess as to what the NEW New Orleans evacuation plan consists?
Get yourself out of town when ordered to do so.
Aren’t you glad you asked?
And had they died, there’d be a reason for that. Which wouldn’t be because George Bush didn’t save them.
I don’t think there’s anything racial about the problem, and my riff was on West’s racism. There were indeed plenty of dumb white folks too, along with those of all colors who reasonably couldn’t get out in time due to illness/infirmity.
My point is that if you’re got the wherewithal to make it onto the roof, you’ve likely got the capacity to get out of town. Furthermore, the number who didn’t leave and who also didn’t make survival preparations for even a few days have themselves to blame, not FEMA.
20/20 hindsight will also tell you that the person smeared on the street shouldn’t have stepped out in front of the bus. But like an oncoming Cat 5 hurricane, you can see that coming from the front as well.
It sounds like a winner to me!
– Well in a sense both Nagin and Blanco’s great secret plans worked. In Blanco’s case by stalling Bush for 6 fucking days, she could always blame it on Federal bungling, and Nagin gets off the “getting sued” hook, because afterwards there wasn’t much left to sue.
– So as of now, the way things stand they have everything ready to go, with exactly the same levee situation so it can all be a repeat performance when the next big one hits.
– Wonderful. I tend to agree. NO should just go ahead and sink. At least its slow enough theres plenty of time to get out, and apparently thats the only thing that will stop the citizens down there from building things beneath the sea. How many 200 billion dollar rebuilds, and dead bodies will it take for people just to say fuck it.
TW: Anything with French connected to it just has to be Valhalah.
You win. The federal response to Katrina was flawless. The entire mess was the fault of dumb blacks.
RACIST!
It’s not racist when it’s true. Ask anybody. And don’t pretend you didn’t get a kick out of the “sinking chocolate city” bit.
Oooooh….sorry, tb! Kathleen Blanco is whiter than white. In fact, she’s Kathleen White, once you strip that pretentious faux-Hispanic claptrap from her moniker.
And she’s at fault, to a large degree, for the “bungled” response. If she’d greenlighted the Guard when she was asked by the President to do so, the response would have been much better yet.
F’n cracker.
And there I was, thinking that it was the result of a natural disaster, a hundred years of poor planning and a whole lot of whistling past the graveyard. And now you tell me it was dumb blacks? Do you have any supporting data?
You could use a spot of Whittle, tb.
All I can say is you people have really found religion when it comes to the federal government. It’s like you think they can do no wrong now that George Bush is at the helm.
I’m just going by what I’ve read here. “They were too dumb to leave” seems to be the consensus opinion.
– Its just beneath the surface of every leftists skin. The Left-wing drive by media tried to play up the race angle for over a week until people strated getting in there and all the lies chocked off their twaddle. The Libturds then go with the race card, and of course the Jacksons who make thier living off of it. But the Blacks themselves. No. Funny how that works.
– Unfortunately for that little brain dead howling moonbat screed, hurricanes are color blind.
No, tb, you show up and immediately play the “bungled federal response” card; people who disagree presented information that disputes that claim. You’re response is “OK, then, the federal response was perfect.” My 10 year old wouldn’t be stupid enough to pull that one. There is a continuum between “perfection” and “bungled” – unless you’re a partisan hack with nothing worthwhile to say in response. And it’s bullshit to pretend the local authorities (a) had no responsibility, and (b) didn’t screw up fantastically. You just want to lay it all at Bush’s feet because that’s your conditioned, knee-jerk response.
You’re projecting. Bush has been criticized for lots by many on the right (been paying attention to immigration policy debates?). No, tb, you’re projecting, as Bush can do nothing RIGHT, and it’s a fucking bore. Not even sure, really, why I’m wasting time typing this.
YOUR response, of course. Save it.
TW: white – I’m not even surprised anymore.
The Libruls are just a two note act. “Bush bad”/”race warfare”. Like someone said awhile ago; “If Bush walked across the Potomic and back, the tinhats would accuse him of not being able to swim”.
– And yes. boring. But when you have zero plan or party platform, its a great way to fill the time.
NO is sinking faster than expected because of the weight of the iron heel of BushitlerCo oppression stamping down on the necks of the oppressed citizens of the Chocolate City!
Sort of a backhand way to say Bush = Incompetence. But I’ll go ahead and humor you. If you have been here at all previously, you would see a tremendous amount of pushback against Bush for a myriad of policies. We’re paste eaters, and paste eaters don’t placate.
That’s just the way we roll.
The whole point of Jeff’s original post was to deflect blame from the federal gov’t due to the fact that ‘hey, it was sinking anyway’ or some such. Obviously, I thought that was horseshit.
When in Rome, I guess. Have you read the comments around here? These people are stuck in the 7th grade.
No one around here has a bad word to say about the federal response. What am I supposed to think?
Did I say otherwise?
No, I want to lay it at Bush’s feet because he deserves it. By any rational standard he is a total failure.
Gotta go kids. Some of us have a social life. Enjoy your little tent of hate.
Consensus opinion of what? The cause of the hurricane? Why, you’d have to be retarded to think that, tb. Or actus. Is that what you’re saying?
And what about the white people that were too dumb to leave?
Pretty sure nothing more needs to be said.
Say, is there any PIE in this Tent of Hate?
– No. you left that back in what ever leftwing echochamber you came from. We don’t just give lip service to things like tolorance like the moonbat brigade. We actual welcome everyone, (well except actus, but he doesn’t count – more like a libtard mascot), and we have another aspect thats missing from your natural inviron tb. Its called h-u-m-o-r. I know in your stark, everything is hopeless world, thats a profanity. But we enjoy it.
No. The whole point of the post was to say that the levees were inadequate because of serveral factors, one of which was that NO has sunk 3 feet in the last three decades. But I understand your position..any contributing factor to NO flooding that detracts from the common accepted narrative of the Left is, as you so succinctly say, horseshit.
Jeez…I’m devastated. How am I going to recover from such a witty rejoinder? Note the condescension just dripping, I tell you, dripping from this comment. Why, us knuckledragging rednecks have absolutely no business questioning our betters.
First of all you are wrong. I believe someone said that if you are talking about the time period from a month after Katrina until now we could agree that the Feds have kicked the ball around. However if you are just speaking of the immediate response of FEMA, we asked that you provide substance for your charges. Most of us believe that the Feds performed admirably, responding quicker with more personnel and resources in the history of FEMA.
Ah…by any “rational standard”…that rationality to be determined by the “reality based community”. Sorta see which direction you are coming from now.
As for your social life….I hate it when I pity people.
Todd’s been around before. He’s still singing the same song, although the band has moved on.
– Heh. they must sit out there and draw straws to see who gets to be in the barrel for the day……
– Would be great if they’d punch up their script from time to time. kerist, we’ve been listening to the same crap for 6 years……
Interesting. The only one I see hating is tb. He’s nothing but projection.
M. Scott is right. Hats off to you, sir.
Of course, tb’s idea of a “social life” involves
abusing himself while viewing a Lyndie England centerfold, followed by some serious thumb-sucking.
Not that I’m being judgemental or anything.
tb,
The only thing wrong with your opinion is that … well, its completely irrational. Your fatuous comments have nothing to do with the reality of what happened in Katrina. Zip. Nada. Fantasyland.
The Bush administration was not in charge of evacuation planning, evacuation execution or even initial search and rescue. The completely incompetent and corrupt Louisiana state govt and New Orleans city govt ( the one that had been lying to the Federal govt about how many police officers it had, remember? ) were in charge of those responsibilities.
Buh-bye, tb. Enjoy the teeny-tiny tent in your trousers.
Un-conventional wisdom:
–Katrina was a Cat 3 at landfall around NO not a Cat 5 (that was Mississippi and Biloxi definitely go the bad end of the wind).
–Lumping 34 agencies into DHS was the worst public policy decision in the history of the Republic. Only the Coast Guard seems to be its excellent old self. Everybody else either changed their name and stayed the same or regressed (FEMA).
–If George Bush was standing on top of the levees with the National Guard during their respective collapses they would have still, you know, collapsed. Ditto Bill Clinton or any other person the left idolizes.
–Just a general observation: As a great a music and culinary destination as NO was/hopefully will be again, it’s a lousy location to put a city. For those who have not been there–having river barge traffic pass at higher than eye level is disconcerting.
–Media hysteria is just that, hysteria. The aftermaths of hurricanes suck. Period. However, I think we can dispense with the Lord of the Flies narratives, which, by the way, are the greatest examples of intentionalism EVER presented. Thank you, Shep Smith, for inadvertently proving Jeff’s volumionous recent points on the subject.
–I continue to dante to the Red Cross and that’s a much better way to help than caterwauling about the inept response of an agency that the Congress (yes, Republican and Democrat alike) made into the deepest of pork troughs. Next!
Yet the left treats it as gospel, all the while slagging the “conservative media”.
It’s what you wnat to believe we think.
You ever going to answer my question?
Save for the declaration, neither have you yet. Where’s the exposition?
What’s the deal with these low-readership trolls that have come by here lately?
tb has been blogging since Jan. 2005 but his counter reads “7519”.
Reminds me of the kid in school who was constantly getting in trouble. Turns out he was so starved for attention that negative attention was better than none at all.
Yeah I hear you man. I may been overly sensitive to your comment. As it turns out, the only population group that have been statistically demonstrated to have been disproportionately affected by Katrina was the elderly. So I guess if our Lord and Savior Kanye had a clue, he would have said Bush hates old people.
Actually a lot of them made it into their attics. An unbelievable number had to be cut out, which makes the Coast Guard’s feat even that more astounding.
Agreed. Personally I wish Bush would have stuck to it’s guns and not supported the creation of FEMA in the first place. But that’s a whole other thread…
People stayed for all kinds of reasons: they were too sick or infirm, because they didn’t want to leave their pets, because the exact same thing happened with Ivan the year before and NO didn’t even get any rain (my grandmother told me she had to water her trees). People had all kinds of reasons, and in hindsite they were all bad reasons. It’s just lately I’ve begun to wonder, in my 20/20 hindsite, if evacuation is even a real option for a large city. I mean, has Miami ever had a successful mandatory evacuation? If so, how did they do it? I know smaller coastal cities have mostly done it before, but New Orleans is simply too big.
Until I can find some evidence otherwise, i have to question whether it’s possible to perform such a short-notice mandatory evacuation without leaving a lot of people (not to mention the property) behind. So until then, my vote is to make New Orleans hurricane proof. It is technically possible, and will cost a lot but not nearly as much as something like Boston’s Big Dig. And certainly not as much as Katrina will have cost us after all is said and done. And what’s more important? An underpass, or saving one of America’s oldest and most unique cities? It would be worth it, easily. It can’t sink forever. There are hard shales down there.
T/W: under. Ha ha. Very funny ya fuckin’ algorithm..
yours./
peter.
Fucking amazing. Absolutely fucking amazing. Dripping condescion, willfull obtuseness, drive-by snark.
You can’t fucking parody the left anymore.
PS. I’m not really the hateful type but I could make an exception for you, tb. Fucking twat.
1) inefficient and corrupt local levee districts
2) Local government prevented American Red Cross from entering NOLA. ARC although not a Federal agency, is the Federal Gov’s first response in natural disasters. A fact the BlameBush crowd willfully ignores.
TW: Changes in levee authorities
pablo  Nagin may have a vision of Atlanta, but I betcha he lands closer to Detroit…
For those kvetching about where New Orleans is located, just where do you propose we move the port to? Butte, Montana perhaps? We’re here because this is about as far upriver as is economical for ocean-going ships to travel to off-load (About 8 hours from the mouth of the river, FWIW), and as far downstream as is practical for the construction of skyscrapers. Originally, it was because this was the shortest portage between the River & the Lake. In other words, BECAUSE OF THE GEOGRAPHY! You think they built ‘Frisco & L.A. where they’re at because they enjoyed getting crushed by earthquakes?
For those willing to let the city sink, I hope you like paying much more for gasoline, much more for seafood, and watching the midwestern agribusinesses collapse due to the lack of affordable shipping to ocean-going ports. A third of the petrolium products, a third of the nation’s seafood, and almost all of our bulk grain shipments to overseas destinations passes through here. If the port moves anywhere, it’ll be to Morgan City, and only because the Old River Control Structure was designed & built by the same inbred chimpanzees who designed and built our levees. (Incidently, the Corps of Engineers admitted today that the flooding was their fault…)
Cybrludite,
I completely agree with Peter Jackson above, that the city can be made much safer from Mother Nature. No one here has disputed the reality of New Orleans place in the big American engine. What you do not need to dispute is that the location is a tad on the “if we had it to do again, maybe Mobile” side of the equation. It’s similar to someone noting that Pompeii was a bit too close to Vesuvius. It’s not meant to be pejorative.
Plus, all the world needs to eat at Commander’s Palace at least once.
My tent of hate has a hole in it, and the rain from the damn hurricane is getting in.
I wasn’t going to comment, but my turing word was word, so I sorta felt obligated.
The amount of shredded strawman it created when it’s original claims were debunked is also… intersting.
tb:”The fed response was horrible!!!”
others: “Um… no it wasn’t. (cites examples)”
tb: “Oh, so you’re claiming the federal response was FLAWLESS, huh?!”
Me: “Grow up, tb.”
Wishbone,
After the better part of a year of hearing “F*** them. Let ‘em drown! Why should we have to help pay to clean up that mess?”, I tend to get a bit defensive. As for, “if we had it to do again, maybe Mobileâ€Â, the Mobile River provides access to most of Alabama, chunks of Mississippi & Georgia, and a token bit of Tennessee. The Mississippi runs up past the Twin Cities. With some truly heroic engineering efforts, we could shift things to Morgan City, La. without more than a few months disruption. (Prepping channels & levees along the Atchafalaya basin, especially behind the Old River Control Structure between the Mississippi & Atchafalaya Rivers)
Major John et al.:
As a very, very, teeny-tiny part of Team Coast Guard, thanks for the kind words.
(I wasn’t there in NOLA, but I do appreciate it.)
Lucky his assets didn’t get frozen.