Why is the government NOT changing it's ways in New Orleans?

Question

New Orleans Repeating Deadly Levee Mistakes

NEW ORLEANS - Signs are emerging that history is repeating itself in the Big Easy, still healing from Katrina: People have forgotten a lesson from four decades ago and believe once again that the federal government is constructing a levee system they can prosper behind.

In a yearlong review of levee work here, The Associated Press has tracked a pattern of public misperception, political jockeying and legal fighting, along with economic and engineering miscalculations since Katrina, that threaten to make New Orleans the scene of another devastating flood.

Dozens of interviews with engineers, historians, policymakers and flood zone residents confirmed many have not learned from public policy mistakes made after Hurricane Betsy in 1965, which set the stage for Katrina; many mistakes are being repeated.

"People forget, but they cannot afford to forget," said Windell Curole, a Louisiana hurricane and levee expert. "If you believe you can't flood, that's when you increase the risk of flooding. In New Orleans, I don't think they talk about the risk."

Tyrone Marshall, a 48-year-old bread vendor, is one person who doesn't believe he's going to flood again.

"They've heightened the levees. They're raised up. It makes me feel safe," he said as he toiled outside his home in hard-hit Gentilly, a formerly flooded property refashioned into a California-style bungalow.

Geneva Stanford, a 76-year-old health care worker, is a believer, too. She lives in a trim and tidy prefabricated house in the Lower 9th Ward, 200 feet from a rebuilt floodwall that Katrina broke.

"This wall here wasn't there when we had the flood," Stanford said, radiant in a bright kanga-style dress. "When I look at it now, I say maybe if we had had it up it there then, maybe we wouldn't have flooded."

They're not alone. A recent University of New Orleans survey of residents found concern about levee safety was dropping off the list of top worries, replaced by crime, incompetent leadership and corruption.

This sense of security, though, may be dangerously naive.

For the foreseeable future, New Orleans will be protected by levees unable to protect against another storm like Katrina.

When and if the Army Corps of Engineers finishes $14.8 billion in post-Katrina work, the city will have limited protection — what are defined as 100-year levees.

This does not mean they'd stand up to storms for a century. Under the 100-year standard, in fact, experts say that every house being rebuilt in New Orleans has a 26 percent chance of being flooded again over a 30-year mortgage; and every child born in New Orleans would have nearly a 60 percent chance of seeing a major flood in his or her life.

"It's not exactly great protection," said John Barry, the author of "Rising Tide," a book New Orleans college students read to learn about the corps' efforts to tame the Mississippi.

As a rule, any levee building makes people feel good in this unsettling landscape where the Gulf of Mexico can be seen gleaming from the top floors of skyscrapers and where the ubiquitous dynamics of a sinking and eroding river delta ripple through every aspect of life.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080823/ap_on_re_us/katrina_repeating_the_past;_ylt=Ajy5PU3gajKLu05UHwOuD_IDW7oF

Answer 1

Did any of you actually READ the article?  By the "answers" I would guess NO - except for Squirrel cage.  

The article is about the fact the >>> federal government <<< is rebuilding the levee system that was damaged by Katrina, but doing so with half-measures. Poorly-designed, insufficiently-funded, and negligently constructed levees were the reason the city-proper flooded during Katrina.  THAT is the "public policy mistake" referred to in the article.

Katrina was the worst natural disaster to ever strike the USA. The storm killed more than 1800 people in LA & MS, displaced more than 2,000,000 for months, made 500,000 of us long-term homeless, wrecked an area of 90,000 square miles, destroyed 225,000 buildings, and the damage to the City of New Orleans alone was $200 Billion. New Orleans was only a fraction of the devastated area.

We need to do what can be done to see that it never happens again.

To grannygrunt28391, guess what - the Mississippi River IS lined with levees all the way from New Orleans to well north of Louisiana.

Answer 2

Governments rarely change their ways but in this case it is criminal, in my opinion.  They should contract with very good engineers and do the levees right this time.

Answer 3

Because they're sure everyone will come to their aid again. I personally think that the only towns more worthy of destruction than New Orleans are Los Angeles and Las Vegas.Too bad there aren't any levees on either of those towns.

Answer 4

To put it in a nutshell - as long as politicians don't get taken to task EVERY time they defraud, lie to, or mislead the public into believing them, they will continue to get away with whatever they think they can.

Most everyday citizens don't thin there's anything they can do about it, so they just go on living the life they've always lived.  If they truly got organized, came up with a 3rd party that would work WITH them, not against them, this country might get back on track.

Answer 5

They're democrats.

That's what they do.

.

Answer 6

If they are going to take care of New Orleans then they will have to start building levees along the Mississippi  River starting at the mouth of the river and work there way down and along all the tributaries and then they will be in New Orleans.   Some people are sick and tired of the whining about that state.  Who had a concert for all of the people that lost their homes along the Mississippi in the northern states. What movie stars contributes money to rebuild homes, what big mouth rapper accuses the President of being a racist over people loosing their homes.?  How many concerts have they had?

Let me tell you N-O-N-E !

So suck it up or move...and do like the rest of the people move on with your life or move to another state.

I can promise you this having a levee will seem like chump change if Obama becomes president.

Edited:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWqed9u6r...

You didn't see this going on when the Mississippi River flooded last spring and in '93

Answer 7

I don't understand why people keep making a fuss over New Orleans when Mississippi had it just as bad. New Orleans is like a huge bowl, just waiting to be refilled by some un named hurricane. If people choose to live there, there are consequences that may follow.

However, for those ppl who cannot afford the move, they need some government help. But this article failed to mention that the government funds went to building back their precious casinos, rather than their own people's homes. The casino's were the first things to come back up. I have pictures if you'd like to see.