The levees were only built to stand a Category 3 storm. They should have
been built decades ago to withstand Category 5 storms.

Everything of this nature that gets built should be engineered to withstand
the worst that might ever come at it, then we breathe easy when the worst
never comes. This makes much more sense than building it to lower standards,
then sweating bullets when the bad shit comes along.

The levees were never built for this sort of thing, and no amount of
patchwork would have fixed the inherent weakness in the dikes.

Blame Bush if you want, but Bush is not at fault here. It is representative
of a systemic failure that goes back several decades.

PS
Tax cuts have resulted in increased revenues, so this complaint is a
strawman.

So let them rot and never fix the problem. Stupid Bush Apologist.

The breech notwithstanding, the levees were never intended to survive the
storm that just passed. That's a fact, Jack.

No amount of money poured at them would have made them able to do the job
they were called upon to do last Monday.


The levee system failed because it was never built strong enough for the
storm that just passed.

The maintenance issues that were cut would not have helped. That is, there
is no guarantee they would have helped, but I'll agree that they wouldn't
have hurt anything. There is no way to predict that the Army Corp of
Engineers would have fixed the part that broke, or if they fixed that part
so it didn't break that another part somewhere else would have survived. The
storm was much stronger than the levees were designed to withstand, and
until they are designed to withstand any possible storm, they will never
work right.

That's the fact? You're a civil engineer now? Tell that to the Corp of
engineers or to
the Dutch Engineers that have built levees that could withstand that.
Also note that the section of levee that did fail was the section
that did not get repaired due to funding.
Personally I think the people of Louisiana should have figured
out how to fund their levees when they knew the funding was going to
run out, and they should shoulder most of the blame.
It's debatable who should fund this, the Federal government
or the State. The same could be said for Florida. Why should the
federal Government bail out people who insist on building in a
hurricane zone and swamps?


-------------------------
Ex-Army Corps officials say budget cuts imperiled flood mitigation
efforts
September 1, 2005
By Jason Vest and Justin Rood

"As levees burst and floods continued to spread across areas hit by
Hurricane Katrina yesterday, a former chief of the Army Corps of
Engineers disparaged senior White House officials for "not
understanding" that key elements of the region's infrastructure needed
repair and rebuilding.

Mike Parker, the former head of the Army Corps of Engineers, was forced
to resign in 2002 over budget disagreements with the White House. He
clashed with Mitch Daniels, former director of the Office of Management
and Budget, which sets the administration's annual budget goals.

"One time I took two pieces of steel into Mitch Daniels' office,"
Parker recalled. "They were exactly the same pieces of steel, except
one had been under water in a Mississippi lock for 30 years, and the
other was new. The first piece was completely corroded and falling
apart because of a lack of funding. I said, 'Mitch, it doesn't matter
if a terrorist blows the lock up or if it falls down because it
disintegrates -- either way it's the same effect, and if we let it fall
down, we have only ourselves to blame.' It made no impact on him
whatsoever."

Danels, now governor of Indiana, did not respond to a request for
comment.

Parker -- who, along with members of his family, was forced to evacuate
his Mississippi farm on Sunday night -- drew media attention (and the
White House's ire) in 2002 by telling the Senate Budget Committee that
a White House proposal to cut just over $2 billion from the Corps' $6
billion budget request would have a "negative impact" on the national
interest. Parker also noted that cuts would mean the end of scores of
contracts and the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

After Parker's Capitol Hill appearance, Daniels wrote an angry memo to
President Bush, writing that Parker's testimony "reads badly. . . on
the printed page," and that "Parker. . . [was] distancing [himself]
actively from the administration." Parker, a former Republican
congressman from Mississippi, was forced to resign shortly thereafter.

.. . .

The Bush administration consistently has pushed to trim the Corps'
budget. But Congress has been reluctant to follow its lead, and
regularly hands the organization several hundred million dollars more
than the White House requests.

Amid the largesse, however, Congress and the administration have made
targeted cuts, some of them in Louisiana. As New Orleans City Business
noted earlier this year, the Corps' construction budget for the
district has gone from $147 million in fiscal 2001 to $82 million in
fiscal 2005. Scores of projects, from efforts to build levees, canals
and pumping stations to bridge improvements -- all of which deal with
flood mitigation -- are incomplete. (The administration's fiscal 2006
budget proposal cut construction funding for the district even further,
to $56 million.)

The Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Project has felt the pinch
particularly hard. After receiving $36.5 million for fiscal 2005, the
project was cut to $10.4 million in the fiscal 2006 White House budget.
The House has endorsed that funding level, while the Senate voted to
boost funding to $37 million. . ."

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cf...dcn=todaysnews

Can people get homeowners insurance in N.O? How costly? And If it were
up to me I would move the city to higher ground just as they moved towns
along the Mississippi after the great floods a few years ago. It's
plain crazy to rebuild when you're below sea level and lake level.
Don't they call that a flood plain.
--

cause I live here.....LOL

--

Scott in Florida

Firstly, it appears that reading doesn't become some of portion the
"learned" few that talk about open contracts, level 5 storms etc -

Contracts have an end after work specified is done.

In one of the articles I recommended that those smart enough to read,
there was a stock certificate copied for the "New Orleans Levee
company" dated 1873. Bush has a long reach huh?

The site of the city is poor as a few have noticed. We with our deep
pockets will rebuild it. Sometime or another, we will rebuild it
again. (can you say 100 year storm?) Might be before this cycle of
rebuilding is completed, who knows?

The fact is that there is never enough "public" money to do all of the
things we expect government to do.

ron

Is this a Federal or State responsibility?

prove it.

we can carry it forward, why should we allow people to build in
earthquake zones. BTW, S. Cal just had a couple of strong tremors
yesterday. All we need now is a major quake in California.
--