You remember nasty Katrina.

One year ago Tuesday, she violently spiraled into the Gulf Coast, killing
more than 1,800 people, destroying 353,000 homes, doing $81 billion in
damage, drowning 80 percent of New Orleans and setting off a circus of media
hysteria, political finger-pointing, racial recrimination and myth-mongering
that embarrassed us before the whole world.

No thanks to the electronic media, the American public was left with a
distorted view of what really happened before and after Hurricane Katrina
hit.

Remember those initial shocking TV reports? New Orleans consumed by anarchy?
Rescue helicopters shot at? People by the score being raped and murdered in
the Superdome and convention center?

None of it was true. Looters were common. But violent crime was actually
rarer than usual.

How about the government's slow response time? Another myth. Within three
days, 100,000 emergency personnel arrived on the scene from state, local and
federal sources and rescued 100,000 soaked souls -- making it arguably the
largest and fastest rescue effort in U.S. history.

As for the mass evacuation that supposedly didn't work, 1.2 million of metro
New Orleans' 1.5 million people left town before Katrina hit. It took 38
hours -- 34 fewer than expected. Most who stayed behind chose not to leave.

At first the media-driven blame game was simple: President Bush and his
cronies at FEMA didn't care or respond fast enough. Later the most culpable
pols -- New Orleans Mayor Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Blanco -- were fingered.

But the real culprits were not individual politicians but government and
bureaucracy. At nearly every step and turn, it was hapless public-sector
players that either caused problems or made them worse.

The city government -- congenitally corrupt, broke and clueless -- was
ill-prepared for Katrina or became paralyzed in the clutch. Likewise the
slimy Louisiana state government, which despite decades of warnings failed
to upgrade the levees.

As for the feds, FEMA was a joke long before Katrina flooded New Orleans. So
was the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has spent the last 100 years
messing up the natural flow of the Mississippi and which designed and built
the storm walls and earthen levees that failed and flooded New Orleans.

Miraculously, the Corps admitted its incompetence in June, albeit in
stereotypically bureaucratic fashion -- by issuing a 6,000-page report that
cost $19.7 million.

New Orleans, by all accounts, from Time magazine Spike Lee's HBO
documentary, is still in sad shape. Despite billions in federal aid, despite
myriad promises and plans, despite the hard work of thousands of good
people, more than 113,000 humans still live in FEMA trailers and 60 percent
of New Orleans' population lives elsewhere.

The poor city is a skeleton running on federal handouts. Its leaders are
still arguing about what neighborhoods to redevelop and how. The Army Corps
is still not done repairing the levees, which will need many years and many
more billions before they can even stand up to another relatively weak
Category 3 like the tragically well-aimed Katrina.

Meanwhile, as the public sector dithers and squabbles and plans its next
fiascoes, Mother Nature will be perennially brewing up new catastrophes that
could put wounded New Orleans under water again for good.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=24145

www.devilfinder.com U.S.Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment
Station Vicksburg Mississippi

Had you prefered U.S.Army had never done anything about the Mississippi
River? Is that what you think? Do you approve of Cities and Towns all
along the Mississippi River,North and South,being flooded all the time?
Do you know what has been installed along the Mississippi River banks
many years ago? I know.Do you?

www.devilfinder.com Dr.Ivor Van Heerden
cuhulin

For a long time now we've been listening to the Democrats and their toadies
in the media complaining about the Bush administration's handling of the
Hurricane Katrina disaster and its aftermath.

They charge it up to what they call the administration's incompetence,
implying that had the Democrats been running the show, things would have
been handled much better.

It takes a lot of gall to make that charge because as one Town Hall blogger,
Cato's Corner, recently pointed out, the Democrats were in charge before,
during and ever since Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.

In the United States, the authorities at the state and local levels are
responsible for what happens in their areas. In Louisiana the governor is a
Democrat, and the mayor of New Orleans is a Democrat. They were the
so-called first responders, and their response was pitiful. They can blame
President Bush all they want, but it was their job to handle the disaster
and their handling of it was a disaster in itself.

That incompetence continues, especially in New Orleans where the cleanup and
rebuilding efforts are lagging far behind where they would have been had
they done their jobs competently. And they can't blame that on the president
or the federal government.

The fact is that $11.8 billion has been allocated. That's everything that
New Orleans asked for. They got $6 billion in December, another $4 billion
in May, another $1.8 billion recently, and yet they haven't spent the money.

One big problem: New Orleans has yet to come up with a master plan that will
allow people to know what they can do and how to do it.

"The citizens of New Orleans need to know what the plans are, so the
citizens can make their plans on whether they should rebuild, repair or sell
their homes," Norman Francis, chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority,
which oversees federal aid given to Louisiana told the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer.

"A lot of people are holding their money back pending an affirmation that
the city really has a broader idea of where it's going in the future. What
kind of a city is it going to be?" added Ken Topping, a California planning
consultant hired to help.

Moreover, the city refuses to relax the red-tape provisions to allow the
people to get the money to be able to rebuild, which is exactly the opposite
of what Mississippi's Republican Governor Haley Barbour has done in his
state. He cut through the red tape to allow the people to get the funds
necessary to go ahead and rebuild.

Another reason is that the folks in Mississippi are working together, not
standing around waiting for the federal government to rebuild. Officials in
Louisiana are still whining, waiting for somebody to do everything for them.

The federal government has supplied the funds. It is the local government
that refuses to distribute the money. I was talking to a member of Congress
from Louisiana who recalled that the Congress had authorized $6 billion last
December but New Orleans made the determination that they were not going to
spend any of it until they got the whole $10 billion they were then
demanding.

In Mississippi, on the other hand, as they were getting the money they were
finding ways to spend it to help the people rebuild.

Tragically, the President is playing into the hands of his critics by
implying that he is somehow to blame for the situation. He's allowing the
Democrats to use him as fodder in their attacks on him. He needs to stand up
and shout, "We're not to blame. We gave you the money. If the people in New
Orleans don't have the money it's not because the federal government hasn't
done its job; it's because your local government officials refuse to do
theirs."

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=24146

On Thu, 31 Aug 2006 10:43:01 -0500, "SeeingEyeDog"
wrote:
... the mayor of New Orleans is a Democrat.

Wrong!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ray Nagin

Clarence Ray Nagin, Jr. (born June 11, 1956) is the mayor of New
Orleans. He was first elected on March 2, 2002, to succeed his fellow
Democrat, Marc Morial. Nagin gained international attention in 2005
for his handling of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the New
Orleans area. He was reelected to a second term on May 20, 2006. Nagin
was a registered Republican his entire life, prior to seeking office.
He officially switched parties to win in a heavily Democratic area.

Katrina whomped me.I reckon the ''way'' you ''see'' things,,, I dont
know anything about Katrina,eh?
cuhulin,hates Katrina

Crank up y'alls computers.Look for yesterday's Clarion Ledger online,
www.clarionledger.com August 30,2006,Local
News.Mourning,moving on.(Zoom Photo)
We cried after Katrina,we rolled up our shirtsleeves and went to Work.We
cried after 9/11,we rolled up our shirtsleeves and went to Work.
cuhulin

"David" wrote in message
news
On Thu, 31 Aug 2006 10:43:01 -0500, "SeeingEyeDog"
wrote:
... the mayor of New Orleans is a Democrat.

Wrong!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ray Nagin

Clarence Ray Nagin, Jr. (born June 11, 1956) is the mayor of New
Orleans. He was first elected on March 2, 2002, to succeed his fellow
Democrat, Marc Morial. Nagin gained international attention in 2005
for his handling of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the New
Orleans area. He was reelected to a second term on May 20, 2006. Nagin
was a registered Republican his entire life, prior to seeking office.
He officially switched parties to win in a heavily Democratic area.

Collecting welfare!

wrote in message
...
Crank up y'alls computers.Look for yesterday's Clarion Ledger online,
www.clarionledger.com August 30,2006,Local
News.Mourning,moving on.(Zoom Photo)
We cried after Katrina,we rolled up our shirtsleeves and went to Work.We
cried after 9/11,we rolled up our shirtsleeves and went to Work.
cuhulin

President Bush caused Katrina - he is G_d.

wrote in message
...
Katrina whomped me.I reckon the ''way'' you ''see'' things,,, I dont
know anything about Katrina,eh?
cuhulin,hates Katrina

SeeingEyeDog wrote:

President Bush caused Katrina - he is G_d.

I thought it was Cheney, down there in the secret bunker working the joystick.

dxAce
Michigan
USA