My Only Post Regarding Louisiana

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/opinion/04rice.html

I was curious as to how Anne Rice would weigh in on this situation, so I looked it up. I pretty much agree with her.

I will admit right here that since Karissa watches Oprah all the time, I end up watching it, too. I used to hate her because I thought she was just like Jenny Jones or Ricky Lake. Honestly, though, this chick pestered Mayor Nagin to let her into the Superdome despite all their protests for her personal safety and health. It's weird evento see all the celebrities coming in to help, whether because of a close affiliation with LA, or because it's good PR, because of the change they go through. They go in concerned, tey come out downright disturbed and traumatized. They actually look like a child does when he's just witnessed the death of his own parents.
Even reporters like Shepherd Smith, whom we never see outside an office, went on location and are a visibly shaken by what they've experienced.
I think the thing that disturbs me is the fact that none of what has happened should be a surprise, and could have been prevented long before the hurricane ever hit.
http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/
I got that link from Jessica Rabbit's website, but it still illustrates one of the best examples of feet dragging I've seen regarding how the govt. handled the whole hurricane business.
I'm thoroughly impressed by what I've seen from Mayor Nagin and how he's handling all this. He's put up operations in a hotel, half of which had been almost completely blown through by the hurricane, and he's still hanging around New Orleans doing everything he can to help.
I tried to find out what where Pat Owens and Lynn Strauss went during the '97 flood, but I couldn't find anything that actually said they stayed or went.
I know that the Grand Cities collectively have nothing on the extent of damage in New Orleans, or probably any of the other cities devastated along the gulf coast. But there are some similarities, and some good comparisons to make. Grand Forks flooded due to a freak natural event (it was kicked into gear by a blizzard); the dams broke despite efforts to maintain them; water became contaminated; sewer lines broke down; buildings caught fire downtown.
The differences? An overwhelming majority was evacuated before harm came to them. The National Guard responded in a much more timely manner. There were deaths, but as far as natural disasters go, fatalities were relatively low.
Regardless of the differences in size and extent of damage, it is still pretty surprising that it took the federal govt. 3 days just to get people out there--they knew where New Orleans was, they knew what happened. A city of 460,00+ people would be much more difficult to evacuate and provide aide to than a city of roughly 50000, but it's still pretty disturbing given the fact that the Grand Cities didn't have so much dire warning, and they were already proactive in that situation, just caught in a circumstance of bad weather. New Orleans has already tried to get funding for better maintenance of its levees, and when the city flooded, the government acted surprised. It's like Steve Carrell's character from The Office is running our country.
There may be some fundamental disagreements with what I'm thinking, but the federal government DID know about the imminent threat facing New Orleans for a long time before it became one of the "worst natural disasters in American history."
$14 billion. That's what it would take to protect the southern coastal area. Remember that number when the final bill comes rolling in, after Louisiana is cleaned up and after people go back home to try to get back some faint image of the life they had before all this.