Q&A: Why the American govt is taking so long to bring New Orleans back to pre Katrina days?
Posted by James on November 19, 2012 · 8 Comments
Question by Roshan A: Why the American govt is taking so long to bring New Orleans back to pre Katrina days?
I have recently read in Time magazine that it is due to the fact that
the city is situated below sea level and another Katrina could wipe out the city and the Govt is concentrating more on relocating its people is it true?
Best answer:
Answer by pilar
it is true that new orleans is below sea level, but if they were so worried about people’s welfare, why are they relocating the poor, and bringing the rich in.
What do you think? Answer below!
in any other disaster in America if homes are located in a flood plain the property owners are forced to relocate out of the flood plain. I don’t think New Orleans should be any different.
I feel they just don’t want to and there is so much crooked Politician running the city.
No, that’s not true.
Our current President and his administration doesn’t give a tinkers dam about anything except the illegal war in Iraq. ALL of our funds are going to that war – about 2 BILLION dollars a week. THere is NO money for anything else.
We are all waiting for the Idiot to leave office so we can end the war, bring our young people home and use the money for things here that are urgent…like re-building New Orleans and fixing our collapsing infrastructure.
Because, in the end, it’s not the American government’s responsibility. It is the responsibility of the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans. To many people there, before and after Katrina, waited for someone else to help out instead of doing it themselves.
ture we are below sea level, i think its 5 feet below, but no they are not trying to relocate us. nor will we move, i love new orleans, i love louisiana and i’m not going anywhere, and i want to remind people that the HURRICANE did not do the damage to new orleans the LEVEES breaking did. had the levees stayed like they are supposd to we would be fine.
I had to chuckle when I read one of these answers. Some of you want property owners relocated out of New Orleans because it’s a floodplain. New Orleans is a major port city that has been around for centuries. It sits strategically near the mouth of the Miss. River, and is vital to this country’s day to day operation.
Say they “close” New Orleans. (which ain’t gonna happen) No dockworkers, no railworkers, no stevedores, no shipping lines, no grain elevators,…shall I go on? You close this city down, and you bring the country to its knees. Oh, guess where a huge amount of the country’s emergency oil reserves are stored? In underground salt domes in South Louisiana (yep. below sea level)
Many people or trying to rebuild their lives in N.O. and have been successful. They are the ones that have gotten off their butts and are not waiting for a handout from the American Government. Those that are waiting for the govt. to rebuild their city and their lives are gonna have tired arms from holding out their empty hands.
Because our president sucks and spends all out tax money fighting someone elses war and then restoring their country before ours.
Most of New Orleans is at or above sea level, and most of the area that is low is only a little below sea level.
Note that hurricanes rarely hit New Orleans and the last one to do so befofre Katrina was Betsy in 1965. Before that was in 1947 (before hurricanes were named).
Congress and the news media usually talk about $100+ Billion in “hurricane aid”. However, that was the amount allocated for five states and three hurricanes. The amount includes huge amounts of money that was spent by the government on itself for operations. It also includes the cost of repairing the levee system in SE Louisiana (not just New Orleans), which was badly damaged by Katrina.
The federal government ALSO counts flood insurance payouts in the $100+ Billion figure as “aid”, even though it was >> insurance << and people had to pay for it. The flood insurance payout goes to the mortgage company if a house is damaged 50% or more, leaving the homeowner with little or nothing with which to rebuild. That is the common experience in New Orleans, where there was a very high rate of flood insurance coverage before Katrina and more than 80% of homes were covered. The money gets counted as being "disbursed", but it does the homeowner no good. Most of the actual aid money is still in the hands of state government - NOT disbursed to the people. The main problem is the failure of "Governor Blanco's Louisiana Road Home Program", which has been so badly managed the governor announced she won't run for re-election. Search "Louisiana Road Home" for articles. New Orleans is eligible for only a fraction of the actual aid money and has received very little of it. Municipal government incompetence (something we have lots of) does not help. The federal government allocated funds to fix all of the levees and walls damaged by Katrina and they have been repaired or replaced (220 miles of them). An upgrade program has already been approved + funded by Congress and should be complete by the end of 2011. The current upgrade is part of a 20-year plan designed to protect SE Louisiana (not just New Orleans) from future storms like Katrina. Restoring the wetlands is part of that - but will take decades. Katrina was the strongest storm ever recorded to strike North America and it wrecked an area larger than Great Britain. There is NO precedent in American history for the Katrina disaster and recovery will not be easy, fast, or cheap. Finally, rebuilding New Orleans is not optional. Preserving historical and cultural sites are usually given as reasons for rebuilding and those issues do matter. However, they are not the reason New Orleans is important to the rest of the USA. New Orleans is (geographically) where it is for a number of legitimate reasons and a significant percentage of America's critical energy and transportation infrastructure is located here. It would be possible to relocate much of the industry to somewhere else, but it would cost Trillions. The Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico, and the oilfields can't be moved.