Re: Your tax dollars at work


"Dana Taramina" <dana@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ba3ih19ummvphfvo05lkm487364v2h5jt8@xxxxxxxxxx
> This is disgusting. From The Guardian:
>
> A year ago the US army corps of engineers proposed to study how New
> Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush
> administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a
> flood killed six people in 1995, the Congress created the Southeast
> Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project. Operated by the corps of
> engineers, levees and pumping stations were strengthened and
> renovated. In 2001, when George Bush became president, the Federal
> Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane
> striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely potential
> disasters - after a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the
> federal funding essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq
> war. By 2004, the Bush administration cut the corps of engineers'
> request for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by
> more than 80%. By the beginning of this year, the administration's
> additional cuts, reduced by 44% since 2001, forced the corps to impose
> a hiring freeze. The Senate debated adding funds for fixing levees,
> but it was too late.
>
> --Sidney Blumenthal,
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,16441,1561356,00.html


So...Now our congressmen and other political aspirants will start their
processions to the stricken city to survey the damage now that the danger is
mostly over. Now that they can't be embarrased by the furtive pleas of those
who couldn't or wouldn't leave their homes and struggled for days just to
stay alive. They will repeat over and over that is a "natural tragedy".
(Cheney's words today). Duh. Then, they can posture and make speeches to
their consitiuancy and get TV coverage from the major networks.

I notice that Frist from Tennessee was down there today. Political points
guys, get them while they are hot.

Congress will start an investigation "to get to the truth". More speeches
and much more money will be spent.

Maybe some good will be done for the Crescent City but I don't plan to visit
there any time soon.

Like Linda Ellerbee used to say, "and so it goes".

Vox Knox


.

Relevant Pages

  • LAT: Levees Weakened as New Orleans Board, Federal Engineers Feuded
    ... NEW ORLEANS - When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and New Orleans ... The Orleans Levee District, the city's flood protection ...
    (talk.politics.misc)
  • Re: Spooky
    ... of New Orleans which all but wiped out the city in 2092 (I think that was ... ever looked at a map of New Orleans didn't. ... For the decision to build there, blame the French of several hundred ... efforts of all time -- and was the province of the Corps of Engineers. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated)
  • From Vicksburg War Room to Front Lines in New Orleans , the Fight Goes On
    ... 'About a week after hurricane Katrina passed to the east of New Orleans, ... Army Corps of Engineers had good news. ... pushing water through the 17th St. Canal back into the lake. ... storm pierced city floodwalls. ...
    (misc.transport.road)
  • Re: Geology is a dangerous business
    ... flood plain, just the New Orleans ... Corps' word any day over some loony environmentalist, ... the Army Corps of Engineers designed the so-called Lake ... > If it was simply a matter of what some environmentalists are alleged to ...
    (sci.geo.geology)
  • Re: Katrina victims
    ... Bush administration for criticizing cuts that affected New Orleans' ... the corps delayed seven contracts that included ... enlarging the levees, according to corps documents. ... which sent water from Lake Pontchartrain pouring into the city. ...
    (alt.true-crime)