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The Weblog at The View from the Core - Monday, September 05, 2005
   
   

Thanks to...

... HerbEly for the kind notice.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 09/05/05 03:32:14 PM
Categorized as Blogosphere Stuff.


   
   

What's Been Happening

Which doesn't come through the mainstream-media obsessions.

By Michael at Cummins Family:

  • .... The levee breach occured on the 17th Street Canal levee. This was one of the levees that had been already been completed and upgraded by to the Hurricane Protection Project. The Army Corps of engineers stated that they had not imagined the levee ever actually breaching in the manner that it had; they had only envisioned the waters topping the levees.
  • A study was currently in progress looking for ways to further upgrade the levees to protect residents from Category 4 or 5 storms. Implementation of the study's recommendations would not be complete for another 20-25 years.
  • I would like to point out that this year President Bush and the dominantly Republican Congress passed one of the largest pork-filled transportation bills in the history of spending money. If the Republican congress had actually spent much of their time being frugal, I might be able to forgive them for the reduction of spending on the Hurricane Protection Project, since despite it simply offending sensibility it does not seem to have played a role in this specific disaster. But since we have a spending-spree congress in session, they do not have my forgiveness at all....

And by Jeff Goldstein at protein wisdom:

.... Couple this with Robin Roberts’ reminder that “Federal planning guidelines instruct the state and local governments to expect Federal aid to take 3 to 4 days to arrive and be prepared to handled the situation for that long” — consistent with the actual arrival of federal aid after the Tuesday levee breaks, and despite enormous logistical obstacles (the absence of infrastructure, flooded roads, and no centralized communication — which NO accepted monies to assure wouldn’t happen) — it seems to me that the FEMA response was appropriate....

(Thanks, Esquire.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 09/05/05 03:27:07 PM
Categorized as Political.


   
   

So. What Now?

A long, long winter coming?

Is now the wrong time to suggest that our country may be in its greatest danger yet from post-9/11 terrorist attacks?

All the world — friends & enemies & we ourselves — have seen all too clearly the likely result of an unanticipated major disaster — natural or otherwise.

Will nobody try to take advantage while we are still laboring to recover?

And, would I be too pessimistic to think that most folks are being too optimistic about a quick recovery? Late last week, I heard a couple of economics types talking about New Orleans being 1% to 2% of GDP and coming back into play in two or three months: there might be a downtick, they thought, but not a downturn. The economy will plug along okay.

Come on. Let's think, boys and girls. New Orleans is America's largest port city, and the world's fifth largest. It may be more than a month before the water is all pumped out (though we would not need to wait until it's all gone to begin recovery and rebuilding efforts), and it may be six or nine months before the city (what's left of it) is really inhabitable again. And you can't run a port without people, and the people have to have somewhere to live.

Six or nine months. That'll be 2006, folks. Maybe Spring 2006.

Speaking of recovery and rebuilding... how long do you think that will take? To recover and rebuild an entire city? How will we do it? How will we afford it? Who will decide?

Though the analogy isn't exact, of course, think of this: it's been almost exactly four years since the twin towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed.

Not a city. Just two buildings.

Four years. And we haven't even definitively decided what's going to be put in place of those two buildings.

Now, a city............

P.S. See The Soft Underbelly.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 09/05/05 11:17:12 AM
Categorized as Political.


   

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