Labor Day in New Orleans

Not looking so good for Key West or Tampa either. All are within the 5-day forecast's scope. These forecasts aren't very good beyond 3 days. But I've got my bags packed just in case.

It was foolish to spend billions of tax dollars on repairing N.O. in the first place.

A wise policy--as opposed to Bush and the Congress' stupid, romantic and sentimental one--would have been to preserve the small area of the French Quarter and Garden District as a kind of historical Williamsburg or Cajun Las Vegas, with a city populations of 100K or so, and let the rest go to wetlands. Any city largely below sea level, trapped between an ocean and a lake, is going under eventually.

i was born and raised in N.O
(.-we no longer live there b/c my husband is in the Army-)
but, almost all of our family is still in town-
naturally, we are very concerned about this storm-

i do not understand the attitude that many people have about N.O.-
disasters can and do happen everywhere-
why is helping to strengthen and rebuild N.O. any different than repairing any other city ?

may God have mercy and spare our City.

New Orleans is a major port, not to mention a railroad hub. You think that might have been a factor in the Feds decision to rebuild?

CSX, Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific, occasionally BNSF, &, surprisingly, the Mexican railroad, are all my front yard neighbors on the east-west track across the street from me. They're delivering your food & your imports to you, whereever you are. You think that might have been a factor in the Feds decision to rebuild?

Fifty percent of N.O. is at or above sea level. How much above sea level is Cedar Rapids? Did that help them? [BTW, New Orleanians have been up there helping Iowans with our hard-earned disaster expertise.]

We in in southeast Louisiana & along the Gulf Coast to Bayou La Batre, Alabama have the thousands of volunteers to thank, who have been helping us rebuild. It's them we owe. If you're not in that number, you don't know what it's really like & your opinion is worth nothing.

I'm pretty sure it's possible to move railroad tracks, warehouses and ports, as well as build houses, in a safer place. I do feel sorry for people who feel attached to such places and all they have lost, but it does seem a bit odd from the outside to think that it's necessary to live in a place that has proven to be geographically uninhabitable.

It's true that natural disasters can happen anywhere, but when you live next to the Gulf of Mexico, in hurricane alley, have lost the natural defenses of wetlands, and rely on falible human engineering projects to maintain a city that's half below sea level there must come a point when one wonders why one has to live precisely THERE as opposed to someplace less vulnerable.

Nonetheless - I do hope you and all who are in harm's way may be safe this weekend.

"Even more, the actual citizens demonstrated profound idiocy by not evacuating and by looting their own neighbors and rescue workers once their city was destroyed. Good grief people. Your city is destroyed and you decide to score a flat screen??? Why not be like Iowans, dust yourself off, and get to work?"

YEah there were some that did that but there countless more that helped their neighbors

"I'm fine with New Orleans rebuilding itself, people rebuilding towns on flood plains, beaches, in forests, whatever, as long as *they* pay for the insurance or bear the risk of it being destroyed again. I'm fine with federal assistance after disasters but funding a rebuild? No thanks."

THe battle right now is to get insurance. I think people see Louisiana and just see the French Quarter at times. Most people do not realize this is a very working Coast in a fragile environemnt. The Seafood, all that pil and Gas, the shipping on American's biggest Highway (the mississippi river) is crucial for the health of this country. It is a national security issue. That stuff is not done by robots and communities have to be there to support it

While we're abandoning New Orleans, make sure we dump L.A and San Francisco first, because they're going to go in a bigger way within 30 years than N.O. ever did.