"D Murphy" wrote in message
...
Ignoramus21934 wrote in
:

I disagree with the assumption that leaving the city was the right
thing to do, given what they knew then. Hint: no one knew or could
guess that the levees would break. That was the catastrophe, not the
hurricane as such. I will appreciate being corrected if I am mistaken,
but that was not foreseeable, notwithstanding some long standing
warnings of researchers that the levee system was not as good as it
should be.

Why should I leave my house if a mere hurricane is coming. I would
rather stay in it, given that chances are that it will stay intact.
And then I need to defend the house against marauding gangs and
looters etc.

Given what they knew and when: There was a catagory 5 hurricane bearing
down on a city which at best had a levee system that would be overwhelmed
by a cat 3. Maybe you've never been in a hurricane, but a cat 5 storm is
the equivelent of having an F3 tornado parked over your house for most of
the day. Very few structures will survive, no stick built house will.

The people who stayed and survived are damn lucky to be alive.
Fortunately for them the hurricane downgraded to a cat 4 and went well
east of New Orleans. The hurricane's track can't be known for sure until
just a couple of hours or so before it hits. The ONLY sensible thing to
do is leave.

Most of the news coverage has been about New Orleans. But they have
showed the area where the storm came ashore. There are no damaged
buildings there. The building are all gone, until you get a couple of
miles inland. The people who stayed to "ride it out" are all gone too.
Their bodies will likely never be recovered, as they were ground to bits
by the debris and washed out to sea. And that was a cat 4 storm when it
made landfall.

Can you imagine what would have happened if the storm had been a direct
hit on New Orleans? The wind would have taken down most every stick built
building along with the roofs of everything else. The levees would have
failed at the height of the storm. There would be no chance for rescue.
You can't use a boat, car or aircraft in 100+ mph winds. There is nothing
in my house worth the risk. Let the looters have it. They'll be dead soon
enough.

Since the hurricane, people have blamed Bush, the federal government,
republicans, deomcrats, poverty and racism. The simple fact of the matter
is that the local government didn't have an effective evacuation plan.
There were no provisions in place to evacuate the elderly, infirm and
those with no transportation.

There is no way to build a city, much less a city in a delta, to
withstand a cat 5 hurricane. Evacuation is the only sensible cost
effective way to deal with it. Unfortunately New Orleans has a long
history of corrupt ineffective goverment on the local level. So there was
no workable plan in place. Had the city been evacuated, the speed of the
response wouldn't be an issue.

For those who say people shouldn't live in flood plains and along the
coast consider this; everyone in this country benefits from the Port of
New Orleans. We need deep water ports and guess what? They are all along
a coast somewhere. Subject to floods, hurricanes and tsunamis. We need
the oil that flows from the Gulf. We use the products from the
refineries. We've all eaten seafood harvested from the area. Should we
expect the people who do all of the hard work in the area to commute 100+
miles to get to their jobs because there might be a hurricane or flood
someday?

Throwing blame and bitching about coulda, woulda, shoulda, is pointless
anyway. Send a check, as much as you can afford, to help these folks out.

As a country we should be thinking about a temporary tax or tax increase
of some sort to pay for all of this, and get the port back up and
running. It wouldn't be a bad idea to start paying for the foolishness in
Iraq as well, instead of passing the bill along to our kids and
grandkids.


--

Dan

Dan
That is the best wisdom I have heard yet.
I was thinking last night about all the finger pointing and whining about
who didn't do what. The lefty liberals are this and the right wingers did
that. I think the 2.5% from the far left that want to tax us to death and
the 2.5% from the far right that don't want to pay their fair share of taxes
should get the hell out of our country and start one of their own. In the
mean time we as citizens should stand up and do our part to set this
disaster right.
Steve