John_Stone Report This Comment Date: February 19, 2006 04:10AM
Katrina destroyed the Big Easy—and future Katrinas will do the same—not
because of engineering failures but *because one million acres of coastal
islands and marshland have vanished in Louisiana in the last century* due to
human interference. These land forms served as natural "speed bumps,"
reducing the lethal surge tide of past hurricanes and making New Orleans
habitable in the first place.
But while encouraging city residents to return home and declaring for the media
audience that "we will do whatever it takes" to save the city, the
President earlier this month formally refused the one thing New Orleans simply
cannot live without: A restored network of barrier islands and coastal
wetlands.
Tens of billions of dollars have been authorized to treat the symptoms—broken
levees, insufficient emergency resources, destroyed roads and bridges—but next
to nothing for the disease itself, that of disappeared land, which ushered the
ocean into the city to begin with. No amount of levee building or stockpiling of
bottled water will ever save New Orleans until the state's barrier shoreline is
restored.
*[
www.oriononline.org]*
John_Stone Report This Comment Date: February 19, 2006 04:13AM
Ok, this is not about Bush exactly, so don't get your Red panties in a twist...
Any administration would do this, because they can't must the money, and the
bureaucracy has become too much. It's about the larger trends of natural forces
that the current news-cycle overlooks.
I hope they consider building inland a few miles.
John_Stone Report This Comment Date: February 19, 2006 04:14AM
On another totally unrelated note: Isn't it interesting that not 10 years ago
"Red" meant "Commie" in the US, and now "Red"
means "Republican"; as in "Red State". Funny that.
John_Stone Report This Comment Date: February 19, 2006 04:14AM
*muster the money
fossil_digger Report This Comment Date: February 19, 2006 07:58PM
i'mbuying up marsh land south of houston for nothing and laying in wait for the
new coastline.
i'll be rich!
:~}
Anonymous Report This Comment Date: February 20, 2006 06:51AM
New Orleans was a shit hole before Katrina.
Anonymous Report This Comment Date: February 20, 2006 09:54PM
All it killed was a bunch of niggers, who cares?
John_Stone Report This Comment Date: February 21, 2006 09:08PM
Obviously the racists are happy.
