I have thousands of these pictures. It breaks my heart *still*.

more tomorrow.

How many feet below sea level are these houses? Neighborhoods that cannot relive and are below sea level should be rescued? This is time for a city to consolidate on safer land. Only then can parklands be cleared and created. Those pictures are symptoms when a town (at its highest levels) cannot make hard decisions.

New Orleans will be a smaller town. Many sections - especially the ninth ward - should never be rebuilt. The town should consolidate on safer and higher lands. Those pictures are imply indecision exists. It’s the indecision that is so demoralizing. Trash is only a symptom of a far greater disaster – indecision.

Jesus. I can't believe that's what it still looks like. New Orleans. World famous and world loved.

tw, I don't think anyone is really ever planning to rebuild in these areas. It's not indecision, but rather a refusal on everyone's part to pay for the cleanup.

I can't say that I'm sorry to see it go, a sin city with few contributions to the economy that it can not fulfill now.

a 'sin city'? who died and made you moral arbiter of all that's fucking holy?

No one is returning. The crime rate is so high that those that did come back are leaving. (my friends that currently live there, included) The city lost its charm.

If there was a God he should have wiped the place off the map and settled the issue for everyone. I feel bad for all those people but the reality is that the destruction of the place was going to happen sooner or later.

It's for the best that they are not going back. The work needed to clean up the place wouldn't be worth it getting ruined again.

If there was a god and it gave a crap about NO and it's people this would never have happened to begin with.

Or that.

So how did busterb fare? is his story told elsewhere? I see he survived but has he had to rebuild or did he get off lightly?

And now for another episode of .. As the Cellar Turns:earth:

I'm sure buster will respond, but if I remember correctly, he took roof damage and got screwed by the insurance companies and feds. His last post to his hurricane thread was November.

The cleanup cannot occur until decisions are made as to what will be done, who owns what, when the insurance company finally agrees to pay, etc. This is a classic example of 85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management. Cleaning is the easy part. Making decisions has become the problem.

What needs to happen in New Orleans is also a legal nightmare - unless we institute eminent domain. Well that could happen if the town wanted to bring in casinos. But making plans for the cities future - that just is not happening.

Worse, is a city plan to let some people rebuild where they want, then later kick them out if not enough others arrive in that neighborhood. But again, just another reason that makes it not possible to institute the cleaning or rebuilding of so many homes. But again, the labor is trivial - tactical actions. The problem is lack of a strategic vision leaving everyone is a state of indecision as to even trash the building or save it.

Until clear objective are defined up to, well this is what happens. They still can’t decide whether insurance companies are responsible or not. Therefore no actions are possible.

Thanks for asking. I settled with insurance co. Still working on house, painting, replacing cornices and other wood. Been nice weather, but help is hard to find. Only .39" rain this month. My age and weight, ladder work sucks. Also, I'd rather be beat in face with a buzzard gut than paint. bb

So what is your plan for the next storm season?

Plan? I guess just to be around for the next one.:litebulb:

A Gulf Coaster's Plan:

1. Have plenty of water, food, and survival supplies on hand: A generator, tarps, camp stove, fuel, etc. Always keep your car's gas tank at least half full between June 1st and November 30th.

2. Use all the cool survival stuff for camping and outdoor fun.

3. When the hurricane comes, RUN LIKE HELL.

You forgot:
4. Get a very detailed atlas of all your state's back country dirt roads so you can still run like hell when the major roads are clogged with traffic.

An excellent addition. I got stuck in evacuation traffic a couple years ago on I-75 and decided to skip over to US441. Traffic on that road was hell, too.

...because it was packed with people trying to get off the highway and on to the interstate. After that, the road was empty.

Back road evacuation is the way to go.

:thumbsup:

Colonoscopy due?

:lol:

Buster, thanks for the update. We're travelling through your state in August -is that too late to stop and help? You'll have to watch the sprogs, though...... :eek:

As someone said," Come on down." That stands for MOST dellars.
Welcome to the boars den. As Bruce stated, no horizontal surface will go uncluttered. Kick junk out of way and we'll put something in pot, on grill or in smoker. But August? Damn it's hot then. Not to worry, Ac.
bb

I'll bet Clodfobble's pictures are neither New Orleans nor below sea level. It's the 'burbs, who's most powerful and best organized sector of government was the volunteer fire department, or the ladies auxiliary.
They have no money, no expertise, no more tax base and it would probably take a month to raise a quorum for a meeting. They are screwed.

Supposedly they're from the Ninth Ward, but a friend took them so I don't know for sure. Definitely from the city of New Orleans though.

Bruce your right. It's not down town. Maybe Plaqueimines or St. Bernard parish. I don't presume to speak for anyone from LA. But I lived and worked from the west bank of N.O. for many years. Mostly in Belle Chasse, plaquimines parish. one road in and out.

I think can state. Nothing will be done till the grease gets to where the squeak is. No matter who the Gov. is, until the money gets in the right hands, nothing will happen

That was late had a power outage and lost so had to retype. bb
too much open land for 9th ward IMHO

Power outage? Those chicken shit American contractors or the insurgents?

This may be an unpopular opinion but I think this is a VERRRY good opertunity for the Gubment to step in and declair Emmenent Domain , get the corps of Enginers going , doze and BURN all that shit and build housing and schools and the such !
I meen Hell they have had a year + to do something , and there is STILL trash and the such , how long befor it turns into a health hazard for folks TRYING to rebuild ??

Just my 2 cents .

Or they could just turn it into a big dump. Wait, I think it already is. Very few areas have a bunch of people moving back in droves.

:( From Orcinus

There is still time to fill it all in before the next storm season starts. Really.

This is too true to be funny.

The next time you hear a politician use the Word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about Whether you want the 'politicians' spending
YOUR tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in

One of it's releases.

A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our brain...

let's take a look at New Orleans ...

It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division.
Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D) is presently asking Congress for 250 BILLION DOLLARS to rebuild New Orleans.

Interesting number... What does it mean?

Well ... If you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans
(every man, woman, and child) You each get $516,528.

Or... If you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans, your home gets $1,329,787.

Or... If you are a family of four...Your family gets $2,066,012.

Washington, D. C HELLO!

Are all your calculators broken??

Building Permit Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax (Fed)
Federal Unemployment Tax (FU TA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Tax
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Service charge taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone20Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Tax
Vehicle License Registration T ax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

(And to think, we left British Rule to avoid so many taxes)

Why I'm a libertarian. Why you ought to be one too.

They'll need it, if they plan to live in a city with no infrastructure.
What does it cost to build a bridge? a sewer system? a water system? schools?
Wrong, it was taxation without representation.

fixed

Oh man.....this is still floating around on conservative message boards? :eek:

It is from 2005 and of course is not entirely accurate about the funding request. More than hallf of that $250b was not in federal spending but in temporary tax abatements, shared leased revenue from off-shore oil facilities, etc.

I think Congress ended up apprpriating more than $100b and I would hope and expect the same for any city/region devasted by a disaster the scale of Katrina.

I would hope that the leadership would realize a city built below sea level wasn't a good idea in the first place and they would instead pay to move them instead. Geez how much more of a hint do they need?

WOW! Congress really did a great job of dealing with the issue didn't they? Not.

Should we move all the folks out of California now....before the next devastating earthquake like the San Francisco earthquake of 1906?

New Orleans has survived for 300+ years, a unique American city in many respects...and having never experienced a "perfect storm" like Katrina, with the devastation compounded by a failure of the infrastructure due, primarily to a lack of funding.

I think your solution is a bit heavy handed.

IMO, the appropriations of the Republican Congress in 05 and 06 (and spread out over a period of 4+ years) were reasonable, it not a bit slow, much like the FEMA response (as well as the state/local response).

So why do you think Congress didnt do such a great job? Or is it the Democrats that you want to blame?

I'm amazed to be saying it, but I agree with classicman. There's no point relocating people who are living in perfectly good houses, but once the place goes underwater, it's is the height of foolishness to pay them to rebuild houses below sea level again. The place is a bowl surrounded by water on three sides. It relies on pumps to keep floodwater out, and when there is a storm, the electricity to those pumps is lost. It's just about the dumbest thing I've ever seen.

If people want to live in the flood zone, that's fine. It's a free country. But the government shouldn't be giving them one nickle to do it, and the insurance companies should set their rates at an appropriate level to take into account the extreme risks they are taking on.

But then I also think that people shouldn't be able to get insurance for houses on barrier islands. Or at a minimum, they should have rates that reflect the increased risk there.

California is not a good example, because construction standards can make a house able to withstand earthquake damage.

Where are you guys proposing these 450,000 people, in the city alone, relocate to?

Are there houses in your neighborhoods in which they could reside?

We get tornados from time to time. I suppose I can live here and have insurance on my place because hey, there's a chance a tornado might miss you. I'm sure there's a table or chart somewhere pertaining to the risk I take living...well, anywhere.

edit: I just realized the insurance on my moon dome is going to be OUTRAGEOUS! :)

Construction standards can make levees able to withstand massive flooding.

The difference is that it is private funding for individual housing/commercial construction and public funding for the levees.

If you relocate them all to Boenher's district, you could probably vote him out of office! :D

Yes. There are a couple houses on the market here. Room for a couple families to buy. I understand there are lots of houses for sale in Detroit and the surrounding area.

I feel for them that they lost their homes. But once you lose a home, it's gone. You can't get it back. As long as you are moving into a new home, why not a new home in a place that doesn't flood so easily?

Yeah, I know what you're saying. I'm thinking of people who have always lived there, whose families have always lived there...it just seems like a huge uproot and undertaking, as a suggestion.

If, for some reason, Ohio wasn't "safe" anymore (I say that while laughing!) where would I go. What region of the country would best suit my needs, after being this Ohio person all my life, decended from people who were here all their lives.

Well, besides the moon or the Unabomber cabin? ;)

But you still need the pumps to pump out the rainwater. And the pumps fail whenever there is a massive storm.

Also, what's the point of building a levee to protect inferior real estate locations, when there are plenty of places in the country that are above sea level? This isn't the Netherlands. We live in the US. There's lots of land. Let's live on land that doesn't flood when it rains.

If the flooding that was at Katrina levels was on a regular reoccurring basis, I would agree with you.

But that is not the case. This was the perfect storm...once in hundreds of years....compounded by a failure of the infrastructure due to lack of attention and funding.

Sure there's lots of land in the US....there are also flood plains on both coasts, earthquake zones, tornado alley, dust bowls....

So where do you get workers for the shrimping industry or the rice industry on the gulf coast or do we abandon those industries as well? I dont think there is much demand for shrimpers in Detroit.

You live in an area all your life. You have kids, you have aunts and uncles, you have parents, you have neighbors. You know the guy at the grocery store and you pray for his sick wife. You run into old school teachers from time to time. Your "living there" constitutes much more than just where you physically reside. It's a part of you.

Sure, people move away all the time. They don't move their entire lives, and the people they've known and the places they've been: for some this seems it would be pretty tough to do, to start all over somewhere else.

I'd gladly move from here, but there are things that keep me here: my family, my friends, the networks I've built as a result of living here my entire life. I could do it, I'm an adventurous sort, but I know there are people who would rather expire than leave everything they know.

To say "live elsewhere" to a huge population doesn't seem reasonable or feasible. Yes, there was a devastating weather catastrophe. As Redux pointed out, there are ways to prevent so much devastation. It's not like it's happening every other year.

I'm fine with them staying there, if that's their choice. But they should pay for it. If they expect me to bail them out, then they need to show some brains about it. Don't build a house in a swamp surrounded by water in a hurricane zone. Helping them is just enabling them. Like lending money to a gambler.

Not everyone has the finances.

That attitude and resulting corrections had been ongoing in the 1990s. From You're Doing a Heck of Job Brownie: Due to massive flooding, Graphton IL was moved. Two years later, another Mississippi River flood washed over the same land. But this time, the bottleneck (in part created by dikes in St Louis) did not wash through Graphton. FEMA had moved the town uphill - solved a problem before it happens.

There is no reason to rebuild New Orleans' Ninth ward. Other parts of New Orleans are fine. But it makes no sense to rebuild on land that is already ten feet below sea level - and dropping due to underlying geology.

Nobody is suggesting the Gulf coast should be evacuated. Or that New Orleans should be eliminated. Chantilly Ridge in New Orleans is perfectly safe. But when does it make sense to house a hundred thousand people on land that will always be flooded at least ten feet by a simple category three hurricane? Category Three is what those massive dikes and levees were designed to withstand. And Katrina hit New Orleans as a category three in a region that category threes are too common.

View what happened to St Bernard's Parish. That wave overwhelmed 20 foot dikes. Then traveled a mile plus across marsh land. Then washed out almost all buildings not designed for such flooding. So government should pay to rebuild inferior buildings. Well, St Bernard's Parish is not even at same risk that New Orleans's Ninth Ward is. There is no reason for New Orleans' Ninth Ward to be rebuilt. Want to live in St Bernard's Parish? Then building codes should require expensive structures that can withstand that only category three hurricanes and not yet seen category four hurricane.

Where is the 'theys'? New Orleans Ninth Ward is not same as other parts of New Orleans. And yet the discuss has lumped everyone on the Gulf coast as same. Katrina was not the massive Category Five that it also was. It was only a Category Three made so much worse by, well, where do 85% of all problems originate?

(raises hand) oooh oooh oooh

Top management?

;)

Clarification:

Category three hurricane, category five storm surge

MBA's? :rolleyes:

Yup - There are TONS of homes all over the country where they could relocate to. Heck Shaw, It would be A LOT cheaper to move them than rebuild and TRY to protect that which has failed repeatedly. As tw pointed out, this wouldn't be the first time this would have happened either. Some of that are is just really uninhabitable and should remain that way.

Why don't you read my other posts for a reason other than "there are a lot of places to live." I understand there is a lot of land. read my posts. kthx

I also understand that I doubt a lot of these povery-stricken folk could afford or would be welcome in some of your hoity-toity McMansionvilles in which some of you reside.

Also, I am very happy that you and tw agreed on something. I was thinking something about dogs and cats. ;)

It is all about choice. They choose to stay. They will have to start over again. So where is all that wasted money? All those RV's? I just can't see continuing to throw money at a place that is in such great jepordy. Any coastal city is at risk. Few if any are below sea level.

I read all your posts :mad2:

Well, if you read and understood my posts (not saying you have to agree, but that you got the gist of my thoughts on the subject) then you should know that the response "there're all kinds of houses all over the place" did not address what the hell I was talking about.

Are you asking if I disagree that it isn't fair or it'll be hard or or or or.... perhaps I didn't mention that part cuz there wasn't any disagreement there.

Still - Whatever! The parts of the fucking city that are underwater should be given back to mother earth who rightfully reclaimed them with Katrina.
Rebuild safely nearby or go all the way to friggin Alaska - doesn't matter to me.

I got your point - but its the same as those whose homes burn repeatedly in forest fires.
STOP TRYING TO LIVE THERE.
Just my opinion, unpopular as it is. I still get to type it. Pbbbblllllt

:biggrindu