Mayor of New Orleans speaks his mind

[Mitch Cronin]

Mayor says it like it is!

Are ya listening Mr "I don't think anyone anticipated the levees being breached" Bush?

...if you wanted to hear "anguish", there it is.

[J.O.]

Powerful stuff, Mitch. If this event doesn't finally empower the African American population to become politically active, then I don't know what will. I am sick and tired of Bush glad-handing (mostly with white people) for the cameras while people are dying in the streets. If NBC et al can get reporters into the city, I fail to see why government officials keep claiming they can't get in.

[Mitch Cronin]

Until today, I hadn't even considered that J.O. I dunno, I guess those "colour difference" notions just don't generally enter my mind... but to add to your point,

...Here's a post (purloined from another forum) by a medevac pilot, about his first flight in: (emphasis added)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just got back. It's terrible. Worse than it looks on the news. We flew to Birmingham to tanker up on fuel so that we wouldn't have to get fuel in New Orleans (MSY) besides which I couldn't get a hold of anyone on the ground there to see if fuel was even available.

On approach into MSY the sky was extremely hazy with smoke drifting into the air from the city. Apparently overnight the approach control got power because they did have radar coverage. The airport is still daytime VFR only though..no approaches and no runway lights so it is day-light only operations. There is also a Customs and Border Patrol P-3 Orion providing air traffic advisories in the area "Omaha-44".

I didn't think we'd get the visual approach but at about 5 miles just as they were going to start a GCA approach for us (something I've done about 1 time in the past 7 years) we spotted the airfield through the murk. At about 1000' above the ground the smell started to seep in through the bleed system...I can't describe it other than to say it smelled like decay.

Everywhere you looked there were helicopters scooting around the skies: Blackhawks, Coast Guard Dauphines, Hueys, news helicopters, EMS, etc... The approach controller and tower controllers sounded tired. As a matter of fact when we were leaving they cleared us into position and hold for a minute or two to wait for crossing helicopters and I think they forget they had a heavy FedEx plane on final because he queried if he was cleared to land and the controller quickly gave us our takeoff clearance with an "immediate" phrase...

We taxied to the General Aviation ramp which is a combination Signature/Atlantic but the only thing there were a couple helicopters that were hot refueling and a pretty busy Signature guy that was doing all the fueling. He said all he had was what was in the trucks so I was glad we didn't have to use his fuel so he could save it for the helos.

The airport was in surprisingly good condition and pretty much dry. All of the serious flooding occured on the east side of the Mississippi and we were on the west side. Buildings were obviously wrecked, airplanes twisted, other signs that the storm was there...but the basic infrastructure (runways, taxiways) were solid.

Opening the door the first thing that hit me was the heat..oppressive heat and humidity, haze and obscured visibility. There was nobody there to meet us and we had no communications with our dispatch. No land lines or cell phones worked. In Birmingham our dispatch had indicated to us that they had lost all contact with the hospital we were supposed to be transporting for so we may or may not have a patient. I had the additional problem of being on the margin of my duty time. I was paged to fly at 11:30PM last night but since we couldn't get in until the sun came up we didn't depart for New Orleans until about 7AM. I only have 14 hours of duty time..we arrived in New Orleans at 10AM so I had to be airborne by noon to make it back in my 14 hour duty day.

A few minutes after we got out a helicopter landed next to us and this guy hopped out and asked if we could take his patients. He was desperate to offload them and with our flight nurses and us (plus our other airplane which had arrived a few minutes after us) he figured we were a good mark. Our nurses explained to him that we were there for two specific critical vented patients and he said: "Great..I can be airborne and get you all the vented patients you want in a few minutes.." He didn't get that we were there for specific people...lottery winners if you will...and we all felt horrible that we couldn't take these other people.

The three people he was carrying were very elderly, immobile old women. We carried them under an awning at Atlantic's ramp and gave them most of our water, Gatorade and some snacks...they hadn't had a drink of water in 2 days. They were on the margin...and everyone was just going to leave them there...out on this concrete ramp with nobody around..because everyone had something else to do..other victims to get. It was heartbreaking. Finally we convinced the Signature guy to call the other side of the airfield where there was a field hospital set up I think..and they came over and took them away. They were sweet old ladies..in obvious shock. I felt so guilty..so ashamed that I could not help them. Had my duty time been very close I had told the flight nurses we were going to put them on our airplane and fly them to Birmingham even if I ended up getting reprimanded (or fired). It was that bad.

Then, to my great surprise, two pick-up trucks came through the gate of the airport with our actual patients in the beds. Each was attended by 4 nurses because they were intubated and they had to manually "bag" them all the way from the hospital in New Orleans (40 minutes or so drive). Just patients laying in the back of pick-up trucks with all manner of tubes and equipment.

We transfered them to our equipment and I'll never forget the look of despair and exhaustion in those nurses eyes. They were dealing with gun wielding looters, druggies, sick people, their own personal crisis, and a million other things. One of the nurses looked at us (the pilots and flight nurses) and started crying. She was weeping and saying she didn't think anyone was going to come. We gave them the last of our water and Gatorade bottles and told them we would definitely be back. They were extremely grateful..in tears again.

I've been doing this for 7 years..I've seen all manner of accidents, traumas, limbs torn loose, gunshot wounds to the head, amputations, burns, cancer, AIDS, Hepatitis..you name it, I've seen it. I've never seen anything like this. Helicopters shuttling back and forth constantly, just dropping people off to a completely overwhelmed field hospital. Very sick people that would be lucky to live through the heat of the day. And the despair of the people working the disaster...they are on the edge...walking zombies almost. I can't describe my feelings...I felt helpless.

And I felt angry too. The airport is in very good condition. There was only one C-141 on the ramp. I saw no heavy lift helicopters like CH-47s or 53s...a few Blackhawks..but mostly civil EMS and news helicopters. I know this is going to press slightly into WCE but it is my firm belief, sitting there looking at the airport and the operations that are going on there, that the federal government effort on this catastrophy is not a very committed one. And I hazard to say that if this had happened in Naples, Florida or Hilton Head, SC that the full force and effect of the federal government would swing into action. Where this happened, and who it happened to are defining the response...and it is sorely lacking. This needs to be a full on military operation. It is sad and it is terrible. The conditions are truly terrible...and I only witnessed a slice of it.

As soon as we landed we swapped crews and sent out our two airplanes again, this time loaded with cases of Gatorade and water as well. I'm going on my 10 hours of duty rest and I'm sure we'll swap out again at midnight..although we might have to way until dawn for our crack at it again.

Anyway..that is what I saw. After watching the looting and crazy activity on the news (shooting at helicopters trying to move people from the roof of the hospital!!??) the past few days I can now discount those people as truly low-life scum..wheras the majority of the people in that city are just plain suffering. Proof that nature's wrath knows no difference between super-power and the 3rd world...

Regards..

BeachAV8R

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[dagger]

The crisis is crystalizing some things people sensed about Bush and his cohorts.

1. They are so partisan, they may have a blind spot for adversaries

2. They are great at defining a bold stroke, but poor at managing the followup because, frankly, they don't give a hoot about the nuts and bolts of government.

3. They disdain science.

Here are some telling articles

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/opinion/02krugman.html

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: September 2, 2005

Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans. "The New Orleans hurricane scenario," The Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, "may be the deadliest of all." It described a potential catastrophe very much like the one now happening.

So why were New Orleans and the nation so unprepared? After 9/11, hard questions were deferred in the name of national unity, then buried under a thick coat of whitewash. This time, we need accountability.

First question: Why have aid and security taken so long to arrive? Katrina hit five days ago - and it was already clear by last Friday that Katrina could do immense damage along the Gulf Coast. Yet the response you'd expect from an advanced country never happened. Thousands of Americans are dead or dying, not because they refused to evacuate, but because they were too poor or too sick to get out without help - and help wasn't provided. Many have yet to receive any help at all.

There will and should be many questions about the response of state and local governments; in particular, couldn't they have done more to help the poor and sick escape? But the evidence points, above all, to a stunning lack of both preparation and urgency in the federal government's response.

Even military resources in the right place weren't ordered into action. "On Wednesday," said an editorial in The Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss., "reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics. Playing basketball and performing calisthenics!"

Maybe administration officials believed that the local National Guard could keep order and deliver relief. But many members of the National Guard and much of its equipment - including high-water vehicles - are in Iraq. "The National Guard needs that equipment back home to support the homeland security mission," a Louisiana Guard officer told reporters several weeks ago.

Second question: Why wasn't more preventive action taken? After 2003 the Army Corps of Engineers sharply slowed its flood-control work, including work on sinking levees. "The corps," an Editor and Publisher article says, citing a series of articles in The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, "never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security - coming at the same time as federal tax cuts - was the reason for the strain."

In 2002 the corps' chief resigned, reportedly under threat of being fired, after he criticized the administration's proposed cuts in the corps' budget, including flood-control spending.

Third question: Did the Bush administration destroy FEMA's effectiveness? The administration has, by all accounts, treated the emergency management agency like an unwanted stepchild, leading to a mass exodus of experienced professionals.

Last year James Lee Witt, who won bipartisan praise for his leadership of the agency during the Clinton years, said at a Congressional hearing: "I am extremely concerned that the ability of our nation to prepare for and respond to disasters has been sharply eroded. I hear from emergency managers, local and state leaders, and first responders nearly every day that the FEMA they knew and worked well with has now disappeared."

I don't think this is a simple tale of incompetence. The reason the military wasn't rushed in to help along the Gulf Coast is, I believe, the same reason nothing was done to stop looting after the fall of Baghdad. Flood control was neglected for the same reason our troops in Iraq didn't get adequate armor.

At a fundamental level, I'd argue, our current leaders just aren't serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they don't like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on preventive measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice.

Yesterday Mr. Bush made an utterly fantastic claim: that nobody expected the breach of the levees. In fact, there had been repeated warnings about exactly that risk.

So America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can't-do government that makes excuses instead of doing its job. And while it makes those excuses, Americans are dying.

And from the Chicago Tribune

Why New Orleans is in deep water

Molly Ivins, Creators Syndicate

Published September 1, 2005

AUSTIN, Texas -- Like many of you who love New Orleans, I find myself taking short mental walks there today, turning a familiar corner, glimpsing a favorite scene, square or vista. And worrying about the beloved friends and the city, and how they are now.

To use a fine Southern word, it's tacky to start playing the blame game before the dead are even counted. It is not too soon, however, to make a point that needs to be hammered home again and again, and that is that government policies have real consequences in people's lives.

This is not "just politics" or blaming for political advantage. This is about the real consequences of what governments do and do not do about their responsibilities. And about who winds up paying the price for those policies.

This is a column for everyone in the path of Hurricane Katrina who ever said, "I'm sorry, I'm just not interested in politics," or, "There's nothing I can do about it," or, "Eh, they're all crooks anyway."

Nothing to do with me, nothing to do with my life, nothing I can do about any of it. Look around you this morning. I suppose the National Rifle Association would argue, "Government policies don't kill people, hurricanes kill people." Actually, hurricanes plus government policies kill people.

One of the main reasons New Orleans is so vulnerable to hurricanes is the gradual disappearance of the wetlands on the Gulf Coast that once stood as a natural buffer between the city and storms coming in from the water. The disappearance of those wetlands does not have the name of a political party or a particular administration attached to it. No one wants to play, "The Democrats did it," or, "It's all Reagan's fault." Many environmentalists will tell you more than a century's interference with the natural flow of the Mississippi is the root cause of the problem, cutting off the movement of alluvial soil to the river's delta.

But in addition to long-range consequences of long-term policies like letting the Corps of Engineers try to build a better river than God, there are real short-term consequences, as well. It is a fact that the Clinton administration set some tough policies on wetlands, and it is a fact that the Bush administration repealed those policies--ordering federal agencies to stop protecting as many as 20 million acres of wetlands.

Last year, four environmental groups cooperated on a joint report showing the Bush administration's policies had allowed developers to drain thousands of acres of wetlands.

Does this mean we should blame President Bush for the fact that New Orleans is underwater? No, but it means we can blame Bush when a Category 3 or Category 2 hurricane puts New Orleans under. At this point, it is a matter of making a bad situation worse, of failing to observe the First Rule of Holes (when you're in one, stop digging).

Had a storm the size of Katrina just had the grace to hold off for a while, it's quite likely no one would even remember what the Bush administration did two months ago. The national press corps has the attention span of a gnat, and trying to get anyone in Washington to remember longer than a year ago is like asking them what happened in Iznik, Turkey, in A.D. 325.

Just plain political bad luck that, in June, Bush took his little ax and chopped $71.2 million from the budget of the New Orleans Corps of Engineers, a 44 percent reduction. As was reported in New Orleans CityBusiness at the time, that meant "major hurricane and flood projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now."

The commander of the corps' New Orleans district also immediately instituted a hiring freeze and canceled the annual corps picnic.

Our friends at the Center for American Progress note the Office of Technology Assessment used to produce forward-thinking plans such as "Floods: A National Policy Concern" and "A Framework for Flood Hazards Management." Unfortunately, the office was targeted by Newt Gingrich and the Republican right, and gutted years ago.

In fact, there is now a governmentwide movement away from basing policy on science, expertise and professionalism, and in favor of choices based on ideology. If you're wondering what the ideological position on flood management might be, look at the pictures of New Orleans--it seems to consist of gutting the programs that do anything.

Unfortunately, the war in Iraq is directly related to the devastation left by the hurricane. About 35 percent of Louisiana's National Guard is now serving in Iraq, where four out of every 10 soldiers are guardsmen. Recruiting for the Guard is also down significantly because people are afraid of being sent to Iraq if they join, leaving the Guard even more short-handed.

The Louisiana National Guard also notes that dozens of its high-water vehicles, Humvees, refuelers and generators have also been sent abroad. (I hate to be picky, but why do they need high-water vehicles in Iraq?)

This, in turn, goes back to the original policy decision to go into Iraq without enough soldiers and the subsequent failure to admit that mistake and to rectify it by instituting a draft.

The levees of New Orleans, two of which are now broken and flooding the city, were also victims of Iraq war spending. Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, said on June 8, 2004, "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq."

This, friends, is why we need to pay attention to government policies, not political personalities, and to know whereon we vote. It is about our lives.

[Steam Driven]

There is lot's of blame to go around... The environmental lobbyist's have a lot of clout in the U.S. Just why were the levee's not built to withstand a Cat. 5 hurricane?

"The Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund filed suits against the Corps of Engineers, initially blocking levee improvements, insisting on new environmental impact studies. "The Corps plans will cause an avoidable and senseless loss to our nation's wetlands," said the head of the Mississippi River Basin Alliance. Delays ensued."

Wetlands or People

[Cargo Agent]

There is lot's of blame to go around... The environmental lobbyist's have a lot of clout in the U.S. Just why were the levee's not built to withstand a Cat. 5 hurricane?

Wetlands or People

It's much simpler to blame Bush and the gov't rather than think that there may be many reason this disaster is happening, after all most here think Bush and the US gov't are pure evil anyway.

[Guest rattler]

It's much simpler to blame Bush and the gov't rather than think that there may be many reason this disaster is happening, after all most here think Bush and the US gov't are pure evil anyway.

I don't think Bush is "evil", but he and his gov. is def. inept!!!!!!

[Mitch Cronin]

"It's much simpler to blame Bush" Holy jumpin' catfish CA! Open your flippin' eyes! Wow!

Who's in charge down there? If you and I knew there was a serious risk of the levees being breached, can you explain why he'd have us believe he didn't?

"Many reasons".... uh huh. ...just like the many reasons the Titanic sailed full speed ahead into that iceburg... But yeah, it's much simpler to blame the Captain. Silly ain't it.

...and for the record, I don't think he's "evil" either... I just think he's a moron who only has his own greed to motivate him.

[Flapsforty]

Mr Mayor,

This guy needs to be the president. Then some stuff might get done. Tell it like it is, bravo! Wish we had some people in our Gov't like that. I'd vote for him.

Cheers

[Cargo Agent]

"It's much simpler to blame Bush" Holy jumpin' catfish CA! Open your flippin' eyes! Wow!

Mitch, my eyes are open enough to realize that there are a host of reasons for what's happening down in the US South right now. Bush has not done enough, the feds have not done enough, but they are not the only reason the situation is the way it is.

[GreatSlave]

"BREAKING NEWS

By Miguel Llanos

Reporter

MSNBC

Updated: 6:33 p.m. ET Sept. 2, 2005

A “major oil spill” has been spotted near two storage tanks southeast of New Orleans, the state Department of Environmental Quality said Friday.........

Each tank is 20 feet tall and 200 feet in diameter, she said. The department initially estimated that total capacity could be 1 million barrels each but later reduced that to 80,000 each. A barrel of oil is 42 gallons."

Mr. Bush isn't the only dim bulb out there. It's my sincere hope that there might perhaps be a case of calculators included in the relief shipment.

Kev

(edited for clarity and grammar)

[Super 80]

the day after the disaster hit, Bush went to California for a boiler plate Iraq speech, I mean just how out of touch is that guy?

I also find it terrible that while the Americans were unable to mobilize aid, the offers from foreign countries who were really to go were declined.

Russia for instance loaded a search and rescue squadron and tons of other aid into three of their Antanov flying warehouses, and had an advance team on the way when their offer was declined.

All their allies made substantial offers of aid that were declined and it wasn't like they had the situation under control. Now they are re-evaluating but it is a little late for those who have died in the interm.

I understand that the Americans might not like the idea of Russian helicopters over Mississippi, but... this is a disaster.

[pictues]

Well at least he is finally accepting aid, he's letting Air Canada shuttle passangers from new orleans to San Antonio

[Seeker]

Interesting LA Times link showing changes to coastline:

LA Times

Maybe the city shouldn't be rebuilt at all.

[Trader]

OK, I'm sitting here in the Middle East and even I heard that the US was about to be clobbered by one of the biggest huricanes in its history.

So why is it that the government was so unprepared? Regardless of your political views I think it is quite obvious that the Bush administraion has blood on its hands---they could have been prepared and saved lives!!!

The fact is they just did not CARE enough to take time from their war abroad to take care of their people at home.

[canadairguy]

Vacation is Over... an open letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush

Friday, September 2nd, 2005

Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?

And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,

Michael Moore

Michael Moore

MMFlint@aol.com

www.MichaelMoore.com

P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.

[Mitch Cronin]

Good letter Michael Moore.... The dipstick won't hear it though...

Sometimes... people make me want to puke! I had a heated argument with some folks at work last night over this whole horrific scene.... the comment that has burned itself in my brain: "I've been there, OK, and I know.... those people live like rats in a cave!" That was apparently one genius' explanation for why it's ok for them to drown! ....the conversation continued:

G- Who cries for me for f--- sake?

M- Are you drowning?!

G- Look at the freakin' gas prices! Who cries for me? Who cries for you?

M- Am I drowning!?

...pause....

G- ....Ya you're drowning alright.

Another fairly intelligent sod, while defending his defense of the Bush gang, said "what are you gonna do? 60,000 people refused to leave." Like he figured they'd all chosen to die! ... after further discussion, he said he didn't believe in global warming either... "Ya? Just before those scientists were convinced global warming was real, they were trying to tell us all we were headed for an ice age!"

.... I think I already asked, but does anyone know of a way off this planet? There's too many of us here.... too many who no longer seem to give a sh!t about each other. .... sincere bigotry... "Camel riders!", "Coons!", "Pakis", "Hebes!", "White Trash!", "Round Eyes!" "Slant eyes!", ""Niggers!", etc... All said with varying amounts of hatred and/or disdain... and varied amounts of foam and spit....

Like those bloody hamsters!

We can be a sickening bunch!

Where's that damn Red Blooded Society?

[handyman]

I have been a Bush supporter for a long time but I agree that he has blown it. It truly is a disgrace to the American people how poorly the US Government has responded to this tragedy. The anger and resentment that is building from this catastrophe with have a profound effect on the hill. Lastly, yes, I think race and racism had much to do with it.

[cp fa]

I recently watched a movie that came out last year called "The Day After Tomorrow". It is a fictionalized account of a scenario predicted by a couple of climatologists in a book called "The Coming Global Superstorm".

Good movie, and eerily prophetic in the sense that the politicians realize too late that they should have paid more attention to the predictions of the scientists. The book looks like a must-read for those who make decisions on our behalf.

http://archives.cnn.com/1999/books/beginni.../28/superstorm/

[Don Hudson]

Mitch, cpdude;

The problem is endemic. New Orleans has made this problem stark. This is not a technical, or logistical, or even a political failure. This is a failure of philosophy and vision.

From the Chicago Tribune, (article posted above by dagger),

"In fact, there is now a governmentwide movement away from basing policy on science, expertise and professionalism, and in favor of choices based on ideology. If you're wondering what the ideological position on flood management might be, look at the pictures of New Orleans--it seems to consist of gutting the programs that do anything."

[Seeker]

cp fa:

I don't dispute that we might be experiencing some effects of global warming but please don't take anything that those two guys, Art Bell and Whitney Strieber, have to say as fact. They're both wingnuts of the highest sort.

[Seeker]

Mitch, cpdude;

The problem is endemic. New Orleans has made this problem stark. This is not a technical, or logistical, or even a political failure. This is a failure of philosophy and vision.

From the Chicago Tribune, (article posted above by dagger),

"In fact, there is now a governmentwide movement away from basing policy on science, expertise and professionalism, and in favor of choices based on ideology. If you're wondering what the ideological position on flood management might be, look at the pictures of New Orleans--it seems to consist of gutting the programs that do anything."

Don:

The movement away from science-based reasoning is a political failure and it's happening not just in the USA but everywhere. The fact that political correctness demands an allowance be made for any claim or belief, no matter how patently false it might be opens the door to untold amounts of fraud. Even worse is that people are less able to distinguish fact from falsehood due to their lack of reasoning skills.

[Don Hudson]

Seeker....there is lots in what you say. I see the connection with "politics" but politics itself is "in the river" of a larger diffidence towards enlightenment values.

Interesting book by Neil Postman, "Building a Bridge to the 18th Century"...worth reading.

[cp fa]

Seeker, I don't know that much about them. Can you expand please?

[cp fa]

Okay, disregard. I just googled them. I saw in the credits for the movie that it was based on a "non-fiction" novel, and assumed it was factual, and based on science. I guess I should have read a little further.