THIS is utterly disgusting. And I guess when the next storm comes around, we the taxpayers will be expected to continue buying them new homes??!!! MORE billions for us to pay for---all because of the stupidity of the citizens and officials of New Orleans!! I'm absolutely SICK of it---New Orleans officials skirting the rebuilding requirements aimed at preventing massive losses and billion more cost to taxpayers! And who will hold them accountable???


WASHINGTON — Thousands of homes in New Orleans are at risk from floods because local officials let their owners skirt rebuilding requirements aimed at preventing massive losses and billions in costs to taxpayers.

In New Orleans, city records show at least 2,300 homeowners — many in areas obliterated by Hurricane Katrina and imperiled again this month as Hurricane Gustav strained at the city's levees — escaped requirements that they elevate their homes.

"If homeowners don't elevate, "it's the federal taxpayers who pay to fix it, time after time," says Larry Larson, head of the Association of State Floodplain Managers. That's because the owners still qualify for flood insurance. The 2005 hurricanes caused so much damage that the insurance program needed $20 billion from taxpayers.

Flood insurance rules require that homes badly damaged by Katrina be elevated — by a few feet in some places to more than 10 feet in others — to protect them in the future. A 2006 report by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general said that after Katrina, local officials often lowered homeowners' damage estimates below the level that would require them to elevate, often without proof that the changes were appropriate."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...levation_N.htm

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"What exactly is this foreign policy experience?" Obama said mockingly of the New York senator. "Was she negotiating treaties? Was she handling crises? The answer is no."

This is a common occurence after a city is completely wasted from a natural disaster. It occured in San fransisco after the huge earthquake and fire about 100 years ago. At first, there really is an attempt to enforce rebuilding requirements, but it those requirements tend to get ignored more and more as time goes by in order to attract people and pick up the pace of rebuilding. City officials take the risk, rationalizing that, "It won't happen again in my lifetime."

It's a really bad idea. At least half of San Fransisco is considered a liability when a really huge earthquake hits again. All those beautiful townhouses are destined for major collapse.

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WARNING: In the unlikely event of an accidental agreement with any or all points made in the above post, contact a clinical psychologist immediately.

The views expressed in the above post are not necessarily those of Joker and/or any of his affiliates.

. "You have found the secret message. Do you have too much time on your hands? ...Let it go."

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The woman in my avatar is Cristina Scabbia and the woman in my profile picture is Tarja Turunen
Sun flames and moons glow, timeless the tides will flow, what will I face, what will be mine, fortune and fate the other side...

Public thanks to Catzmeow for enabling me to make my goal of half a million credits by Xmas.

I'm sorry why when you live in a city that was almost destroyed by a hurricane a few years back do you choose not to buy friggin home insurance!!! gahhhh!

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Collective? I'm sure thats easy when your not surrounded by a bunch of (*)(*)(*)(*)ing retards!!!

Much of New Orleans is below sea level and depends on mechanical pumping to "lift" storm water out of those environs. Even if levees aren't breached by overtopping, sufficient storm water during a period of power outages will inundate those environs again and again.

Knowing this it is folly to rebuild in those areas, even on stilts. Once the homes are "destroyed" because of flooding they should not be rebuilt. Those destroyed or completely damaged homes are recognition of a condition that worsens year by year as New Orleans subsides to ever lower elevations relative to mean sea level.

The problem is not that New Orleans is in the wrong location or that it is located so close to the hurricane prone Gulf of Mexico. The problem is that very large sections, mainly those which flooded, are actually below sea level. This means when a levee breaks, which is extremely likely once water goes over the top and any erosion occurs on the ‘invert down slope’, the levee will fail and the "bowl" which is New Orleans below sea level will fill up if it can't be pumped out quickly enough.

A levee breach would not be needed to cause severe flooding in New Orleans if there was a “rain event” which exceeded the capacity of the pumps, or if the capacity of the pumps was reduced below pumping requirements because of electrical power outages to eject the storm water. I read this fact 30 years ago in a Time Life book on this very subject and the risks were well understood back then. My thinking at the time was that once something bad enough, like Katrina occured, the necessary changes would be made. Being too idealistic, I didn’t foresee the politics which would be involved when that happened.

But also New Orleans is subsiding (getting lower) still. New Orleans should have been systematically, gradually, and over time depopulated wherever human life was at risk, and turned into a government reservation to fill only commercial needs of the country for shipping, dockage, oil-to-gasoline refining, and storage and transfer infrastructure. This could have been done through “overlay” zones that would have awarded developers with a reason to be involved in the complete redevelopment of those endangered precincts.

The president proposed just that change immediately after Katrina, that areas below sea level be restructured as public domain for the purpose of national infrastructure as port/shipping/oil refining facilities, which are the most valuable and practical use going into the future. He was denounced as being racist, wanting to change the racial, demographic, and political make-up of New Orleans.

His plan for New Orleans was that areas of it should be/should’ve been turned into an infrastructure reservation, an “opportunity zone,” and there was an opportunity for that to have taken place with little or no cost to the country at large. A mega-port does not have to be populated except by employees while on duty. All the related “capacity” that is located there and is important to the country could be enhanced from available land which is occupied by homes which are below sea level.

Those homes could have been bought up by the developers of the opportunity zone at no loss to the prior owners (the money from the sale of their land and their insurance payout making them whole), and the low lying areas raised to safe elevations for the new use. The prices for the homes would have been set by eminent domain procedures which are used every day in this country where new highways (for instance) are planned and then built over 10-20 years time.

In my own city/county, very low lying land which is not suitable for residential development for reasons like this is developed into industrial infrastructure at the expense of willing investors. They install all the sewer lines, water lines, fire flow for fire protection, drainage structures, buildings, docks, etc. at their own expense, to then be leased or built on to suit end users. The only involvement by local government entities is to make sure that the connecting infrastructure is provided for. The value in all this is planned growth and strengthening of the local economy. This small scale model applies to the national situation as well.

But it should also be mentioned that the city of New Orleans accepted money allocated by the U.S. government and Army Corps of Engineers to do work, which the city government saw as a cookie jar of free money, not taking their situation seriously. They believed (or hoped) nothing like Katrina would actually happen, and if it did, well…. somebody else would have to fix it. That philosophy obtains even now.

New Orleans should not be abandoned, but it should be begun to be changed before the next like occurrence, which is inevitable.

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American Bottoms

A Type Unit Geology ~ a system of glacial filled valleys in Southern Indiana which embraces the broader impulses of the whole region in which it is integrated.
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Have You VISITED MY ALBUM Vita Brevis, Ars Longa? (Life is Short, Art is Long)

a "fresh" idea to shape the environment in louisiana
http://www.wwltv.com/topstories/stor....a931c79f.html

somebody who thinks like you jp trying to eliminate the problems in lose-iana

how much would republicans require to agree to lobotomies

if bristol palin moved to lose-iana would she be eligible for the $1,000 prize

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Quote:

"I like to watch the news, because I don't like people very much and when you watch the news ... if you ever had an idea that people were really terrible, you could watch the news and know that you're right."

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