Originally posted by jaimevick
Originally posted by Magnitude
Katrina was so bad last time because people had the "not moving" attitude. When will they learn? Nature stops for no man.
Katrina was so bad because we trusted the local and federal government to build us levees for protection. The lesson learned...The government sucks at building levees, and the ones they just built are gonna come tumbling down and everyone knows it, therefore every one is going to evacuate.
Levee's are expensive to build and expensive to maintain. It's always a team effort by everyone, Federal, State, and local authorities. It's almost a certainty that one or two or all those government entities will fall down on the job and not do everything necessary to ensure our levees are up to speed...it's expensive to build and maintain levees properly and it's easy to assign them a low priority when governments want to spend their money on other projects. However, it's a guarantee that if something bad happens, everyone and their brother will point the finger.
We've lost two levees locally since 1986 and both resulted in widespread local flooding (not nearly on the scale as what Katrina caused). And, as small as our flooding was compared to New Orleans, it still took us 10 years to recover 95% from each flood.
We're in Northern California and most of the rivers around here swell up to capacity almost every winter and spring. We've lost several levees since the early 1950s and no one has done much even though we lose one every now and then.
Governments can spend X amount of money for a mile of levee that will protect so much. Or they can spend double X for only a little more protection. Or they can spend triple X for only a little more protection on top of that. Basically, double spending on levees doesn't mean you get twice the protection. It's easy for a politician to put off improving a levee today so that he can get throw some pork into an election to help ensure he or she gets elected...hey, as long as that levee doesn't break until they get out of office, it was worth it right?
Levees are a pet peeve for me since I was caught up in one of the floods and lost just about everything I had at the time (1986). I'm sick of the levee bickering and lack of attention that goes on around here. Sadly, it sounds like it's the same everywhere. It's damn tough to find a politician nowadays, Republican or Democrat, that has the political courage to really do whats best for all the people.
I wish the best for all you guys down there. I sincerely hope your levees hold this time around. And I hope everyone gets through the storm and manages to stay dry and reasonably comfortable.
Originally posted by Magnitude
Katrina was so bad last time because people had the "not moving" attitude. When will they learn? Nature stops for no man.
Katrina was so bad because we trusted the local and federal government to build us levees for protection. The lesson learned...The government sucks at building levees, and the ones they just built are gonna come tumbling down and everyone knows it, therefore every one is going to evacuate.
Levee's are expensive to build and expensive to maintain. It's always a team effort by everyone, Federal, State, and local authorities. It's almost a certainty that one or two or all those government entities will fall down on the job and not do everything necessary to ensure our levees are up to speed...it's expensive to build and maintain levees properly and it's easy to assign them a low priority when governments want to spend their money on other projects. However, it's a guarantee that if something bad happens, everyone and their brother will point the finger.
We've lost two levees locally since 1986 and both resulted in widespread local flooding (not nearly on the scale as what Katrina caused). And, as small as our flooding was compared to New Orleans, it still took us 10 years to recover 95% from each flood.
We're in Northern California and most of the rivers around here swell up to capacity almost every winter and spring. We've lost several levees since the early 1950s and no one has done much even though we lose one every now and then.
Governments can spend X amount of money for a mile of levee that will protect so much. Or they can spend double X for only a little more protection. Or they can spend triple X for only a little more protection on top of that. Basically, double spending on levees doesn't mean you get twice the protection. It's easy for a politician to put off improving a levee today so that he can get throw some pork into an election to help ensure he or she gets elected...hey, as long as that levee doesn't break until they get out of office, it was worth it right?
Levees are a pet peeve for me since I was caught up in one of the floods and lost just about everything I had at the time (1986). I'm sick of the levee bickering and lack of attention that goes on around here. Sadly, it sounds like it's the same everywhere. It's damn tough to find a politician nowadays, Republican or Democrat, that has the political courage to really do whats best for all the people.
I wish the best for all you guys down there. I sincerely hope your levees hold this time around. And I hope everyone gets through the storm and manages to stay dry and reasonably comfortable.
