Coast Guard Questions Big Easy Timeline

[Eugene]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5285407,00.html

Coast Guard Questions Big Easy Timeline


Saturday September 17, 2005 8:31 PM

AP Photo NY110

By BRETT MARTEL

Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The mayor of New Orleans has set up an "extremely
problematic" timeline for allowing residents to return to the
evacuated city, which is still threatened by a weakened levee system,
a lack of drinkable water and heavily polluted floodwaters, the head
of the federal relief effort said Saturday.

Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen said federal officials have worked
with Mayor Ray Nagin and support his vision for repopulating the city,
but he called Nagin's idea to return up to 180,000 people to New
Orleans in the next week both "extremely ambitious" and "extremely
problematic."

"Our intention is to work with the mayor ... in a very frank, open and
unvarnished manner," Allen told The Associated Press in an interview
at Department of Homeland Security headquarters in Baton Rouge.

Nagin has announced that the city's Algiers section, the Garden
District and the French Quarter would reopen over the next week and
a half, bringing back more than one-third of the city's half-million
inhabitants.

<snip>

more...

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. So hard not to rush back to normalcy. So hard. n/t

[Lindsay]

6. I was listening to WWL last night

(a New Orleans radio station broadcasting from temporary quarters in Baton Rouge) and heard Mr. Broussard, the President of Jefferson Parish. He was saying, "Forget about the timeline we set. Come home. Come home."

Consciously or not, I think Nagin and Broussard want the people of the area, not BushCo, to get started on rebuilding.

[barb162]

18. There will be huge insurance problems, especially NO coverage

re: the flood. I heard that in NOLA only about 5% of the people had flood coverage. People won't have money to rebuild. I bet a lot of people will never even go back to check their houses because they already know that sitting under water for weeks does the house in. Nothing at all to save in the houses. No money to get to the houses. What a mess.

[truthisfreedom]

2. my God, can you imagine the drinking water problems alone? ack, who'd

want to go back there before they flush the entire system and crank up the chlorine machine?

[kestrel91316]

9. Gallon jug + chlorine bleach + eyedropper = potable water

Are we such incompetent, witless boobs that we can no longer even treat our own water??? This is BASIC common sense.

[Massacure]

10. Chlorine will get rid of most bacteria but not chemicals.

[Waistdeep]

16. Treating water is easy --- not really

Bleach is only useful if you are worried about biological contamination. It gives you drinkable water only if somebody has already removed the heavy metals and nasty hydrocarbons like PCBs from the water. You can remove the heavy metals with precipitation or ion exchange and the hydrocarbons with activated carbon filters, but it's not exactly "common sense" to most people unless they've had a bit of chemistry.

[kestrel91316]

17. We are talking about tap water in NOLA that has potential bacterial

contamination due to ruptures in the system, but is otherwise ok. I am not referring in any way to the toxic soup in the streets. That would require filtration, boiling, filtration, reverse osmosis, carbon filtration, chlorine, more filtration, and then disposal down the drain to make me happy. No way I would EVER drink the runoff.

[DoYouEverWonder]

13. That is what they are doing, section by section

Once they get the floodwater out then they backwash the water lines. Not that I would trust the water yet anyway, but New Orleans already had some of the worst water in the country. So is there going to be a big difference?

[pfitz59]

3. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

City is bankrupt...needs those tourist tax dollars!

[pushycat]

7. Surely we understand the economic hardships for the City,

but, ye gads, don't subject innocent, healthy, people into a contaminated area just in the name of commerce. Come on, Mayor, do your duty. Come on Gov, do your duty. Come on Prez, oh well..

[BeFree]

8. stay away?

Don't come home, stay in that motel room 100's of miles from your home?

Hell, they'd have a hard time keeping me away from my home. I can make the decision to go back and leave again, or stay, I don't need some government bureaucrat telling me what to do. Hell, they let the place flood and now they want to keep me out? No way.

[pushycat]

23. You move me to respond with the only good reason I can think

of to stay away. Many of the rescue heroes from 9/11 are now either dead or dying from disease because they went into a contaminated area to help save lives. Your life is as important as theirs - check all the facts before you believe our gov agency's created to protect our health.

http://www.airamericaradio.com/ringoffire/

A senior EPA official says people should stay out now..

The loss of your home is obviously significant, but immeasurably less so than your health.
good luck

[madrchsod]

4. the coast guard is fighting for it`s life

and it`s going to be interesting who is going to win
the dept of homeland insecurity or the navy

[babylonsister]

5. The CG is now under the DHS since Dimson

made it so.

[redwitch]

11. The Coast Guard seemed to me to be the only competent ones

They had the right tools and were there way quicker than anyone else. Also, is it just my impression or do they seem to have less bureaucracy than other branches of military? At the very least the Coast Guard is still here mostly and not over there.

[babylonsister]

12. The CG is the smallest branch of the forces, though

prior to being incorporated into HLS they were housed under Dept. of Transportation. So yes, lots less bureaucracy there. And only a few have been sent to Iraq so far; some also were sent to VN back in the day. The CG has air and boat stations up and down the coast (as well as inland) so they were relatively easy to scramble. I love my Coasties!

[redwitch]

14. The images of rescues at sea in The Perfect Storm were amazing

I am way too wimpy to be Coast Guard, those people are so brave,

[babylonsister]

15. I agree! And they did an outstanding job this month! Just do it,

let everyone else complain and cast blame.

[NYC]

19. The Coast Guard was saving people

while Bush & Homeland Security were still on vacation. They seemed to be the only branch of the federal government who reacted quickly.

[Massachusetts]

21. "They seemed to be the only branch...

..of the federal government who reacted quickly".

Agreed!

[lithiumbomb]

20. tax revenue?

Note that NO is out of cash. I bet they want the business district and some residents back to get some sales tax revenue flowing in.

[CJCRANE]

22. Makes sense plus

some tourists prob want to go and have a gawp around while NO is still in post-apocalyptic frontier town mode.