New Orleans survived Katrina. The City was KILLED by Republicans!

[bvar22]

New Orleans survived the Category 4.5 hurricane quite well.
New Orleans did NOT survive the Republican Party!
The inherent Bigotry, Classism and Greed of Compassionate Conservatism KILLED New Orleans!

Katrina's 145 MPH winds caused some wind damage, the most obvious to the plastic roof coating of the Superdome. Some windows were blown out. Some houses lost shingles. Some trees were uprooted and signs blown down. There was very little structural damage to New Orleans from the winds of Katrina. It is possible that there would have been NO DEATHS in New Orleans from wind damage alone. (It is a little early to state that with absolute certainty, but so far, there has been very little structural wind damage visible in ANY of the pictures. The ROOF Structure of the Superdome is intact.

Katrina's 8-12" of tropical rain was within the capacity of the City's 100 year old pumps and canal system. There was some local flooding of low areas which is common during heavy rains, and was not dangerous. This was verified by the reports from New Orleans immediately after Katrina passed. ALL reports from within New Orleans verified that most of the city WAS NOT FLOODED, and the water level in the flooded areas WAS DROPPING!

There was a serious problem in New Orleans EAST where a levee (scheduled for strengthening but DEFUNDED by Republicans) was breeched and water poured into an area causing people to take refuge in their attics. This was equivalent to the flooding of the SAME area in Hurricane Betsy in 1965. This was serious, but NOT a Death Blow. This local area could have been dealt with immediately after the storm subsided. Rescues would have been staged from the New Orleans side immediately after the storm subsided. Property damage was HIGH for this local area, but few if any deaths would have occurred by this flooding alone. It WAS manageable!

The DEATH BLOW to New Orleans did NOT happen until many hours after Hurricane Katrina had done her worst, and had left the area. The Death Blow to New Orleans was caused by the failure of portion of the 17th St Levee (actually a steel coffer dam wall, not a traditional earth levee) that was INSIDE the Perimeter Levee Protection System that surrounds New Orleans. The Permanent Earth Levee System surrounding New Orleans successfully held the full fury of Katrina!

The portion of the internal levee system on 17thSt that failed was scheduled for upgrading, but WAS DEFUNDED BY THE REPUBLICAN PARTY who believe that a handful of the VERY RICH Republican donors deserve MILLIONS of Dollars, and the millions of common working folk and POOR in New Orleans deserve nothing!

Hurricane Katrina DID NOT KILL New Orleans.
REPUBLICAN GREED, CLASSISM, and BIGOTRY KILLED New Orleans!!!

[blitzen]

1. nominated....

and I'm printing it out to have my wife show it to her repug co-workers in port allen, la (just across the river from baton rouge)

[KamaAina]

2. I hear you. I suspect that 17th St. was undermined from within

on the N.O. side. As you mentioned, it was hours after the actual storm has passed; moreover, it was blocks away from Lake Pontchartrain itself, so storm surge seems unlikely to be the cause.

But the Lakeview area did have lots of standing water from the storm. Of course, that alone SHOULD not have caused 17th St. to fail, but now that we know what the REPUKES allowed to happen to it... :grr:

When things settle down a bit I'm thinking of starting a "DU Corps of Engineers" thread so we can get our experts to sort this out, as well as to pick their brains fro the rebuilding (attention Bush** and Denny Hastert, if you're lurking, it WILL happen in spite of your miserable pathetic little selves!).

[Endangered Specie]

4. You got to be kidding me

you arent seriously suggesting that someone 'blew' the levees intentionally? :tinfoilhat:

[KamaAina]

8. No, no. I meant undermined by the floodwaters

from the storm's rainfall, which were several feet deep in the area where the levee breached.

Tinfoil hats off now. :tinfoilhat:

edit: "and what the repukes allowed to happen to it" was not an explosion but defunding of routine maintenance on it to pay for Georgie's big sandbox in Iraq.

[bvar22]

9. If you look at the pictures of the breech closely,

If you look at the pictures of the breech closely, you will see that the section that gave way is a thin wall of interlocking steel planks topped with a rectangle of concrete.
If you look at the opposite side, the dry side of the levee that held, you will see only a mound of Earth overgrown with grass. The GRASS side is what 99% of the levee system in New Orleans looks like. The corrugated STEEL WALL is unusual, but has been left like that for many years (over 10). I believe that ultimately, the Corrugated STEEL WALL was to be covered with dirt (like the opposite side). Has this section been completed (covered with dirt) it might not have collapsed.

This is SPECULATION. I am not a member of the Levee Board of New Orleans, or an Engineer. I was a resident of New Orleans while the Raising the Levee project was underway. I was also a resident who noticed how ODD it was for the corrugated Steel Wall to remain uncovered.

Undoubtedly, we will hear more about this in the future. It DOES NOT change WHO is RESPONSIBLE for the destruction of New Orleans...The GREED of the Republican Party and the arrogance, self righteousness,bigotry, classism, hypocrisy, victimhood, sense of Entitlement for the RICH of the Conservative Doctrine!!!

[astonamous]

3. Man Mad Disaster. EOM

[Melodybe]

5. Kick and nominated,

Let the truth ring out.

This better get a ton of nominations.

[DistressedAmerican]

6. Kick And Nomination!

[agincourt]

7. Well you know some thing is wrong,

when Terri Schiavo gets a more urgent response than the city of New Orleans.

[UTUSN]

10. True - Today Limbo's Sub said NO Was a SOCIALIST Place n/t