Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke

[benito]

I downloaded this movie from http://www.chomskytorrents.org/ and I've watched it twice, back to back.

I was wondering of any of my fellow hurricane dodgers saw it and what they thought about it.

New Orleans is 150 miles from my house and I've yet to visit since the storm. I've visited more of the Rita affected areas since I'm closer to the western part of the state. Some places were scrubbed off the map.

http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/hurricanes/rita/photo-comparisons/cameron.html

[goddess40]

1. It's seems the levee's functioned "well"

After hearing about Betsy and how they broke then and they were rebuilt to the same specs and now they have again been rebuilt to the original specs it seems to me that the goal is to have them break to save the wealthier parts of New Orleans.

Does anyone else feel this might be true or am I out there?

[Catherine Vincent]

2. No, you're not out there.

If they are repairing them at the same specs then apparently, they don't give a hoot if they breech again for the next flood. The lower ninth ward etc. isn't worth the money to upgrade?

[goddess40]

3. I think it's worse than not wanting to spend the money

The levee's function as planned - better to flood the poor then inconvenience the rich. Besides it clears out the poor when it does happen - really disgusting!

[Catherine Vincent]

4. I don't know.

I hope that's not the case. But it wouldn't surprise me. How could something like that be proven?

[goddess40]

5. I don't know

but if they know that rebuilding to the same specs won't prevent the same thing from happening again, seems to count for something. The money spent to build a system like the Dutch have would be cost effective when we look at the price we're going to spend on Katrina, in human life, repairs, clean up and theft by contractors.

[Catherine Vincent]

6. Could it be they don't want to spend high dollar on the levees

because this is the south? I mean, this isn't some place like NY or California.