Uh, This is Confusing

THIS article says New Orleans at 65% of its "Pre-Katrina" population. We all know that Hurricane Katrina did not hit New Orleans, but did you know that there are all kinds of lying going on about the gross mismanagement of the Louisiana state officials and local government, as well as damn near everything said about the hand party that is New Orleans? The city that has a murder rate ten times higher than the National average?

Let's just try to make sense of this article, of course, starting with the numbers. Remember, I am going to take the USA Today at their word and use their "facts." Let's round that ugly 295k and change to 300k, just so I can do this in my head. At 65%, that means that prior to the utter failure of Mayor Ray Nagin and Governor Kathleen Blanco, there were about 462,000 people in New Orleans. Also, understand that this total doesn't include the folks in Metarie or any other suburbs that evacuated. This is just the city of New Orleans.

In New Orleans, according to all accounts that I can find, every single human being was either killed, raped, maimed, or discriminated against. In other words, there is very little truth regarding Hurricane Katrina and is affects on New Orleans. Just so you know, there were six deaths at the Superdome. Four from dehydration, one was an overdose, and one was suicide. Four were found dead at the Convention Center, one was ruled a homicide. So much for the tens of thousands that Nagin predicted.

I cannot find ONE reliable source to tell me how many people left New Orleans, not one. This post has officially fallen into ruin because now it becomes a rant.

Hurricane: Understand, the power failures caused a lack of recording, but there were actually a few hurricane force wind readings taken in New Orleans. None were greater than Category ONE! That is 74-95 miles per hour winds, maximum. Okay, we can safely assume there was very little hurricane damage in New Orleans from this information, let's move on.

Flooding: There were around 54 levee breeches in the New Orleans area. I am simply NOT going to take the time to map them all out, but the majority were in Plaquemines Parish and St. Bernard Parish. There were ONLY three breeches in New Orleans that accounted for what all reports say flooded 80% of the city. Most of these breeches occured hours or even days after the hurricane moved through. Understand, this is flooding, slow moving water, not an actual instantaneous surge.

Much has been said about the levee system in and around New Orleans. This levee system doesn't date back to 1925 like so many folks have said, it was started in 1965 after Hurricane Betsy did the exact same thing. Construction commenced in 1971 and was halted in 1977. Doing this reduced the water table in and around New Orleans and the ground began to compact. The led to the city slowly compacting lower and lower. NO! New Orleans is not all below sea level. There are very few areas that are. The lowest inhabited area that I can find on a topographic shows the elevation at just under two feet ABOVE sea level. But, the new levees did create a bowl that would hold water upon failure, not unlike all of the others.

Understand also, that once the new constuction began, immediately the "Greenies" started protesting and the Corps of Engineers had to halt work to go to court with Save Our Wetlands. The Corps finally scrapped that 1965 plan and began a massive rebulidng of the existing levee system while leaving partially constructed levees in place from the six years of work.

Needless to say, this flooding has always been a problem and New Orleans has known it since the founding of the city. Even as recently as 2002, the Corps was working with LSU's Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute to address the problem. They have never stopped. Granted the Corps are government employees, so you know that they are not the sharpest tools in the shed.

Also, the year before Katrina, 2004, Ivan caused the greatest evacuation of the city to date. Nagin issued the evacuation order and 600,000 were evacuated from greater New Orleans. In December 2004, the state simulated an evacuation for "Hurricane Pam", a Cat-3 hurricane, that predicted 1,000,000 people would be displaced and over 500,000 building damaged or destroyed. It wasn't that these things were not known by every single living human in the area.

Also, understand that there were over 700 bodies discovered in New Orleans. I don't have all the data on exactly the cause of death of every one, but I would assume that drowning would be the main one. Drowning in a city of numerous, numerous tall buildings that are easily accessible to anyone that needs refuge from water that barely reached five feet in most places. Total death toll in the state that did not get hit by the main force of the hurricane was 1,464. There was little concern on the part of the government officials to do their job and they should be held accountable. Even though Nagin issued a MANDATORY evacuation order, it was never enforced. Many people stayed.

This is downtown New Orleans on September 2. Not an awful lot of water, but there was arson. The police had been relieved from duty by the Mayor. Looting was rampant. Remember? Even the police were ripping off the Wal-Mart.

Looters in boats armed to the teeth kept trying to break into the hospital at Tulane. Police that did stay "commandeered" 29 Cadillac Escalades, none were ever found.

I say all of that to say this. I have no pity at all for the people that are bitching, moaning, and complaining now. You even re-elected Nagin. You have no person other than yourself to blame.

You bitch and moan about what the government didn't do to help you and then turn right around and ask the government to help you. You already bit the hand, dumbasses. I hope it takes forty years for the Federal government to rebuild the housing down there and I hope it has asbestos in it.

Run up to Bogalusa, watch those folks, and grow a damn backbone. Those people were completely cut off from civilization for almost two weeks. You just lost your cable.

This is Long Beach, Mississippi. This is what a hurricane does. Total loss of life in the state that received the overwhelming majority of the damage from the storm was 238. How is this possible?

Well, one way is that our governor did not play politics with Mississippians' lives like Blanco did. If there was anything that someone needed, Barbour provided it as quickly as possible. Blanco refused access to the Red Cross. Barbour was on the coast the next day. Blanco was in Baton Rouge.

Our whole state was affected because the storm moved through and formed eleven tornadoes, one fifth of Louisiana was affected. 90% of the structures within a half-mile of the coast were completely destroyed. Virtually none were in New Orleans, the main being the Hyatt.

Please tell me the one difference between the two circumstances other than the affects of the weather and then you have your answer. Blanco and Nagin should be in prison.

I want everyone to know that my problem with this whole New Orleans-Katrina debacle is the FACT that the areas of Louisiana that were devastated have gotten very little attention from their government. New Orleans has gotten the vast amount of the concern when the city was simply mismananged by incompetent government, elected by the people.