What is desperately needed is strong leadership who have the power to basically rebuild NO however they see fit, and I think it should be a group of people from outside NO, possibly the US. The culture of NO will come back on it’s own, and to have someone invested in that culture helping decide what can stay and what has to go will force people to look to the past instead of the future.

I think the federal government should have gone in and just bought up every piece of land they could. This both gives people, at least land owners, some capital to begin to rebuild their lives, and allows for fewer property right concerns for the next phase, which would consists of practical rezoneing of the city. Then Pay to build houses and business on the land, and then sell the land back to anyone who wished it at fair market value or slightly subsidized rates. I really don’t think it would cost that much as a large ammount of money would be made by improveing and selling back the properties. I’m certainly not looking for the government to turn a profit on the disaster, but rather to lessen the cost of the project.

Corrupt politicians come in all colors and stripes; that is no excuse not to rebuild.

No, not an excuse, but a reason to be cautious and practice good oversight on how the funds are used, wouldn’t you say?

In the SOTU, Bush patted his administration on the back ad nauseum for job growth and a booming economy. We are to send 7 billion in reconstruction funds to Afghanistan, and countless billions more to rebuild Iraq. This is while a great American city lies in ruins.

I think its a waste of time to try to determine who should have done what during Katrina, in any case, thanks to Joe Lieberman, we will likely never learn what was going on at the WH in the critical hours before and after it hit. But we need to put N.O. back on its feet. Corrupt politicians come in all colors and stripes; that is no excuse not to rebuild.

And CStanley, btw — I’m from Algiers, too.

Hah, small world, eh? I grew up (from 6th grade on, anyway- was born a Jersey girl) in the Aurora Gardens section, just two blocks from the levee. I moved away in ’89 but still had family in that same neighborhood, and all three family homes were spared (except for wind damage to my brother’s roof.) Like I said, I can’t understand why people spurn the “Best Bank”.

NOLA.com has a pretty comprehensive article about the gap-loan program, here.

Its major failing (imho) is that it won’t be available to nearly enough people (1 in 50 applicants), primarily because of the finite size of the pooled money.

But I like the idea, in large part because the stalled process has meant people are giving up. It’s not nearly enough, but it’s the first proactive step I’ve seen out of Nagin in a very long time.

And CStanley, btw — I’m from Algiers, too.

On a separate note, I think I have to give a qualified thumbs up to Nagin’s new program to provide bridge loans (bypassing the bureucratic nightmare of Babineaux’s Road Home program). I say qualified because I don’t know all the details, and I’m wondering if polimom or slate have an opinion on it.

Of the reasons that the wetlands have been harmed it the dredging and river control projects that allowed NO to exist. If left to nature, the Mississippi would have a very differnt path through LA.

Once again, if the feds wants to rebuild the slums, then the least they should do is comply with the National Environmental Protection Act and conduct an EIS. Somehow asking the feds to comply with environmental laws if not exactly a “hard right” position. However, wanting to avoid harsh environmental laws when they are inconvient is a trademark of virtually all big government types (left and right).

The feds have laws that forbidden the use of federal money to build in flood plains. If NO is to be rebuilt, then Congress should have hearing and should pass legislation to the effect of “screw the flood plain laws” because we like NO. If Congress is not willing to change the laws, why should the executive branch just ignore them?

What about the half who have returned (or hope to)? What of them? And would that number stay halved if the city were, in fact, starting to recover?

Katrina was a hurricane. High winds, some storm surge. New Orleans would have been damaged but not wiped out by Katrina.

It wasn’t the hurricane, it was the failure of the LEVEES built by the Army Corps of Engineers, a FEDERAL agency, that caused the inundation of this city.

Meanwhile, please take a look at the Dutch system, the British system and the Japanese system. These countries poured money into keeping the sea at bay by using state of the art technology. Our federal government did not, and probably will not. With all their yammering about the safety of American citizens, they still pour the money into things outside our country rather than using existing technology to “keep us safe.”

I’m tired of the “below sea level/flood plain” arguments put forth by people who know nothing of the unique geography here. I’m tired of hearing that Katrina was the sole culprit. IT WAS THE LEVEES.

Oh yeah, and the coastal wetlands devastation didn’t help. Had Katrina hit New Orleans 50 yrs ago, the storm would have been on land for nearly 5 hours before it ever hit the city. Why? Because the wetlands existed and they would have slowed her down.

Want our oil? Build our levees.

Mr. Witt integrated flood mitigation, control and protection into FEMA’s policy. After the devastating Midwest floods of 1993, Mr. Witt pursued an aggressive flood prone property acquisition and relocation program. By purchasing properties that were repeatedly flooded, he saved taxpayers millions of dollars when floods again ravaged the same Midwest area again in 1995.

A similar plan and effort will work in NOLA. Instead we have politics(NOLA asshole mayor and W’s administration) and bureacracy holding up the rebuilding of NOLA.

Why should the rest of us help a city that would re-elected a crook like William Jefferson?

Why should we help a country that re-elected George Bush?

Would we ignore our 4th largest city if it should have a disaster just because it’s in a flood plain?

If the government actually was trying to comply with the law and conducted an Record of Environmental Considerations, there is no way that they feds could start a rebuilding program for lower NO without performing an Environmental Impact Statement. If the government was to really try to comply with the National Environmental Protection Act

Greendreams,

If the government would comply with the National Environment Protection Act and perform an Environmental Impact Statement perform startingt the rebuilding, the government would have to quickly admit that NO cannot be built back into its former state. At the least, they would have to do what Galveston did before rebuilding.

I attended an EMS meeting where most of the discussions were about NO. One of the interesting presentations was by the AMA. The AMA believes that half of the physicians will never return to the NO area. The non-returing physicians do not want to incur addtional debt to rebuild in such an area and to have to rebuild their careers in the middle of the disaster. If so many professionals who were previous residents have given up on NO, then why should the rest of us pay to rebuild in city into its previous crime ridden, corrupt self.

But in the midst of all of the despair, I really think it’s more constructive to figure out where the money has gone, and to the extent that money hasn’t been transferred, why not? Here’s the opinion of one LA resident, and as a former resident of NO myself I have to say that his complaints of corruption, ineptitude and political gamemanship certainly ring true to me. And to the extent that these charges are true, I for one can’t fault the feds for holding up money. I can’t agree with superdestroyer’s harsh judgements, but I can say that the rest of the US shouldn’t be expected to pour billions into a sub-sea level basin without some assurance that there’s a sensible plan for rebuilding, and we shouldn’t be told by LA’s governor that everything was held up by a 6 month delay in receiving federal money while she fails to take responsibility for her program only disbursing money to 258 homeowners in the 7 months since she received the funding.

And your slur at NO residents is frankly racist. I don’t hear you leveling the same assaults at residents of wealthy high risk areas.

That’s the nuttiest idea I’ve heard in a long while. But hey, anyone want to dump your Hawaii, FL or Bay Area property cheap, let me know.

From what I understand, New Orleans had a higher percentage of renters. Thus, how could any business take the risk of building new rental units in a flood plain?

Why should the rest of us help a city that would re-elected a crook like William Jefferson? Why should the rest of us help a city that had refugees that raised the crime rate of any city that evacuated to?

Maybe if the residents of New Orleans would ever start acting like responsible adults instead of a bunch of irresponsbile, whiny children, then the rest of us would not have given up on them long ago.