kjb434

That's cool about the zip codes. As for celebrities, i don't really like it when they put themselves in the situation and bring cameras along. Except for one, Harry Connick Jr. He tour the section of New Orleans where his father (former District Attorny for Orleans Parish) lives. While looking around he saw a man laying on a porch partially alive and naked. Connick gave the man the clothes off his back and carried him to the boat. The woman along with him was Hoda Kotb of NBC who was a former anchorwoman as the CBS affiliate in New Orleans. She new the city fairly well and was doing some good reporting on her own.

^^^ Hey, How many times have you've posted that diagram? I know I've seen it about 4 times. That second picture reminds me of the airport in Shreveport. When comming in for a landing, you fly just above I-20. The approach lights for the runway stretch across I-20 right of way.

What picture? He new the pres and got a job? Tell me an adminstration that runs it differently. Why are you attacking the man and not his actions. Mr. Brown is on the ground in middle of this muck right now. He, under FEMA, has very limited power. All he can do is assist the LOCAL officials. If the local officials aren't utilizing his help efficiently, then it's not Mr. Brown's fault. This was a totally different situation under Hurricane Andrew. The Louisiana governor at the time of Andrew had everything under constrol. Other parishes around New Orleans have there act together. Everything is moving along in other parishes. Orleans didn't react correctly. This all could be done before the levee breach. What about all the Hurricanes in Florida last year? FEMA responded accordingly and quickly. The same Mr Brown was running the show for them. The same President too. The difference was that the local officials set everything up and ran the show with FEMA's assistance. The president CAN'T send help to the states instantaneously, he has to be asked. The locals have to coordinate. It is not the federal governments job. How hard is it to see this? How hard is it to understand the rules in place?

hey, the Lord & Taylor space in the galleria is under construction right now. It's been gutted. It's a weir view from Westhiemer @ McCue. You see the dard floors of Lord & Taylor and the parking levels above it.

Homeland Security added a layer of bureacracy that muddles a lot of things up, but even if homeland security didn't exist, FEMA would have taken about the same amount of time. FEMA requires local and state officials to take control and they can only assist. FEMA has not policing or law enforcement capability.

If the roof is seriously damaged on the dome, tearing it down may have to happen. The walls of the dome can't support themselves, they need the roof. It was part of the structural design. The roof is a key component to keeping the facility structurally sound. It's kind of like its achilles heel. (source: A research paper I did in college and a separate presentation in my structures class).

You can probably use the same invective Liberal have been posting all over the web.

The projected date will be around Nov to January. They are finalizing plans and reviews. I think by this time next year you should see some serious construction going on.

Very little of the murky Mississippi waters will get anywhere near Galveston. RedScare is correct in that the Trinity and San Jacinto are the culprit. The Brazos and several other streams are also guilty of darkening the water. Most of the Mississippi water and sediment load falls of the continental shelf (one of the biggest reasons Louisiana is losing marshlands). The Army Corps redirects large portios of the Mississippi back into the wetlands to rebuild the marshes. The process is slow but land is being built. Most of the polluted waters will actually go into Lake Ponchartrain and not the Mississippi. This may actually be worse since the Lake doesn't have a current and is mostly tidal. Most of the pollutants will actually just settle in the lake. This shouldn't pose too much of a hazard since swimming in the lake has been prohibted for years. There is a Foundation dedicated to cleaning the lake to make it swimmable again. There work has just gotten harder. They almost had the lake passing tests to let people swim.

If someone wanted to find someone to call a racist, I think we found the first one in all this mess: Plano ISD.

^^ Hey they did it first. The Mayor of NO just told CNN that President Bushed urged the governor of Louisiana to ask for help. FEMA and US Military had a plan to enact, but they are powerless unless the state governor asks for it. The feds can't do anything until state and local officials ask. Bush was forced to wait 24 hours before he could do anything. The reason the federal government and the specifically the president is barred from providing direct immediate assistance is because it would trample on the state's rights to rule within their borders. The Governor Hailey Barbour ask and recieved assistance immediately. Mrs Blanco couldn't make the decision. We can't blame the Bush or the Feds first because they can't act by law (from the 1800s) until they are asked. The biggest question is why the governor wanted to wait. Mayor Naggin also has some blame to take by not assisting his people to evacuate. He had over 1000 buses (school and mass transit) available to move people out. He also waited much longer than other surrounding parishes to put a mandatory evacuation into effect.

The entire Town and Country center is to be raised. I think the Nieman Marcus building may be stayed, but I thought it's gone too. There were proposals to build a town center or lifestyle type of mixed-use development.

^^^ As long as Jesse can keep black people believing they are helpless and everyone is against them, he'll have a job. As soon as the black population believe they can think for themselves and do for themselve, he'll be jobless. Some have already done this, but not enough.

True volunteers are special type. We are lucky to have some many in this city.

Yeah, Shepherd Smith walked around the quarter about two days after storm hit, I was excited about how it faired. Luckily it is on one of the higher portions of the city.

Hey, Houston along with the rest of Texas has been placed under the umbrella for FEMA for reimbursment. The state of Texas along with counties and municipalities will get reimbursed for their work. Yes, we are putting upfront costs, but we will be supplemented. Also, much of the workers are volunteers and other workers are performing their paying jobs anyway. So in the end, I don't think it'll hurt our economic situation and these proposed projects.

Yeah, statements like that only make things worse!

If you ever look at a FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRM) for the New Orleans and much of southern Louisiana, you'll notice they are shaded a grayish color and there is a warning that I'm paraphrasing as: If the levees fail you will be flooded for the 100-year event. This also applies to several areas of Fort Bend County also. Also, much of the development along Galveston Bay have very little protection from storm surges. To my knowledge, Galveston Island and Texas City have levees. Texas City is also barely above sea level and would not exist without it's levees. Kemah doesn't have any storm surge protection. New Orleans is not the only city that lives on the edge of danger. Luckily the two critical areas of New Orleans (downtown and french quarter) does not have damage to point of complete destruction. Much of the office buildings can be up in running fairly easily. The biggest damage seems to be windows broken. The Superdome and Convention Center are two different stories. The port facilities along the Mississippi River can go back into opertation soon since most of them are elevated above see level. The port facilities along the Industrial Canal will need some cleanup, but these areas have flooded before and can come back. These are the back bones to the economy in Orleans Parish. Much of the Jefferson Parish, and St. Charles Parish economic centers faired well and can be up and running as soon as power and water are restored. St Bernard and Plaquemine Parish had much more destructive flooding to there economic base. Outside of this, the hard part is establishing residences back in the city. I like the concept floating around (mentioned on the Houston Strategies Blog) about identifying all the disaster area (Mississippi and Alabama too) as an economic reinvestment zone. This way, private entities can rebuild the city without the horrific red tape of the governement.

Yeah, how does that affect it. The city is still running and running fairly well after taking in all of these evacuees. Developers and the city aren't going to stop because of this. Nor should they.

I'm wondering why the mayor of NOLA didn't mobilize the cities buses and school buses (which now sit flooded in a parking lot) to move the people who didn't have a means to evacuate. To me, the largest part of the blame falls on the State and Local officials. FEMA didn't need to rush into New Orleans because the damage wasn't that bad. After the levee broke a day later is when the conditions got much worse. If the levee didn't break, the work could be done a lot easiers. The rising waters prevent most if not all vehicles from getting to the people that had to be evacuated. I can easily show you people that racist issue is not present. What about neighboring St Bernard Parish and the city of Chalmette? This people are just as much flooded as New Orleans, have been waiting just as lon and the place is close to 80% white. 50 people died in a nursing home because no one showed up (and they were white). Race in no way can be used as a reason for lack of response. To me, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton showing up is because they are trying to get camera time and they care very little for these people.

New Orleans will most probably not get filled nor will people necessarily build house and roads higher. The simplest fix is to build a larger higher levee system. This can be done. The majority of the Levees are fine. The levees along the Mississippi River down towards the mouth are in great condition according the Corps reporting. Fixing these levees will be the first thing to and improving them next. Many of US don't realized how important the city is economically to the US (and I'm not considering oil). The port of New Orleans handles so much and the industrial complexes downstream and upstream handles so much cargo. Even the Port of Mississippi in Gulfport handled lots of cargo. Much of this will be rerouted, but not all of it can.

If you believe we live in a politically correct world, then that some really thick foggy glasses you were. I'm glad we don't live a politically correct world. To me, Politically correctness hides truths and masks realities, no way to deal with problems. So some people are greedy, but their question of are the businesses going to move here is no different than what happend in New York City after 9/11. Many offices are still on Long Island and in New Jersey since they lost office space in lowre Manhattan.

Most people don't even know it's below sea level until they go there and see the ships in the river above their head when they are in Jackson Square. Now everyone knows it because of all the new coverage. I think the housing projects and many of the abandoned dilapidated homes will not be rebuilt. In some ways the Huricane was positive and it will clean out the bad housing. It's kind of a sick perspective, but New Orleans had tons of abandoned and rental houses that were falling apart and attractive to drug dealers. Just like when Houston starting tearing down some of the abandoned homes to help neighborhoods. The daunting task is how much new housing will be built. Most home owners with the right insurance will get FEMA help and will be able to rebuild. Another section of homeowners won't get much. I'm wondering if you'll see an apartment or condo building boom once the city is ready for construction to begins. I was actually planning on retiring to NO one day, but I was planning to get a loft apartment in the warehouse district above the first floor or build my own house. My own house would have garage and pation on first floor with nothing of extreme value (except for my car) on the first floor.

Yeah, for an out of towner to fly in then have to take an hour drive to get near the boat would be frustrating to me. I don't kow, but do the cruise ships offer buses for travelers to get to galveston?

^^^ Please don't throw around terms that don't have any backing. I much rather read these posts of true feelings of a situation. These are valid concerns. They may not pan out at all, but these concerns will help us be more prepared. I personally don't care about business relocation, increased population. I'm more concerned with how will deal with this influx of people that have no other place to turn too. Why is Enron mentioned? What does that mean? It has nothing to do with the situation. Also, you need to know what the term racists means before you throw it around too. Posters on this forum may be show prejudices, but hardly are being racist. Racism is a prejudice follow by actions against a race. I don't think people are actively going out and stoping these people from coming here.