"federal funds have dried up"
Which is what they were saying in NOLA last year about the necessary maintenance funding of the levee system.
The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.
That was in lieu of the 2004 hurricane season. You remember that? It was one of the worst on records. So basically Washington told them to go CHENEY themselves. Despite drastic evidence that this was a sincere concern. It's almost like the federal gov't shrugged it off and said, "ah how bad can it be?" Now we know because,
...the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history.
And there were growing concerns that if a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane had hit NOLA that they'd be SOL. So a study was proposed. The Times-Picayune paper reported that,
the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money
Which is kind of like the way the POTUS seems to be viewing all scientific study. I am kind of reminded of the way my old office building used to be maintained. See, they knew they were going to sell it eventually and it'd be torn down. So necessary maintenance was not budgeted for. When the air conditioning failed they didn't know what to do. And for months last summer, we went without until they begrudgingly replaced it. I think that's how W looks at the world he's playing with. I mean, if Jebus is coming back to get all of his folks soon, what's the point in fixing stuff?
"The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. ... In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."
NOLA MS Katrina
posted by Eric2 @ 11:40 AM
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