RTIII
Maitri’s liveblogging.
So? Get your ass over there.
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John Barry: the levees that failed and flooded the 9th Ward, NO East, etc. were along canals, human-made outlets that benefit the entire nation.
His op-eds—always submitted with the title Things You Don’t Know about Katrina.
“If the geological facts were known”—dams in ND make us more vulnerable, our sediment is shunted away by jetties, etc.
After the storm, some conservatives wanted to move the Port of NO to Baton Rouge.
Add shipping stats—it is the busiest port in the world, only one that used to have a traffic light, carries more tonnage than any port in the world.
KC asks: what about house elevation as a tool to reduce risk? Barry laments there’s been no focused leadership—Ray? Where you at today? Nothing being done, nothing, he says. On marsh, as sea levels rise, what’s on it rises, too. On rock, you go under.
Amsterdam, Death Valley, Shanghai–below sea level. It’s what you do to protect the region, not whether or how far below sea level the place is.
1927—levees in St. Bernard Parish dynamited and flooded white people unnecessarily. NO stiffed those people on compensation. And that helped Huey Long get elected, though, JB says, he may’ve won anyway.
Imagine—Newt Gingrich (though not his party) thinks NO should be rebuilt.
No port or combination of ports can pick up the slack if something happens to our port.
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Resident celebrity: Lee Zurik. Were people really booing? Or did the hoots echo poorly in this space?
Time to listen. Fend for yourselves.








