Two years later and New Orleans is still struggling to get back on its feet. The attention of most Americans has moved on to other issues. Crime has exploded, the police are incapable of curtailing the violence. FEMA and the federal government is involved in turf wars and bureaucratic squabbles with Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.

Douglas Brinkley, a history professor at Rice University and the author of "The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast" wrote a feature for The Washington Post about the misery of the city as it tries to come back from the natural disaster that was Hurricane Katrina and the lackluster response in its wake.

Over the past two years since Hurricane Katrina, I've seen waves of hardworking volunteers from nonprofits, faith-based groups and college campuses descend on New Orleans, full of compassion and hope.

They arrive in the city's Ninth Ward to painstakingly gut houses one by one. Their jaws drop as they wander around afflicted zones, gazing at the towering mounds of debris and uprooted infrastructure.

After weeks of grueling labor, they realize that they are running in place, toiling in a surreal vacuum.

Two full years after the hurricane, the Big Easy is barely limping along, unable to make truly meaningful reconstruction progress. The most important issues concerning the city's long-term survival are still up in the air. Why is no Herculean clean-up effort underway? Why hasn't President Bush named a high-profile czar such as Colin Powell or James Baker to oversee the ongoing disaster? Where is the U.S. government's participation in the rebuilding?

Eventually, the volunteers' altruism turns to bewilderment and finally to outrage. They've been hoodwinked. The stalled recovery can't be blamed on bureaucratic inertia or red tape alone. Many volunteers come to understand what I've concluded is the heartless reality: The Bush administration actually wants these neighborhoods below sea level to die on the vine.

link

The easy temptation is to blame The President and the feds for the slow pace of the recovery in The Big Easy. President Bush will be visiting the Gulf Coast region this week to view the state of the area.

Bush will fly into New Orleans on Tuesday after giving a speech about the Iraq war to the American Legion convention in Reno, Nev. On Wednesday, the anniversary of the storm, he is expected to examine recovery efforts in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

The Bush administration is still dogged by charges of an inadequate response _ first, for the way it handled the crisis, and more recently, for not spending more time on it.

Bush's trip will be his 15th stop in the region since the hurricane, but only his second since he visited during the one-year anniversary last August. The Gulf Coast's plight did not even get a mention in his State of the Union address this year.

The White House says criticisms of its efforts are wrong. The federal government has provided more than $114 billion in aid, $96 billion of which has been spent or is available for states to draw from, said Bush spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

"The president continues to follow through on his commitment to help local citizens rebuild their lives and communities on the Gulf Coast," Johndroe said. link2

Some of the politicians vying to replace Bush in the Oval Office are marking the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina by visiting New Orleans and proclaiming they will do a better job than The President has. Senator Barack Obama told New Orleans residents he would never put the rebuilding of the city far from his thoughts.

The Illinois senator criticized Bush for what he said was a lack of urgency in rebuilding the city. "I can promise you this: I will be a president who wakes up every morning and goes to bed every night with the future of this city on my mind," Obama said.

He outlined a plan he said would help restore the region by:

_providing grants for community policing in New Orleans, which has struggled with violence since Katrina;

_offering incentives such as loan forgiveness programs to try to attract doctors and college students;

_ensuring displaced residents who want to return have a place to stay;

_creating a national catastrophic insurance reserve, which he said would help homeowners struggling with their premiums.

At least two other leading Democratic candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards, also have outlined rebuilding plans and touched on similar themes.

"Part of the problem, I'll be honest with you, I just don't think there is a sense of urgency in the White House, where the president is cracking the whip, day in, day out, and saying, 'Why is it that we're not getting this done?'" Obama said.

link3

The questions for debate are:

1. Is it realistic or even desirable to try and rebuild New Orleans?

2. Should the rebuilding of New Orleans be a national priority or is it primarily the responsibility of state and city officials?

3. IF it is a national priority should the federal government decide how and where the city is rebuilt?

4. Is the rebuilding of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast a important issue in the 2008 elections? Yes or No?

The fashionable response to the poll question would be the "private individual" option as it is en vogue now to idolize and anthropomorphize the market in ways that Adam Smith would never dream of.

One must remember the market is best understood as a system not a reasoning entity....

well, it reasons sort of like those automated coin sorters, but you know what I mean.

It bears no "responsibility" as such.

Assuming we want New Orleans as a functioning metropolis again, government is responsible for the key infrastructure issues that make that possible.

"If you build it, they will capitalize" as the saying goes.

Is it realistic or even desirable to try and rebuild New Orleans?

Cities are a good thing. They are more efficient than suburban sprawl or rural living. They are cultural landmarks and historically important. I'm in favor as greater efficiency tends to pay for itself in the long run.

That and the Dutch are really making us look like jerks,

Realistic and desirable are my two answers.

Should the rebuilding of New Orleans be a national priority or is it primarily the responsibility of state and city officials?

We need both levels to make this succeed. I choose state and local to spearhead but federal funding for infrastructure has been the basic reality since Eisenhower and the freeways.

Someone has to pay as the state can't swing the whole thing. When they rebuild certain famous collapsed bridges, I bet federal funding plays a key part there to.

That just the way these things work.

IF it is a national priority should the federal government decide how and where the city is rebuilt?

Only if they are prepared to make the right decisions. If we must designate someone to screw up, I'd go with local officials.

Is the rebuilding of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast a important issue in the 2008 elections? Yes or No?

I'm not sure that the "Me generation" is a fair name since selfishness has pretty much defined public opinion since... forever.

Only if the candidates makes it one, but empty promises are easy for both sides. I doubt this issue gains serious traction.

New Orleans is more of a nice memory than a great city. But we're not really talking about rebuilding New Orleans, we're talking about rebuilding the Ninth Ward. And we're not really talking about rebuilding it, we're talking about not gentrifying it. The parts of New Orleans that have been wiped fropm the map by Kartrina and the levees should be rebuilt. Better that they were.
Depends; how much of a national priority was rebuilding Meridian? It's a State and City issue and should be handled as such. However since the same incompetent morons Blanco & Nagin are still in power perhaps the Federal Government should take it over. Completely.
For get the Federal Government. Ask me since I'm actually paying. Since they won't, yes the Feds should make the decisions on where and how. The levees should be fixed once and for all. Yes they will be hideously ugly so no more facades when reinforcements are being paid for. The amount of corruption and graft in Louisiana make New Jersey look law abiding. It came back to them in spades. The people of Louisiana need some responsible people to come in and tell them what's best for them. Any group of people so blazingly stupid they re-elect Ray Nagin almost deserve whatever they get. In this case their city is more important than they are and as such they need to be saved from themselves.
No.

These questions presuppose that the city is still entirely in tatters and nothing has been done in the two years after Katrina. An estimated 2/3s of the population have already returned to the city. Some neighbors, especially the Ninth Ward (specifically the Lower Ninth Ward) are still in bad shape, but not for lack of effort, but for the monumental size of the task. Thousands upon thousands of truckloads of material have been hauled out of the Ninth Ward, yet it doesn't seem to make a indent in the size of the debris strewn about.

1. Is it realistic or even desirable to try and rebuild New Orleans?

Yes it is realistic but it isn't going to happen overnight. The economy of New Orleans is described as "strong" in this report. New Orleans has been rebuilt to large extent, but the work isn't finished. Billions of federal dollars have helped this along.

2. Should the rebuilding of New Orleans be a national priority or is it primarily the responsibility of state and city officials?

This is a state and local issue that requires (and has received) federal support.

4. Is the rebuilding of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast a important issue in the 2008 elections? Yes or No?
Is there a different position on this that any politician is willing to take? Everyone will say they are for rebuilding NOLA. This isn't an issue.

I don't know if I'm "idolizing" the market by pointing out that it's generally the best at allocating resources in the most efficient way. As that applies to New Orleans, if that city is useful enough to the national economy as a seaport or whatever else to justify its costs, then I have reasonable confidence in the laws of economics (more or less on par with my confidence in the laws of physics) that the market will provide the necessary investment to keep it in operation. Investors will invest because they recognize that there will be a return on their money. There will be a return on their money because what they're investing in will be useful to those willing to pay for it.

Wiser generations would have evaluated the likelihood of a repeat disaster, condemned the neighborhoods most vulnerable to Mother Nature, let them be "reclaimed" by water, and annexed higher ground nearby for any returning population. Building smaller levees further inland seems a more reasonable course of action than continuing to tempt fate. You can still tour ancient Alexandria with scuba gear. In the U.S., same goes for New Madrid, Indianola, and many other submerged towns. Yes, it's a tragic fate for large sections of such a great city, but better than inviting a repeat of Katrina-Rita. The Titanic wasn't unsinkable, and much of New Orleans never will be, either; but with wise city planning making better use of higher ground away from the waterfronts, N.O. could regain, even surpass, its former glory. It remains to be seen whether those with the power to take the necessary steps will have the courage to listen.

1. Is it realistic or even desirable to try and rebuild New Orleans?

N.O. spells "no". Those who don't have to pay (taxes, insurance) for N.O. being wiped off the map by every spate of major hurricanes that blows its way may believe it realistic and desirable to rebuild all of N.O. in its current disaster-prone locations. But those who wish to avoid a repeat should consider relocating disaster-prone neighborhoods to higher ground.

2. Should the rebuilding of New Orleans be a national priority or is it primarily the responsibility of state and city officials?

It should be a national, state, and city priority to ensure that anyone silly enough to rebuild below sea level in hurricane alley between a lake, ocean, river, and swamp won't get insurance or federal bailout money in the event the inevitable happens yet again. Rebuild foolishly at your own risk. Won't happen, though.

3. IF it is a national priority should the federal government decide how and where the city is rebuilt?

Not necessarily, but government at all levels should be absolutely sure that anyone owning or buying land in such obviously high-risk areas be warned that they must personally take on 100% of the risk in the event of each inevitable repeat disaster. Because human nature dictates political opportunists in government will never have enough backbone to say "tough luck, we told you so" (when it's so easy for them to buy a few million votes with billions of dollars that other people worked for), I agree with the environmentalists who want to let the seas and estuaries claim much of N.O., and let the lost wards be relocated to safer areas.

4. Is the rebuilding of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast a important issue in the 2008 elections? Yes or No?

It probably should be, but it will probably be crowded out of the top 10 issues in favor of those which more starkly contrast the candidates/play in their favor with more voters. The word "Katrina" may be hurled frequently as an invective zinger, but not seriously discussed in any significant depth.

Despite our personal differences here Nighttimer, I'll tackle this this one because I grew up in the area and most my family lives there. Anytime someone
starts talking about southern LA. I find it interesting.

1. Is it realistic or even desirable to try and rebuild New Orleans?

I think its both realistic and in the nations best interest to keep this city going. If we abandon repairing New Orleans not only do the people who live there become effected but America suffers a great economic loss as well. This is because of where New Orleans is located, It has importance for its geographic position every bit as much as its culture.

(edit: changed to list Florida as first hit) After Katrina hit Florida as a cat 1 Hurricane it hit plaquemines parish as a category 4 hurricane. This is where the Mississippi river exits into the gulf of Mexico, north of that you have Orleans parish , Jefferson parish, and St. Bernard parish. The city of New Orleans is primarily in the parishes of Orleans, and Jefferson, and the Mississippi river runs right though there, Making New Orleans one of the most important ports in this country, goods can be shipped as far north as Minnesota from the Gulf of Mexico by traveling upstream on the Mississippi.

This is one of the primary reasons you had such a large city spring up around this location to begin with. Chicago and New Orleans are probably two of your most important cities between the east and west coast. It's hard to imagine abandoning New Orleans even being practical. You lose a historic city as well as one thats important to the economy of this country.

Not to mention that the entire region depends on the success of New Orleans, The Biloxi area on the Mississippi gulf coast was just as devastated as N.O. It had the 2nd largest string of casinos in America (2nd to Vegas of course) Much of the revenue these casinos generated came from locals from the North Shore or highly populated New Orleans... ST. Tammany parish , or the (north shore) as its also called, was also highly dependent on the success of N.O. ST. Tammany parish is where I grew up, it too was hit hard.

I went down there to help a number of family members after the storm hit, and I can tell you that it was certainly a mess. We spent 3 days removing a tree that split my grandmas trailer in half, and many of the roads down there after almost 2 weeks were still inacesesable because of the water level. Its an outrage that the New Orleans levys were not already fixed though, everyone who grew up there knew that those levy's were inadequate, everyone. We have all heard the stories, and we all knew that the New Orleans levy system could not even withstand the force of a category 3 hurricane.

Hurricane betsy hit New Orleans even more directly than Katrina, it was a category 3 hurricane and breached the levy system back in 1965. My mother at the time lived only a mile or two away from the closest levy, and she had quite a story to tell me and my sisters growing up. She said she lived in an old apartment complex in a poor part of town not too far from the French Quarter, which is in downtown New Orleans. She didn't evacuate, but as the storm was coming through, she said she remembers hearing the sound of a siren going off followed by an explosion. Some people believe the levy system was intentionally blown, in an attempt to save a historic part of Downtown New Orleans, by flooding what was considered a poor part of town and giving the water another place to go.

She said less than 2 minutes after she heard that, a wall of water forced her and my grandmother up to the top of the building, fortunately the only thing that was lost in her case was a pet bird she didn't have the time to get out of the cage. Now I have never in my life been one to take conspiracy theories seriously, but I just looked on Wiki and saw that aparently enough people have claimed this for it to be mentioned, and from what she as well as others I've heard have said about this, I guess it makes you wonder.

This is from Wikik.............

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Betsy

Evidence suggests that cheap construction and poor maintenance of the structures led to the failure of the levees. However, popular rumor persists that they were intentionally breached, possibly as a means of salvaging the more prosperous French Quarter.


Now could this sound have been my mom and many others hearing the levy system breaking apart, and a siren to warn them to get to safety? Perhaps so, but I think the point is whether or not, our gouvernment blew a section of the N.O. levy system in 65' intentionally to save the French quarter, is that everyone knew these levy's were inadequate after that hurricane hit, and that was a long time ago so something should have been done about it.
The question I guess is will we make the same mistake twice?



2. Should the rebuilding of New Orleans be a national priority or is it primarily the responsibility of state and city officials?

Probably both, they need gouvernment money, as they have gotten, but they also have to make sure that money goes well spent. Governor Blanco and mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagen, are in part responsible for the lagging recovery effort, as was our gouvernment at the highest levels.

3. IF it is a national priority should the federal government decide how and where the city is rebuilt?

Id see that regarding the national gouvernment, the only role there should be to provide funding, and oversee that the money is not being misused. New Orleans politics are some of the most corrupt in America, so oversight is defiantly necessary, but beyond that I think its the responsibility of the local officials how things are actually done.

4. Is the rebuilding of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast a important issue in the 2008 elections? Yes or No?

It may not be as important as say the War on Terror, but its certainly an issue where ones position can determine votes. So yes, I think it is an issue, and important.

It certainly is if one applies that truism indiscriminately. It is true of most goods and services but not so much when it comes to infrastructure, education, and the like.

Social sciences are always murky, they may aspire to be hard sciences like physics, but they aren't there yet.

To those who oppose the rebuilding, why again would it be smarter to abandon the surviving facilities and either relocate them en masse or spread them into an inefficient sprawl?

Why not simply spend more in the initial phase with proven methods of flood-wall construction and reap the benefit over the long term?

The questions for debate are:

1. Is it realistic or even desirable to try and rebuild New Orleans?
No its not worth it. It will take 100 billion to protect it from hurricanes and that is the flooding.
2. Should the rebuilding of New Orleans be a national priority or is it primarily the responsibility of state and city officials?
The government should help with the levies but the state and city bear the primary responsibility for the city – with some Federal loans of course.


4. Is the rebuilding of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast a important issue in the 2008 elections? Yes or No?
Not even close. In fact I will be surprised if it is even mentioned. Dems will use the issue to (unjustly) bash Bush and FEMA but no one will touch the rebuilding issue

I yield to the Honorable Ron Paul:

Deficit Spending for Katrina

by Ron Paul

Some economists estimate that rebuilding New Orleans and other areas impacted by Hurricane Katrina will cost taxpayers at least $200 billion, which may be a conservative figure considering it could takes decades to fully restore the city. The problem is that our Treasury does not have an extra $200 billion dollars on hand. This means the money either will be printed or borrowed, both of which bode ill for the American economy. Several conservatives in Congress, however, are cautioning against throwing more and more taxpayer money at the problem with no accountability. While we all want to help the victims of Katrina, we must remember that no one is better off if we create record deficits that hobble our children and grandchildren for generations.

Whoa, slow down just a second. Let's take one thing at a time. First of all, this issue has nothing at all to do with education, so that's kind of off-the-grid. Education is a much more diffuse commodity than what we're discussing here.

You're getting much warmer when you talk about infrastructure. And actually, I think the market is perfectly suited for providing that, so long as there's a realistic way of assessing price on users. With roadways, there are a ton of reasons why that's not practical. But not so when it comes to ports and dockyards. So I see no reason at all why the market isn't the best determiner of whether or not a port in that location or in some other location is most advantageous to the national economy.

I agree – why should we encourage people to live “below sea level” and have the taxpayer on the hook for bad outcomes. This whole cycle was precipitated by government subsidized flood insurance (witch many city residents didn’t bother to even buy).


If they had to pay the real cost (including the risk) of living there – few would do it.

And even if we spend 200 billion it will not protect against a Category 5 like the one that just hit Mexico.

How stupid is that!

1. Is it realistic or even desirable to try and rebuild New Orleans?


Shortly after Katrina hit I searched the Internet for tax evaluations of Orleans Parish. I found a site for the Orleans Parish Tax Assessor's Office, which yielded some interesting figures.

The report (2003 tax year, as I recall) stated that 65% of Orleans Parish property is exempt from taxation and that the assessed value of that exempt property was ~$1,017,000,000. Another schedule said that property is assessed at a statutory rate beginning at 10% rather than actual market value and goes higher for some types of property. Giving the lower rate for all such exempt property and multiplying by a factor of 10 expands all exempt property to its highest possible market value, thus giving a value of ~$10,170,000,000 of the 65% of all property in the parish. Adding back in the extrapolated 35% of non-exempt property totals ~$15,646,153,384.

Thus, the total assessed value of pre-Katrina Orleans Parish property by their own taxing authority was $15.6B. The U.S. citizenry has already spent many multiples of that pre-Katrina total value with no end in sight, and by all accounts we have gotten only sporadic returns, which is dead in line for the next huricane to do what Katrina and Betsy have done before. This is a bad investment.

The old website has been removed from public scrutiny on the web.

Those with initiative and self responsibility are rebuilding on their own, http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0609,shaftel,72328,2.html Somehow both San Francisco and Galveston got completely reguilt over a century ago without government aid. The hard working Vietnamese now have to still worry about the government undoing all their hard work, God Blass these Vietnamese doers. They should be an example for us all.

The problem with NO is that it is primarily a construct of misguided Federal insurance policy. The city would never have grown as fast as it did without Federally subsidized flood insurance – which ironically many in NO did not buy.

In any case the city and the 9th Ward in particular are in grave peril of another flood disaster. Why rebuild unless you KNEW the government was going to make the levies proof against a category 5 storm – which they are NOT going to do.

So do you want to see rebuilding knowing that we could easily see another disaster with a 100 billion dollar + cost and loss of life?

They have the same idiot as governor – who would no doubt ignore the warnings again.

HUH? The problem with New Orleans was a combination of lack of state intiative and local intervention.

I'm from Louisiana, and understand that often what happens in La government equates to being a fireman. The political climate in Louisiana, however, is likely to change with the election season. Bobby Jindal's numbers are GREAT this time around, and lest we not forget that he almost beat Blanco the first time (before Katrina).

Furthermore, New Orleans is a very important port. We ship a large amount of goods into the Mississippi via the Port of New Orleans.

The issue I find with federal intervention into the rebuilding of New Orleans is that it becomes a similar "hand out" based scenario. What I've found in recent months/the last year in NO (and I'm going back in Oct) is that a large amount of private investement is already being spurned. The only way I could see the government helping in the "aid" of NOLA would be to give monsterous tax breaks to do so, particularly if the investment brings tourist dollars into the city.

THEN- the state of Louisiana could take the revenue from tourism and fix the levies and/or install a system to handle storms of this nature. The Army Corps of Engineers could be utilized, but the state needs to make the investment into it's own future.

It also needs to have a way to house people moving back to the region. What you'll notice if you drive around town is that TONS of apt buildings and neighborhoods are still not suitable to live in.

Easy equation.
Government tax breaks for airlines, hotels, etc to bring in tourists (via cheap rates) + tourist dollars spent eating, sleeping, drinking in New Orleans = sales tax revenue (free and clear) for Louisiana.

Right now, a large number of people just aren't going. Sure- holiday weekends bring in tourists, but go this weekend. Who will be there? A whole bunch of no one. Why can't Southwest get a 50% tax break that they pass on to the traveler, which in turn also gets a break from the Crowne Plaza, who then spends money in the quarter and in the garden district?

I believe that New Orleans as a tourist destination can become the "pinnacle" of Louisiana again. It can be a place that people go for honeymoons and for Mardi Gras. A place that people want to visit for Jazz fest, or just for a weekend away. Culturally, it still feels the same in the quarter and garden district. Locals with business interests came back (well, mostly) and are attempting to hang in there. We should support that. Not the dag-gum federal government ...

But the question here is should we build houses back up right in the same area we did before – insured by federally subsidized insurance and hope for the best?

I think not.

Let’s keep the port and 86 the housed. Maybe keep the Bourbon St. tourist trap area.

Oh, sure, keep the tourist trap - we wouldn't want to deprive Girls Gone Wild of their business.

And, jeez, Ted, why don’t we 86 the housing in ND, SD, NE, KS, OK, TX, MN, IA, MO, AR, LA, MS, AL, GA, FL, MT, WY, CO, NM, CA because the ’06 drought is the #2 and #3 most expensive natural disaster in the US. Then we’ll have to get rid of all those silly houses in AL, AR, KY, MS, TN, TX, IN, KS, MO, and OK that were devastated by severe storms and tornadoes in ’06, too. And let’s not forget those dummies in the west who live where there are trees and brush that burn in AK, AZ, CA, CO, FL, ID, MT, NM, NV, OK, OR, TX, WA, WY. Then there are all the hurricane states that have had multi-billion dollar disasters with names like Rita, Wilma, Charlie, Ivan, Dennis, and Hugo. Let’s not forget the flooding in the Northwest, or the ice storms of the Northeast, either. Then, of course, you have CA earthquakes; better dump all those houses too. Heck, Ted, if you had your way, there’d be no one living in the continental United States! Whoopsie, can’t live in Hawaii either – Hurrican Iniki cost billions, too.
Most Expensive Natural Disasters

And even if there were some credence (yah, right) to your argument of keeping business but not residences, where the heck do you expect the people who work the ports to live????

Actually we did not ruin the coast in “ND, SD, NE, KS, OK, TX, MN, IA, MO, AR, LA, MS, AL, GA, FL, MT, WY, CO, NM, CA” to plant a city with thousands of people living BELOW sea level surrounded by dikes that could not and will not stop a big hurricane – so very likely to happen in the area.

So I miss the point. Should we spend 200 billion + knowing it will happen again?

That's a good point. There is a lack of adequate housing in certain parts of the greater New Orleans area.

The issue really lies in the notion of whether you believe that the government should or should not pump federal dollars into the project.

I personally believe that federal income tax should be waived if you earn an income in certain parts of NOLA, and then tax breaks should be given on all flights into New Orleans, Hotel stays, etc. Drive the cost of tourism down, so that people choose to spend $ there.

The thing is that now, seemingly, the cost of living in New Orleans has gone up. There is little competition for goods and services in New Orleans. Instead of 4 local grocery stores, there may be one or two, for instance.

All the French Qtr Hotels stay booked, but those in Harvey or Metarie may not. Understand? So- for the bar owner that might've had $2 Tuesdays or the restaurant or hotel that may have been able to afford 10-20% lower prices, that luxury has evaporated because the traffic is slower.

The thing is that the government isn't earning a ton of New Orleans in terms of taxation anyway. Why not get people back on their feet, flood the market with $$, and then at some point taper the benefits? After some time, more tourists will be there, more industry will appear, people will be working, and all will be fine.