wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

The USA isn't the Netherlands, hemmed into a country the size of a postage stamp. We are blessed with a huge land mass. We don't need to have people living underwater. One cannot shovel manure against the tide and hope to make any headway for any length of time. It is regretable that citizens were hurt, but the engineering/construction dollars that would be needed to properly defend that ward of New Orleans against another Category 5 Hurricane are so astronomical that they should best be spent elsewhere. Why don't we just face up to the fact that it is madness to build below the mean spring high water line? Sooner or later there is going to be another Hurricane Katrina-sized storm.We're just asking for trouble, and paying for the privilege of getting whole neighborhoods destroyed. In Jersey we call that stupid.

Hey look!

The tragedy of Katrina inspires another person to talk about "our tax dollars". A lot of these "compassionate" types seem to have emerged from a rat hole since the disaster.

Let's hope mother nature spares Madison, NJ

Guy,
I guess the entire population of the Netherlands is not clear-headed.

The notion that the federal government should pay to rebuild structures which are below sea level is ridiculous. Mother Nature is more powerful than the pathetic efforts of the USArmy Corps of Engineers to build levees, dikes, etc. That entire effort is well meaning but an utter waste of money. Hurricane Katrina had the power of hundreds of hydrogen bombs. Is it surprising that a city built underwater was wrecked overnight? The answer to that is a resounding NO. A clear headed person is simply going to move to a place which is above sea level . I am a civil engineer by training and I can tell you flat out that structures FAIL periodically. It is sad that people were hurt and that property was destroyed, but this was an accident waiting to happen. The feds should save their money and our tax dollars and put the money where it's going to have a positive long term effect. Reinvesting in New Orleans is like pouring money down a rat hole.

I am the Interactivity manager for a number of regional websites--including nola.com, the site that the T-P used to publish. The site forums also became a major way for people to find friends and relatives, both among the people who stayed and those who ended up around the rest of the country. My assistant and I worked a bunch of 18-hour days keeping that going. It went on for weeks. It gave me a funny kind of connection to the disaster--particularly reading the desperate missives from so many people who had lost so much or who were looking for loved ones. I will never forget it.