[StBernard] Why not blame Clinton for hurricane?

[Westley Annis]

I don't believe we can just place the blame on one or even two
administrations. I believe that since the Corps began designing and building
the levee protection system, each administration is, in some way,
responsible for the poorly designed, poorly constructed and poorly
maintained 'protection' of New Orleans and the surrounding parishes.

I *still* don't understand why this administration feels the need to finance
a study about closing the Gulf Outlet and the need to support studying a
Category 5 protection system. Did they not see what happened? Have they not
seen or read report after report (from the people who *know* what adequate
hurricane protection should be) blaming the Gulf Outlet for being a conduit
for the storm surge coming into New Orleans?

No, we cannot solely place blame on the Bush administration for the faulty
system of protection we had pre-Katrina. However, if the MRGO is not closed
and if we do not protect our citizens with a Cat 5 system, when the next Big
One hits us, we *will* be able to point directly to the Bush administration
(and our congressional leaders) for not having learned the lesson of
Katrina.

I don't understand why *every* *single* *American* isn't disgusted and
embarassed not only by how we poorly protected our fellow Americans, but
also by our government's pathetic response to this disaster! We are
supposedly THE most powerful nation in the entire world and *this* is the
best that *WE* can do?!?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. My husband and I moved to Violet from New
York City (Brooklyn, to be exact) in October 2004. We were there on
September 11, 2001. One of the great tragedies of that day is the lack of
communication between the police and fire departments...Had they been
equipped with the equipment that they were supposed to get (it had
repeatedly been put on the back burner because it was so expensive), we
would not have lost *hundreds* of firemen and policemen.

Five years later, the NYPD and FDNY still do not have the equipment to
communicate with each other.

If we can't get it together enough to properly equip our first responders in
NYC after September 11th, then why should New Orleans expect adequate
hurricane protection?

When are we going to learn?

Donna