Ok, first, who re-elected this fool, Nagin?
Second, the levees collapsed under Category 2 conditions, not the Category 4 which leveled coastal Mississippi. The fact is, this city is at parts more than 20 feet below sea level, which is a disaster waiting to happen again. Nagin was all for bringing back the helpless, in some case the elderly and disabled, to come back to be in harm's way so he could be re-elected. This is the man, who said less than one week after the Hurricane, "I'm sick of this. I just want to hear jazz again". Obviously, this man has a problem with stress and reality. And what do we hear from the hardy Cajun and Creole folk of SW La. who took a category 3 hit from Rita? Nothing. They mopped up, coped, and went on. New Orleans is simply geographically undesireable. There were too many people who weren't self-sufficient living there. I hope those who were re-located are wise enough to not come back. Their Mayor is a fool who failed them miserably. All the engineering in the World will not change the fact that this city is inherently dangerous due to threat from flooding, and the people who can't fend for themselves don't need to be there anymore.
There is much truth in what you say.
Many places are geographically undesirable. San Francisco is built on an earthquake fault. New York is a tiny island. They both use engineering to mitigate these circumstances. The levees were supposed to hold and did not in a storm like Katrina, this is the definition of an engineering breakdown.
I retain my original impression that there were huge failures at all levels of government, city state and federal. One point worth making - I live in the UK, a highly centralised state where the central govt has all the power and is thus held responsible for everything. British journalists and public thus assmume that the NO disaster has to be laid entirely at the door of the US central govt, the federal govt. I think this holds true of the media & public in many other countries, eg France, few are as federal as the USA. Also I tend to feel that the federal govt ought to have known that the city & state govts were incompetent & made plans accordingly, not just ignore the problem.
The federal government was aware of the problem. Bush was on the phone time and time again before the storm hit begging the local authorities (Mayor Nagin) to order an evacuation of the city. If Mr. Bush had had the authority to do so there would have been 2 more days to get the people out of the city.
What people in Europe need to understand is that the federal government is barred by law from acting in a state unless the state government formally invites them to do so. Louisiana’s Democrat governor refused to request federal assistance for far too long because, in her words (she didn’t realize that the microphone was live) she didn’t want to give the President a chance to “look good”.
After the levees breached Bush became so frustrated with the local incompetence and foot dragging that he came close to invoking a law which would have declared Louisiana to be in a state of insurrection and allowed him to put the entire state under federal control.
"What people in Europe need to understand is that the federal government is barred by law from acting in a state unless the state government formally invites them to do so"
Yup, I agree - as I tried to say, one reason for the widespread worldwide condemnation of Bush over the disaster was that most of the world lives in centralised states where the central govt has all the power, few people understand the USA's federal system. This partly explains why the US military could respond quicker to the Indonesian tsunami than to the NO disaster. OTOH FEMA did clearly underperform, and the White House _could_ I think have made clearer what needed to be done and used the media to force the state govt to act.
BTW I was in Asheville at Christmas, visiting the USA - nice place! 
Excellent blog citing N. Gelinas' columns ...
Please recognize the private sector here in NOLA and surrounding suburbs are are doing everything possible to ensure the city's return.
New Orleans also has a hidden asset that is an incredibly strong and easily overlooked. The black middle class. This sector gets no press or exposure what so ever. They are conservative, dedicated, family oriented and capable. Ray Nagin is a part of this sector and if you ignore his unsolicited quick comments about "Chocolate City" and NYC and focus on the positive, you can see his long term impact on the city. He takes ownership of the city and is pushing for everyone to gain a "unified" ownerhsip.
There is strong evidence of unification between the private sector and black middle class. With these two groups working together, the city will be emerge with federal dependence reduced and a growing infrastructure.
Pre-Katrina the fundamental influence hruting New Orleans was negativity and
lack of action. Nagin froze at Katrina and didn't act fast enough. A predominant obstacle for Nagin was the state's layer of bureaucracy (i.e. Governor Blanco). I believe that Nagin would have had federal resources in NOLA by Wednesday morning or mid-day if he didn't have to go through Blanco.
So, my final comment is to stay positive about New Orlean's future.
You can choose to stay positive, find a way to contribute and enjoy the benefits of a very unique and spotaneous city or fall into a "dark hole" of negativity, become jaded and completely overlook our potential for success.
Commenting by HaloScan
