May I have the honour and pleasure . . .
Here for the video
http://www.barackobama.com/2007/08/26/obama_announces_plan_to_rebuil.php
New Orleans, LA | August 26, 2007
NEW ORLEANS, LA -- During a visit to New Orleans today, U.S. Senator Barack Obama announced his plan to rebuild the Gulf Coast, and ensure that such catastrophic failures in emergency response never happen again.
"America failed the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast long before that failure showed up on our television sets. America failed them again during Katrina. We cannot -- we must not -- fail for a third time," Obama said. But tragically, that's what's happening today. And that's what needs to change. I am here to remember this, but also to look ahead. We need to rebuild this city. And we need to tend to the foundation that we rebuild upon."
Senator Obama, who in the days following Katrina traveled to Houston to meet with displaced residents, and continued to travel to New Orleans to assess the city's recovery over the past two years, once again returned to New Orleans today. Speaking at First Emanuel Baptist Church and walking with local residents around New Orleans' Gentilly neighborhood, Obama laid out the specific steps he will take as president to move the region's recovery forward and ensure that the next time disaster strikes, the government is ready.
Barack Obama's comprehensive plan, which can be viewed here, includes:
- Ensuring the FEMA Director reports directly to President Obama, serves a fixed six-year term so he or she is insulated from political pressure, and has professional emergency management experience.
- Developing the health care infrastructure by building new facilities and providing incentives like loan forgiveness to attract more medical professionals back to New Orleans.
- Creating a special "COPS for Katrina" program to empower communities to hire local enforcement personnel, as well as helping local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies establish an integrated regional crime control partnership.
- Rebuilding schools and assisting communities in the Gulf Coast to make necessary infrastructure investments so kids from all backgrounds have safe and supportive environments to learn. Creating a loan forgiveness program to bring college students back to New Orleans.
- Developing transit partnerships to ensure public transit is integrated across New Orleans' parish lines and a possible rail line connecting New Orleans with Baton Rouge.
- Ensuring that every displaced resident has a home to return to, by strengthening the Road Home Program, working with the state to guarantee that every application for housing assistance will be approved no later than two months after it is received, and increasing the supply of rental property.
- Rebuilding the local economy, both by fighting to ensure more local residents direct and implement Katrina-related recovery and reconstruction activities, as well as targeting tax incentives to lure businesses to the hardest hit areas of the Gulf Coast.
- Working with emergency management officials, emergency responders and other experts from all 50 states to create a real National Response Plan, which will ensure we have fully-trained and prepared personnel to respond to disasters across the United States.
- Creating a National Catastrophe Insurance Reserve, which will save homeowners $11.6 billion on annual insurance premiums.
- Ensuring that New Orleans has a levee and pumping system to protect the city from a Category 5 storm.
"Let New Orleans be the place where we strengthen those bonds of trust, where a city rises up on a new foundation that can be broken by no storm," Obama said. Let New Orleans become the example of what America can do when we come together, not a symbol of what we couldn't do."
This is Obama's fourth visit to New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina and comes days before the two year anniversary of the disaster. Since the catastrophe, Obama has successfully pushed legislation in the U.S. Senate to plan for evacuation of people with special needs, create a centralized federal database to account for individuals displaced in an emergency and fight wasteful no-bid contracts. Additionally, along with other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Senator Obama has worked to address the immediate income, employment, business and housing needs of Gulf Coast communities affected by the storm.
________________________________________
Since the question came up about who should pay, forgive me Senator Obama for slightly amending your eloquent and perfect speech, but see my own article here
rate
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 47
On the Katrina measures, I have read a lot of articles by Cal engineers who traveled there to study the levees and the problems that caused their failures. I am a Cal grad and my alum mag had these articles in abundance. The costs were voted DOWN prior to Katrina, actually long before Katrina, as there was NOT ENOUGH money to do what engineers had recommended for years to bolster the levees and how to build new levees.
Cost and politics will cut these great sounding plans to shreds as the years pass. It is one thing to talk about it and it is a far different thing to do it, or get it done.
Having said those negative things based on my years of being disappointed by politicians, I have to say Obama (not the others) is the one to hope for in this current race. IMHO.
there are bigger fish out there besides C Ray ;-)
Because of insurance (and I suppose local tax collectors that like the high value incomes, not to mention Realtors) people are building on the barrier islands as if there were no real danger.
What about global warming caused sea level rises, what about ever larger storms pending ??? What about future earth quake activity on the New Madrid Fault line ???
I do not expect the answer I would seek because most people have no interest or awareness of spiritually transmitted warnings about the dangers of the times we are entering. There are cosmic cycles involved here and great and sudden changes anticipated that will severely tax mankind's ability to cope.
If I had a normal ego to be concerned with, I would not dare mention this because I will surely be labeled a tinfoil hat wearing kook. But I have a mission to warn people and that is all I am doing. There is information available (of this suspect nature) that indicates the area from the Great lakes to the Gulf of Mexico may have many flooding and earthquake problems in our future ...
I know, a bunch of wacko BS ... but no more so than Jesus will return someday. Just thought I would throw it out there. If we had REAL leaders, they would open a dialogue about all of this rather than sweeping it all under the rug because it might threaten their credibility to other similarly objective oriented people that dismiss our connections to the spiritual realms and the warnings we often prophetically receive.
Just something to ignore folks, but never say that someone did not speak up ...
Either way I like Obama. I don't like that he is politicizing an issue that was only a failure because of politicians. Not planning.
I think that's missing from the Bill/Hilary campaign. They seem more like business partners than a couple.
Parul
Olivera
Vickie, and
Shari:
Thank you!
You are both P.G. & E guys. I have been learning a lot from you appreciate, and defer to your extreme subject matter expertise. I wish you would both address the folks on the other/more recent article who do not seem to be as well-informed, but seem to be more propagandized. I do know P.G. and E.'s reputation here in the West, so I listen quite respectfully to what you say; maybe they will too.
Thank both of you, and Jason, maybe you need to stop playing the "big dummy" game so much and speak up more like you do to me so these people will really know that you DO know your stuff. I know your philosophy is not to work when at play, but maybe make an exception or two . . . or three :=)
By the way, Jason is also a Cal Berkeley grad. That's right Jason, I'm telling your business. You won't delete your Newton comment, I might start telling your business. Think about it! He isn't as much of a dummy as he pretends to be folks. Come out of the closet and help me out, JJ!
The thing of wonderment about Senator Obama is his constant hope and optimism. I don't know how he does it and being in Washington, too. They tell me that I am optimistic? Hah! I have NOTHING on him. He seems to have such confidence, especially in this country and in the American people. I am ever learning from him and feeding from his positive attitude.
Thank you, Judi. You keep an eye on him. It will only feed you and keep you fed!
That reminds me of the adage, It is more blessed to give than to receive. I cannot go into it on this thread, but if you read the books of successful men and Dale Carnegie commissioned a study on successful men that took -- I believe roughly 25 years -- part of the secret of their success was philantrophy. Again, that a subject for another day. Nan, may you be blessed abundantly for your giving!
Or somebody, help me out here. Wasn't it 60 Minutes or some other TV news magazine that did a special on the mayor and proved the governor of New Orleans was not cooperating with this mayor, placing all kinds of bureaucracy in his way to prevent him from getting anything done in New Orleans, just as the mayor had claimed? That news article/segment was broadcast earlier this year and 60 Minutes is a very reliable program.
Thanks. Yes, there are, and as I just mentioned, maybe the residents of Louisiana need to call their governor to book for gameplaying.
Mandi and spouse: I know it wasn't there when you first posed the question yesterday, but there is now a link in the article to address your question, not answered by Senator Obama, unfortunately, but by yours truly.
Tiffany,
Brian,
Sandra, and
Carrington -- thank you!
Although your posts have been infrequent, they have all been thoughtful and well-written. I wish you would write one article -- please?
Maybe this is why I dreamed about you last night. The things you say echo such truthfulness. Then I come on and read this -- wow! How powerful and true. Nothing in your comment is untrue. I don't talk about such things because I don't want to frighten people, but everything you just said is factual -- how do you get people to see it without frightening them. Do you refer them to Newton who also wrote about such things?
Thanks, Jerry.
The spice of life! Tell it like it is, Baby! TELL IT LIKE IT IS. (lol) Sometimes the truth hurts. Even Al Gore cannot stop global warming though. But, Jeff people don't listen. My own relatives did not listen to me when I cautioned about global warming, but they listened to Al Gore. How did I know about global warming? When my normally alway cold body does not need anything on my arms in Alaska (lol), THAT'S GLOBAL WARMING.
But, hey, you're right. Look at what Tom says. Jason says the same thing only he won't say it on Gather because (I'm telling your business, Jason -- take the comment down!) he doesn't feel people have the sense to see it whether he says it or not, but they knew. He says engineers knew the levees were going down long before they did, and probably blasted them.
Planning? That's planning for you.
Thank you, my dear friend.
I have certainly missed you and hope you don't stay away so long again. Thanks. When my girlfriend talks about her family and visits in New Orleans we both get quite choked up. I can't talk about it now, to tell you the truth. She is one of my very oldest and closest friends and we've been through so much together. I would prefer to move on for the moment . . .
About Barack and Michelle Obama. Isn't it cute to see two people obviously still so much in love and able to be so playful? I like that. The joking is evidence of the good relationship, the comfort level of the relationship. I can see it in his eyes, that same way my dad used to look at my mother, and I have joked the same way about guys I have been ga-ga for. Vicki I know you what I am talking about. Media just like to sensationalize. People in good relationships will see through that. People who haven't had good relationships may not "get it."
Vicki, stay in touch, if possible.
I hear what you are saying. I am not the engineer. The question you ask would be better suited for Jason, Tom and SME's I think. However, from what Trump spoke about last year, I respectfully disagree, and believe the issue is money, obtaining land for practically nothing, and profit. From what my girlfriend told me these people's land is being basically stolen from them because they can no longer afford to rebuild on it and other plans are being made for this land by developers. Sound familiar? Why can't anybody see this old scenario? I am surprised that progressive minds are sounding more like neocons than like the enlightened. Really surprised. Well, okay. Then when casinos and resorts replace the shacks will the same people who said don't waste money on these sub sea level property shout in protest "down with big business, Republicans, and neocons?" It just doesn't make sense to me.
Thanks, Ron
Whoa! You go! I know you don't believe it, don't want to, but you should consider running for office. It's the ones like you who should and don't and it's the ones who shouldn't and do. We need more like you and Senator Obama and less of the "experienced" ones and the King George 3rds. If you read history, he told the colonists they didn't have the experience and he did -- go back and check it out -- hah! They got him, didn't they! Revolutionary War we got Britain. War of 1812.
Not that I am anti-British to those of my British connections, okay? Love Newton. Just wasn't that crazy about George 3rd's era!
Lynn, you're great. Thank you!
Comment from a Louisiana resident, Rob F. www.goodoleboy.gather.com:
"To all who have the opinion that New Orleans should be left to sink. . .Okay, lets say I pick up, leave my home, all I worked for, and relocate to 'higher ground': All I ask in return is that the next time a tsunami hits any coastline, ours are anyone else's, we spend ZERO Federal dollars in aid. The next earthquake that rocks a metropolis in California, we spend ZERO Federal dollars (everyone knows its going to happen.) In fact, lets make sure that any Federal dollars being spent there on research and planning of earthquakes be stopped because we have already come to the conclusion that its going to happen. Why sink more money into the project or that state which some project will fall off into the sea. We also spend ZERO dollars on any Federal subsidized flood insurance, even if it is for one house on a creek. If anyone wants to live along anything that floods, they do so at their own risk, because its going to happen sooner or later. Ohio? Didn't a major flood in that area just occur. . .again?? I anticipate that no Federal dollars or Federal subsidized programs participate in the recovery efforts. That is part of the deal. The lands along the rivers have flooded before and they will flood again, so lets not sink our money there either. Is it only state and local agencies that fight the annual wildfires in California. Is it only the state and local agencies who respond when a tornado wipes out a town in an area known so well for the annually occurring storms that it is dubbed 'Tornado Alley?' I would not expect any Federal dollars be spent along that corridor. How many states have potentially active volcanoes? Is it only state and local money used to dig out from underneath crippling blizzards. Doesn't Florida get hit from two directions by hurricanes.
I will be glad to go along with your response and reasoning which applies for the entire coastline and about 60 miles inland of Louisiana and a fair distance into Texas (as far as future flooding potential.) I believe every state along the Gulf Coast and many along the Atlantic seaboard would have to agree if you want to expand it to hurricane potential in general. I simply request the same logic be applied fairly across our great nation.
However, there is one thing I will admit if we make this agreement. Nothing is going to stop me from having personal compassion and empathy for my fellow Americans, no matter where they choose to live or the politics involved. . .money or no money.
Robb. . .in the middle of the deep, dark, Louisiana swamps. "
Nothing like being there, eh, Rob? Thank you for a BRILLIANT first hand comment!
Yes, I live in California and I do have insurance, and yes I live in earthquake territory, but I think my fellow Americans would be very cruel to tell me to pack up and leave my 3/4 million + valued home just because there may someday be an earthquake here, just the same (as Rob puts it) as I would be to tell one of them to leave their home for whatever natural disasters or catastrophes are commonplace there.
Or why don't we simply tell the developers, here . . . here's the deed. Sure I love my home and my area, but a natural disaster may hit, so I've got to run. Developers and big business can handle it. But where to go to?
This is crazy, folks. Where to go to?
Hi. The money has already been allocated. It just needs to be disbursed, which it has not. And again, $447 BILLION, that $447,000,000,000 (see all them zeros) has already been spent on a war in Iraq -- a war which should have never been authorized and never been waged. Somehow, no one seems to ask about that money.
$447,000,000,000
That could repair a whole lot of New Orleans, probably about 20 or 30 or 40 of them or more.
Is anyone not seeing that one
BUILDS
the other
DESTROYS
?????
"We like floods, like building levees."
The Great Mississippi, folks. You have got the little greys cell stimulated, Penny! Maybe not just mine, but maybe others, and of course, it's a Gulf city too, isn't it?
The American political system was founded in Philadelphia, but the American nation was built on the vast farmlands that produced the wealth that funded American industrialization: It permitted the formation of a class of small landholders who, amazingly, could produce more than they could consume. They could sell their excess crops in the east and in Europe and save that money, which eventually became the founding capital of American industry.
But it was not the extraordinary land nor the farmers and ranchers who alone set the process in motion. Rather, it was geography -- the extraordinary system of rivers that flowed through the Midwest and allowed them to ship their surplus to the rest of the world. All of the rivers flowed into one -- the Mississippi -- and the Mississippi flowed to the ports in and around one city: New Orleans. It was in New Orleans that the barges from upstream were unloaded and their cargos stored, sold and reloaded on ocean-going vessels. New Orleans is, in many ways, the pivot of the American economy.
For that reason, the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815 was a key moment in American history. Even though the battle occurred after the War of 1812 was over, had the British taken New Orleans, they wouldn't have given it back. Without New Orleans, the entire Louisiana Purchase would have been valueless to the United States. Or, to state it more precisely, the British would control the region because, at the end of the day, the value of the Purchase was the land and the rivers - which all converged on the Mississippi and the ultimate port of New Orleans. The hero of the battle was Andrew Jackson, and when he became president, his obsession with Texas had much to do with keeping the Mexicans away from New Orleans.
During the Cold War, a macabre topic of discussion among bored graduate students who studied such things was this: If the Soviets could destroy one city with a large nuclear device, which would it be? The usual answers were Washington or New York. For me, the answer was simple: New Orleans. If the Mississippi River was shut to traffic, then the foundations of the economy would be shattered. The industrial minerals needed in the factories wouldn't come in, and the agricultural wealth wouldn't flow out. Alternative routes really weren't available. The Germans knew it too: A U-boat campaign occurred near the mouth of the Mississippi during World War II. New Orleans was the prize.
The ports of South Louisiana and New Orleans, which run north and south of the city, are as important today as at any point during the history of the republic. Combined, they are the largest port system in the world.
A simple way to think about the New Orleans port complex is that it is where the bulk commodities of agriculture go out to the world and the bulk commodities of industrialism come in. The commodity chain of the global food industry starts here, as does that of American industrialism. If these facilities are gone, more than the price of goods shifts: The very physical structure of the global economy would have to be reshaped. Consider the impact to the U.S. auto industry if steel doesn't come up the river, or the effect on global food supplies if U.S. corn and soybeans don't get to the markets.
The problem is that there are no good shipping alternatives. River transport is cheap, and most of the commodities we are discussing have low value-to-weight ratios. The U.S. transport system was built on the assumption that these commodities would travel to and from New Orleans by barge, where they would be loaded on ships or offloaded. Apart from port capacity elsewhere in the United States, there aren't enough trucks or rail cars to handle the long-distance hauling of these enormous quantities -- assuming for the moment that the economics could be managed, which they can't be.
The focus in the media has been on the oil industry in Louisiana and Mississippi. This is not a trivial question, but in a certain sense, it is dwarfed by the shipping issue. First, Louisiana is the source of about 15 percent of U.S.-produced petroleum, much of it from the Gulf. The local refineries are critical to American infrastructure. Were all of these facilities to be lost, the effect on the price of oil worldwide would be extraordinarily painful. If the river itself became unnavigable or if the ports are no longer functioning, however, the impact to the wider economy would be significantly more severe. In a sense, there is more flexibility in oil than in the physical transport of these other commodities.
The oil fields, pipelines and ports require a skilled workforce in order to operate. That workforce requires homes. They require stores to buy food and other supplies. Hospitals and doctors. Schools for their children. In other words, in order to operate the facilities critical to the United States, you need a workforce to do it -- and that workforce is gone. Unlike in other disasters, that workforce cannot return to the region because they have no place to live. Thus it is the population that has left and has nowhere to return to that is of geopolitical significance.
It is possible to jury-rig around this problem for a short time. But those resources are not infinite -- and as it becomes apparent that these people will not be returning to New Orleans any time soon, population and workforce patterns in the region will start to shift.
A city is a complex and ongoing process - one that requires physical infrastructure to support the people who live in it and people to operate that physical infrastructure. We don't simply mean power plants or sewage treatment facilities, although they are critical. Someone has to be able to sell a bottle of milk or a new shirt. Someone has to be able to repair a car or do surgery. And the people who do those things, along with the infrastructure that supports them, are gone -- and they are not coming back anytime soon.
The displacement of population is the crisis that New Orleans faces. It is also a national crisis, because the largest port in the United States cannot function without a city around it. The physical and business processes of a port cannot occur in a ghost town. It is not about the facilities, and it is not about the oil. It is about the loss of a city's population and the paralysis of the largest port in the United States. The area can recover, to be sure, but only with the commitment of massive resources from outside.
Let's go back to the beginning. The United States historically has depended on the Mississippi and its tributaries for transport. Barges navigate the river. Ships go on the ocean. The barges must offload to the ships and vice versa. There must be a facility to empower this exchange. It is also the facility where goods are stored in transit. Without this port, the river can't be used. Protecting that port has been, from the time of the Louisiana Purchase, a fundamental national security issue for the United States.
Without New Orleans, the Mississippi is enormously less useful than it was. It's not only the United States' biggest port complex, but also the foundation of the entire American transport system. There are some substitutes, but none with sufficient capacity to solve the problem.
It follows from this that the port will have to be revived and, one would assume, the city as well. The ports around New Orleans are located as far north as they can be and still be accessed by ocean-going vessels. The need for ships to be able to pass each other in the waterways, which narrow to the north, adds to the problem. Besides, the Highway 190 bridge in Baton Rouge blocks the river going north. New Orleans is where it is for a reason: The United States needs a city right there.
New Orleans is not optional for the United States' commercial infrastructure. It is a terrible place for a city to be located, but exactly the place where a city must exist. With that as a given, a city will return there because the alternatives are too devastating. In the end, the city will return because it has to.
Geopolitics is the stuff of permanent geographical realities and the way they interact with political life. Geopolitics created New Orleans. Geopolitics caused American presidents to obsess over its safety. And geopolitics will force the city's resurrection, even if it is in the worst imaginable place.
If New Orleans were to be abandoned or destroyed, all the excess food produced by American farmers and sold on the world market would have to be shipped by rail or truck to another port for export. This would slow down the process, creating a lot of spoilage. It would also add greatly to the cost, meaning many countries could no longer afford to buy it. People in poor countries would starve, and the US economy would take a big hit from the loss of revenue.
On the flip side, the raw materials of industrialism (such as steel used to make cars), and all those cheap imported products that fill the shelves of Walmart would have to be transported by rail or truck, which would mean less products coming to market (we don't have the rail or truck capacity to handle them), and greatly increased cost due to the price of gasoline (which would also be more expensive withouth New Orleans). Americans will not be able to buy as much because the prices would be too high. Companies would then start to lay off employees, which means lesss money in the economy again, which means more layoffs....repeat.
We need New Orleans....all of us, whether we want to realize it or not.
In the middle east at a place called Dubai, they are building huge islands in the sea to build houses upon. They have huge ocean going dredges that suck up sand and spray it into the places they want land to appear.
In the case of New Orleans they should do the same thing in filling in the areas inside of the existing dikes, there is ample mud and sand close by and it could be pumped into those places to build them any needed distance above sea level they need to keep them dry. The technology exists and I think that would be a far better idea than what I have otherwise heard so far.
Ricky’s Teaser Tees & Things - Inspirations