I am one of many who feels that Louisiana and the New Orleans area in
particular is worth preserving. We deserve as much attention and
government funding as Miami, San Francisco and other cities plagued by
constant catastrophes. New Orleans has one of the country’s biggest ports, and the Louisiana Gulf Coast provides a large percentage of the nation’s oil and gas supply. There is no reason for us to be treated as “red headed step children”, and that is exactly the way New Orleans and Louisiana have been treated for almost a century.
Take for instance the breaches in the levees that caused the flooding
of a good part of New Orleans. Who did the taxpayers of Louisiana pay
to create or enhance those levees? The Army Corps of Engineers. If
they were not built right, then who do we have to blame? Who can we sue? Not the federal government. The federal government is immune to any action that we could otherwise take. And now the federal government wants to turn its back on us?
We are broken right now. I have lived in the New Orleans area my whole
life and have never felt the sense of devastation and depression that
is rampant amongst the citizens. The large mountains of debris that one
sees everywhere, on neutral grounds, in front of people’s houses; the
coffin flies that swarm everywhere; the stench of death; why would
anyone want to stay in this town? This town is broken, but the spirit of
the people who live here is resilient. We are determined to come back
bigger and better than ever. The French Quarter is basically untouched.
Our forefathers knew what they were doing when they built the French
Quarter where they did. There is a lot of New Orleans that survived
Hurricane Katrina. And, there are a lot of people who love this city so
much they would never think of leaving.
Would anyone ever advise all the citizens of San Francisco to leave
just because it is inevitable that one day the whole city will break off
the rest of the continent due to the San Andreas Fault? How many towns
in Florida have gotten ravaged over and over again by hurricanes? Has
the federal government turned their back on these cities? No. But,
Louisiana, the red headed stepchild, the state with some of the worst
statistics in the United States for schools, crimes, poverty-we are left
out in the cold, ignored, laughed at. Is this any way to treat a state
that offers the rest of the United States so much? Perhaps additional
federal funding would alleviate some of the problems that we have.
I’ve never written any congressmen or government officials before, but
I am tired of the negativity shown by “60 Minutes” and some of the
comments made by certain public officials. If there was a man made error
in our levee system that caused the flooding, then we were sold a faulty
bill of goods by the Army Corps of Engineers. They are still
investigating to see if the error was in the construction of the system or if
subsidence over time contributed to the collapse. Most of what I have
read points to fact that the pilings were not long enough to support the
system. That amounts to human error. From what I have read the levee
system should have withstood a Category 3 hurricane which Hurricane
Katrina was when it hit New Orleans. So, why did the system fail, and why did it fail so miserably?
If the below sea level Netherlands can build a superior levee system,
then why can’t we do so for New Orleans? We can save New Orleans and
the rest of Louisiana.
I plead for you to take our state seriously and vote in favor of any
bill submitted to provide additional funding to Louisiana and New Orleans
to build a superior levee system or to prevent coastal erosion. We are
too valuable to the rest of the country to be tossed aside as garbage.
- Bonnie McAfee