Floodwaters..am I alone ?

[ironglow]

   
       First off: My heart & prayers go out for the folks in the midwest, who are suffering from the disasterous floods.
     I do hope they can soon get back to somewhere near normalcy !

           " Am I alone !"....I sure don't think so, but I would like to hear your input !

                  Has anyone noticed the difference of how these folks in the midwest are handling the devastating flood
   in comparison to how the New Orleans residents handled their flooding ?

    Comments ?

[victorcharlie]

No gun grabbing in the mid west yet, if that's what you mean.

No $2000 gift card either.

[beemanbeme]

I think the folks in the midwest are of a different mindset than the folks down in Big Easy.

[oldandslow]

Definitely a different mind set. My son lives in New Orleans and I get some first hand reports. He says the federal money is spent and very little has been fixed. Most, not all, but most are still sitting on their butt waiting for someone to fix things and hollering that they need more money from the feds.

[powderman]

We're still paying for hotels for those goldbricks from katrina and feeding them too. Most WON'T work when it is offered. I wondered when someone would come out and say it. POWDERMAN. 

[Chilachuck]

I'd keep an eye on the cops about the gun grabbing. Some of the police are doing house to house searches in areas the police will not allow residents back into, and that makes me uncomfortable.

[beemanbeme]

As a sidebar: I don't know how true the numbers are but I have had a couple of folks send me numbers of how much Fed money has already been spent for EACH man, woman,and child and how much is being spent and is gonna be spent for every home in Big Easy.  It is staggering. 
Seems to me, they could have relocated the town up to say Baton Rouge and still had a lot of money left over for all the chocolate and jazz and nose candy Ney wanted. FWIW

[rockbilly]

Good question, but we all know the answer!

What's missing in Iowa? The place is flooded, homes and lives are in ruin and Al Sharpton is nowhere to be seen. Every photo I have seen shows people working to save their stuff, to my knowledge no one has cried for the government to save their ass, no looting no shooting. Whats missing, why is this so different than New Orleans?
 

[Sourdough]

I don't want to be accused of anything, but simply step back and take a look at the difference between the types of people involved.  One group grew up in a welfare state, and when they worked it was in the service industry.  The other grew up in families that took care of themselves by raising their own food, or by working at jobs that involved making or fixing things.  They did not grow up living on welfare.  Now they are not expecting the government to step in and take care of them, they are doing it themselves. 

In my humble opinion the second group deserve all the help they get, and more.

New Orleans needs to be moved, or abandoned.  It's only a matter of time till it sinks far enough that they won't be able to save it anyway.  I would never consider living there, or anywhere like it.  I lived in the Midwest (Iowa) once and did not like the flat land.  Risk of tornadoes was too high also.  But you know, no matter where you live there is something, like here we have Earthquakes, I guess it is what you are comfortable with.

[magooch]

Sourdough, I don't mean to be critical, but you must have been in Alaska a bit too long if you are only able to point at earthquakes as your particular flavour of poison.  You are correct, though, in saying that no place is perfect and apparently everyone's definition of perfection is different.  I will say that some people have a very low standard, or very different standard of perfection than I do.  In fact, some people must subscribe to the "beating on your head with a hammer" theory--and how good it feels when you stop.  That is the only factor that I can imagine that would induce people to live in all but a handful of our states.

[Sourdough]

OK, your right.  We got Earth Quakes, Extreme Cold, Higher than average energy cost, Bears and Moose in our back yards, Huge Forest Fires, The federal Government dictates our every move, and We are treated like a colony instead of a state. 

But, we don't have tornadoes, and everybody carries a gun here.  An armed society makes a polite society. 

[ironglow]

 As most can recall, New Orleans was hit with Katrina about the same time as thr Lousiana /Texas border was hit with Hurricane Rita. Rita went right up the Sabine river.
  I have two brothers that live practically on the banks of the Sabine. They both had to evacuate and head north. They ended up somewhere near Marshall, TX.
   Stayed in a small church there, while some N.O. evacuees stayed in a small church a few miles away.
  My brother said that the cooperation between people where he stayed was excellent, and each did their house keeping duties daily, taking special care of the facilities,
   simply because they were grateful that the small church was so charitable.
   He did feel sorry for the church that was occupied by the N.O. crowd; they literally trashed it out ! Dumpsters were filled with new, donated goods..because they were not the proper "style' or "brand"..  go figure !
       

[snapcrackpop]

TM7
I'm with you.  Too many wetlands and every little puddle being tiled out of the fields.  Every inch equals a foot of drainage rise.
I'm not against farming, but this is what happens when you start flushing standing water out of the crop fields instead of letting it gradually soak in.  So now the 100 year floods are coming every 10 years!

[rex6666]

Not trying to start some thing but the Fields will only soak up so much then it has to go some where
guess they could stop farming and build duck ponds then some people could squeal they
didn't like duck and want the corn and wheat back.

Those people need all the help they can get, they are trying to help themselves.
I would venture to say that the ones going to get their guns and come back are the trouble
makers while the others are working to help everyone.

[woodchukhntr]

I saw a story on TV news last week that showed some of the towns that were flooded.  Apparently some were destroyed by past floods and rebuilt in the same location.  We have got to stop subsidizing this!  If people want to rebuild where they are going to be flooded out again, that is their business, but the rest of us should not be paying for it.  They are doing the same thing in New Orleans, and it will be flooded again!  Albert Einstein is credited with defining insanity as:  doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  If the shoe fits.......

Too many people have believed the government's (Corps of Engineers) promises that levees are the answer to flooding.  Guess what?  They are not the answer, only a false promise since they are not perfect.  When they do work, they only speed the water downriver to the next set of levees.  Sooner or later, one breaks and the flood is worse than it would naturally be without the levees. They lull people into believing that they are safe.  Moving out of the flood plain is the only solution that works.  Has anybody ever considered raising the towns above the flood levels?  With the money that is being spent, it might actually be cheaper than levees and the resulting damage.

[snapcrackpop]

Before ethanol we had a surplus of corn. 
Just don't put a crop a wetland and then call it a field.

[Tencubed]

I gotta agree that building in a flood plain is asking for trouble. Same thing goes for building in a brush pile or on a cliff.  Sooner or later Mother Nature is going to come along and slap you.

If people want to build in these areas they should factor in the cost of insurance or rebuilding into the cost of living there when making the initial decision.  As has been posted by others, I'm tired of subsidizing the rebuilding of places taken out by natural disasters.  If it's a natural disaster then there is no doubt it's going to occur.  The nature part just happens, man makes it into a disaster.

Mike

[rex6666]

Building in a flood plain is just like building on the side of a hill, when the rain comes something is going
to give people in Kalifruty have been proving this for years. building in a flood plain is illegal most places
and if you do you can't buy ins. their is a difference between flood level at 20ft and water being 30ft
above flood level.
If you have 500 acres of wetlands already standing 10-20" deep (not soaking in) then you dump
another 30-40" on it the water has to go some where that is why most smaller rivers are channeled.
You can not just say let it soak in.