Bad News For New Orleans

Bigger, higher and stronger levees cannot save New Orleans from the worst floods and the city remains vulnerable to a repeat of Hurricane Katrina, the National Academy of Sciences said on Friday.

New Orleans had the flood protection of a 350-mile (563 km) network of levees, I-walls and T-walls ringing the city when Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore on Aug. 29, 2005. The levees broke, flooding 80 percent of the city.

The hurricane killed about 1,500 people along the U.S. Gulf Coast and caused $80 billion in damages, making it the costliest U.S. natural disaster.

As Katrina demonstrated, “the risks of inundation and flooding never can be fully eliminated by protective structures no matter how large or sturdy those structures may be,” said the report by the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council.

“Substantial risks” of living in flood-prone areas were never clearly communicated to residents before Katrina, it said, and simply rebuilding New Orleans and its hurricane-protection system back to pre-Katrina levels would leave the city vulnerable to another flooding disaster.

Large portions of New Orleans are below sea level, which makes it vulnerable to floods and storm surges from hurricanes. Located at the mouth of the Mississippi River delta, New Orleans is in close proximity to Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne.

The city’s levee system was tested again in September 2008, when a surge from Hurricane Gustav nearly overtopped a protective T-wall along New Orleans’ Inner Navigation Canal.

Let us pray that Katrina was a once in a lifetime occurance, if the Gulf Coast gets hit again anytime soon, then it will become a third world country.  It will lose the developement appeal.  Why build in an area that can be destroyed in less than a day?

You think times are tough now……another hurricane will show just how bad things can get.

Let us paray!

She Would Have My Support

Fans of porn star Stormy Daniels are drafting her to run for the U.S. Senate seat in Louisiana now held by Republican Sen. David Vitter. And it’s no racy gimmick, they say.

The Draft Stormy Web site says that “2010 presents the Pelican State with the opportunity to start with a clean slate — to elect a representative that we can be proud of, who will work tirelessly, and who will challenge the status quo. We at the Draft Stormy campaign feel that Baton Rouge native Stormy Daniels is best suited to fulfill these duties.”

Vitter is famous — or infamous — for his link to the “D.C. Madam,” the woman who ran a prostitution ring. Elected to the Senate in 2004, he admitted to “a very serious sin in my past” in July 2007 after his phone number turned up in records of an escort service run by the late Deborah Jeane Palfrey, known as the D.C. Madam.

Running for re-election, Vitter said his wife has forgiven him and is banking on the same sentiment from his constituents. Will the Draft Stormy move mean stormy weather for Vitter?

She said she’s planning a “listening tour” around Louisiana to talk about a range of matters, including the economy — which along with women in business and protection of children are the three issues listed on her Web site. When told Vitter can be a tough opponent, she said she’s “always up for a good fight.”

We never have this in Mississippi,  too tight ass.  We have guys who are Dems that vote Repub, we have those we are not sure of what the stand for and we have had racist, etc.  I would support her simply because she could not do any worse than the guys in there now.  Her negotiating skills would be legendary.

Somethings NEVER Change

An Oklahoma woman invited to a rural Louisiana campsite for a Ku Klux Klan initiation ritual was shot and killed after she asked to be taken back to town, the sheriff of a parish near New Orleans said. Eight people were arrested after the authorities found the woman’s body hidden under some brush on the side of a road several miles from the remote campsite, about 60 miles north of New Orleans. Investigators found weapons, several flags and six Klan robes at the campsite, Sheriff Jack Strain of St. Tammany Parish said. Sheriff Strain said the group’s leader, Raymond Foster, 44, shot and killed the woman after a fight broke out when she tried to leave. Mr. Foster was charged with second-degree murder.

LA: House Turned Into Rubble Before Appeal

Delores Jones called the city of New Orleans frantically this week when she heard that a demolition crew had arrived at the Central City house she and her husband have owned since the early 1970s.

The 73-year-old woman had in her possession a letter, dated Oct. 1, saying she had 30 working days to challenge a plan to raze her two-story rental house at 2401-03 La Salle St. on the grounds that it was in “imminent danger of collapse.” But Wednesday, just 16 weekdays after the date of the letter, Jones’ house was turned into a pile of rubble by Dynamite Demolition, a city subcontractor.

The property became the latest casualty of confusion and procedural troubles in the city’s demolition program, which has come under heightened scrutiny since a post-Hurricane Gustav executive order temporarily wiped away reviews for certain historic properties targeted for demolition.

There have been several reports of demolition errors recently, and the signs of trouble keep mounting. For example, a list of properties declared in imminent danger of collapse — one step in the demolition approval process — and posted on a city Web site Sept. 29 includes 1720 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. That is the address for the fully renovated Ashe Cultural Arts Center, a main gathering place for Central City residents.

Nagin’s executive order allowed the city for two weeks to bypass the Neighborhood Conservation District Committee and immediately demolish any properties the city administration deemed an imminent health threat, about 170 properties in all

An angry Jones said health problems had prevented her from making headway with her property since Hurricane Katrina. But she said she had recently withdrawn $30,000 from her retirement account and had hired someone to carry out structural repairs to the rental house, which isn’t part of any historic preservation district.

She said that if she had been given the 30 days as promised in the letter, she could have saved the building. “I just wish they could carry out their business with a sense of compassion and realize they’re dealing with people, ” she said

LA: How Dumb Can You Be?

Miss Teen Louisiana lost her crown 11 days early after being arrested on charges of leaving a restaurant without paying and carrying marijuana.

RPM Productions Inc., the sponsor, took back the title on Tuesday after learning that Lindsey Evans, 18, of Blanchard, had been arrested, president Paula M. Miles said Wednesday.

Evans will have to return her sash and crown, but won’t have to return any other prizes or cash equivalents, Miles said

Miles said she had been told that the three women with Evans told police that Evans, alone in the group, had paid her bill. But Bossier City spokesman Mark Natale said Evans admitted not paying.

Bossier City police booked all four on theft charges, three on drug charges and two on drug paraphernalia charges, he said.

First of all, the proper way to “Dine and Dash”, is to leave seperately over a time.  Not dash out all at once and draw attention to yourselves.

LA: Brace For The Economic Downturn

Buoyed by job growth, an oil price boom and a stable housing market, Louisiana’s economy has enjoyed a relatively strong phase in the past year compared with the rest of the nation.

But in recent weeks, just as the financial crunch has slowed business on a global scale, the state appears to have tipped toward a decline on key indicators, creating an unclear and perhaps gloomy forecast for Louisiana commerce and government.

Gov. Bobby Jindal last week launched the first in a series of weekly meetings with key advisers to monitor state and national trends, with an eye on potential effects on the state budget.

The good news is that Louisiana is not burdened with massive numbers of foreclosures on homes, a critical component of the national crisis that has hit especially hard in California, Arizona, Nevada and Florida. For example, in California in August, a foreclosure was filed for one of every 130 properties, whereas in Louisiana the rate was one of every 2,896 properties, according to the industry monitor Realty Trac.

Also, small and regional banks in Louisiana are comparatively strong and well-capitalized, and their greater-than-usual write-offs of troubled loans recently are coming mostly from assets in other states.

LA: Moyo Corruption Case

In a federal fraud case full of high-profile New Orleans area politicians listed as co-conspirators, all eyes are now on Gwendolyn Moyo, a little-known, twice-convicted bond broker who will literally begin defending herself today.

With no legal training, Moyo is representing herself at a trial set to start this morning, adding a major dose of unpredictability to a case that features U.S. Rep. William Jefferson and his sister, New Orleans’ 4th District Assessor Betty Jefferson, as unindicted co-conspirators.

The focus on Moyo intensified after her co-defendant, former state Sen. Derrick Shepherd, D-Marrero, pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Speculation is swirling about whether Moyo might strike a deal and agree to testify against the Jeffersons, but legal observers said open hostilities between Moyo and prosecutors could work against any plea agreement.

The indictment said William Jefferson steered Shepherd to Moyo, who wrote a $15,000 check to an unidentified company linked to Jefferson. Moyo also funneled $320,000 in four transactions to accounts belonging to a company controlled by Betty Jefferson, the indictment said.

The first of Moyo’s federal convictions, in 1989, included numerous counts of fraud; her second, in 1991, was for stealing Social Security numbers to obtain fraudulent credit cards to pay her legal expenses from the first case. She was sentenced to nine years in prison and was ordered to pay $1.3 million restitution.

LA: Polls Shaken Up

Concerned that some voters not affiliated with a political party were erroneously blocked from casting ballots in Saturday’s Democratic congressional primaries, Louisiana’s secretary of state asked Orleans Parish election officials Wednesday to consider replacing the poll commissioners involved.

Secretary of State Jay Dardenne said he asked Orleans Clerk of Criminal Court Arthur Morrell and the Orleans Parish Board of Elections “to attempt to identify those commissioners in charge at the problem precincts and to either replace them or redouble their efforts to make sure commissioners in charge realize the error of their ways.”

Dardenne’s office received complaints on election day from people who said they were denied the right to vote in the Democratic primary at eight New Orleans polling locations, and complaints continue to come in, including some from Jefferson Parish precincts. Under new state rules, voters not affiliated with a party should have been allowed to vote in the Democratic primary, though not in Republican primaries.

Dardenne said the 1st and 4th District primaries also might have been affected, but the snafu was most pronounced in the 2nd District. But he said he doubts enough voters were disenfranchised to change the outcome of the election, and he plans to certify the results as scheduled Monday.

Gulf South: Hospitals Are The Worse

The South is the worst place to live if you’re seriously ill, according to a new report that graded each U.S. state for residents’ access to palliative care, a fairly new specialty that focuses on patients’ quality-of-life issues rather than elusive cures for diseases.

The report, organized by the Center to Advance Palliative Care and National Palliative Care Research Center in New York, evaluated Americans’ access to hospitals that offer this type of care among patients with such serious and chronic illnesses as heart disease, liver and kidney failure and Alzheimer’s. (Hospice care is palliative care applied to people at the end of life.)

The 10 worst states, from worst ascending to better: Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma, Nevada, Wyoming, Louisiana, South Carolina, Texas, New Mexico, Kentucky.

In 2008, 90 million Americans are living with serious illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Parkinson’s, stroke and Alzheimer’s. As baby boomers age, this number will more than double over the next 25 years.

LA: State Reps On Voting

Among Louisiana lawmakers, only Rep. Jim McCrery, R-Shreveport, who is not seeking re-election, joined Melancon in voting yes on Monday. Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-Quitman, who liked the package of “tax extenders” and the revision in the alternative minimum tax, was still considering how to vote, as were Rep. Don Cazayoux, D-New Roads, who said he had not seen anything to change his mind, but he was still examining the legislation, and Rep. Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette, who was reviewing the bill. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, an outspoken opponent of the measure, and Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, who is in a tight primary Saturday, are expected to remain in the “no” camp.