Orville_third
Banned
A few comments on Katrina:
-Kerry will likely not close the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, thus letting lots of water into NOLA. (Gore would do the same.)
-Kerry will likely keep the Iraq forces at 2005 Bush levels, thus ensuring the various National Guard units have their equipment in Iraq and not in the Gulf states.
-The bulk of CoE funds will likely keep going to Iraq as opposed to domestic projects. (This was reported, in passing in my local paper, in an article on local flooding and what could be done about it, published before Katrina. Alas, nobody in the paper remembered this in 2005...)
-Louisiana got the spotlight, but they did not get all the damage. Mississippi and Alabama were hit hard as well, suffered greatly and are still not recovering. Contrary to Fox, Haley Barbour didn't do much to help there.
-Many of the Katrina problems with the federal government had nothing to do with Bush or even the DHS per se. FEMA had not had the experience in dealing with a disaster of this magnitude. You don't normally evacuate cities of over a million. Further, numerous nongovernmental organizations had problems as well. (Including Civil Air Patrol, my own organization.)
-Minor things that might change- Kerry may declare the Louisiana coast a disaster area before the storm (unlike OTL, where inland areas got declared disaster areas). Further, in Rita, ALL of Texas (including Deaf Smith County) was declared a disaster area. ITTL, only the coast and mildly inland areas would be.
-Kerry will likely not close the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, thus letting lots of water into NOLA. (Gore would do the same.)
-Kerry will likely keep the Iraq forces at 2005 Bush levels, thus ensuring the various National Guard units have their equipment in Iraq and not in the Gulf states.
-The bulk of CoE funds will likely keep going to Iraq as opposed to domestic projects. (This was reported, in passing in my local paper, in an article on local flooding and what could be done about it, published before Katrina. Alas, nobody in the paper remembered this in 2005...)
-Louisiana got the spotlight, but they did not get all the damage. Mississippi and Alabama were hit hard as well, suffered greatly and are still not recovering. Contrary to Fox, Haley Barbour didn't do much to help there.
-Many of the Katrina problems with the federal government had nothing to do with Bush or even the DHS per se. FEMA had not had the experience in dealing with a disaster of this magnitude. You don't normally evacuate cities of over a million. Further, numerous nongovernmental organizations had problems as well. (Including Civil Air Patrol, my own organization.)
-Minor things that might change- Kerry may declare the Louisiana coast a disaster area before the storm (unlike OTL, where inland areas got declared disaster areas). Further, in Rita, ALL of Texas (including Deaf Smith County) was declared a disaster area. ITTL, only the coast and mildly inland areas would be.