Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
My guess is that there is some federal involvement (my guess is that the Army Corp of Engineers was elected to do some of this and the US Coast Guard is responsible for inland waterways) so Bush has to take some of the blame. But the governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans should take it in the Chin. They simply do not have any excuse. It was their responsiblity and they dropped the ball.
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Specifically on the subject of the levees, there is a reason why they are a federal responsibility. Over time, levees have been built up and down the Mississippi, through several states. When you build a levee, you make the river higher and faster, and you increase the risk to neighboring areas without levees, or with lower and older levees. Indeed, the Mississippi is managed in a comprehensive way, as a maritime highway. For a really readable discussion of different aspects of this, check out the first third of John McPhee's
The Control of Nature, which focuses on a massive dam which keeps the Mississippi from changing course, as it has historically done.
