Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
OK legally I may have my head up my derrier. But morally, don't you think the Feds should cover this (in other words the American tax payer should cover this). The Feds should have forseen this type of storm coming and strengthened the levee. I just think if people houses got flooded because of a weak levee they should get compensated.
Did I turn into a bleeding heart liberal and not realize it?
Just my opinion.
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You have turned into a bleeding-heart liberal. They built or bought houses in an area for which it was entirely foreseeable that it might someday flood -- possibly they bought/built there because the land was cheaper than higher land. Why should the taxpayers have to pay for the crap decisions of people? I guess you could make the argument that they assumed that the feds would keep the levees in a condition that would withstand a huge hurricane, but I don't think that (a) the feds ever promised that or (b) that it's necessarily even reasonably possible to do so.
I'm kind of surprised at Burger's solution of just banning people from building in the entire area -- this seems like a huge amount of gov't intervention. I would think the market has taken care of it, in a rather brutal way. Also, I'm used to seeing some limited areas left unbuilt for flood management, but not to the extent of depopulating a city.
Of course, I'm not generally opposed to stuff like welfare and subsidized housing for the poor, so I am assuming there is a safety net for people who had made homes there (whether renting or owning) and now have no homes. Burger may be saying, let's just ban building there because then we won't have to pay to get people back on their feet next time this happens.
I would not really be wanting to spend exponentially more amounts of money to have just somewhat of an increase in the ability of new levees to withstand a hurricane of similar force -- it doesn't seem like they come around all the time. And, I think it makes more sense for people to come to their own decision about whether to live in NO, now that it's been brutally pointed out that life there is maybe not entirely stable/safe. Maybe they will want higher wages to be induced to live there, so that they can be better prepared in the event of a flood, whether through having more savings, or through opting to live in housing that is in a less flood-prone area.
Shit, there are people who will not move to CA because of the earthquake risk -- NO seems like it should work the same way.
