America's North Shore Journal

Congressman Bobby Jindal: Waste in the Eye of the Storm

The ultimate cost is paid by us — the taxpayers. Every tax dollar being wasted and not spent on recovery is a dollar not reaching the people that need it. To date, nearly $100 billion has been approved in assistance, but we have yet to see that much in actual work on the ground due to the fraud and waste.

In contrast, the private sector and faith-based organizations have stepped up where government has failed and have begun the process of demolishing and clearing neighborhoods of homes and debris that remain almost a year later. A national faith-based construction group uses volunteers to offer free demolition of homes in areas affected by the hurricanes. This group, that claims to be able to clear more than 100 homes a day, even includes removing the concrete slab, a service not provided by FEMA.

Instead of common sense solutions to help displaced individuals begin the process of rebuilding, the state and federal governments instead often acted like the large bureaucracy that they are by hindering the recovery process with red tape, paperwork and policies that defy logic. I find it ironic that some of the people creating these burdensome policies are the same people who want the government to run our health care.

New York Post: STORM, SOUND & FURY

Democrats are milking the theme: “We know the storm was a tragedy,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said last week, “but a bigger tragedy is how the federal government responded.” New York Sen. Chuck Schumer readily admits that Democratic candidates for the Senate cite the storm every chance they get.

The truth? As former reporter Lou Dolinar wrote on these pages Sunday, the response “may have been the largest, most successful aerial search-and-rescue operation in history.”

Paul at Wizbang: The Katrina Video Congress Didn’t Want You To See

The bottom line is, Katrina’s storm surge did not wash the wall away. As you may remember, water had been seeping under the floodwall at the break location for about a year before Katrina. The ground under the levee was soaked and ready to give at any moment…

New Orleans was doomed with or without Katrina, we just didn’t know it. A good high tide puts more water in the canal than this. As the video shows, the water was barely higher than normal levels. The walls could have failed on a decent high tide.

From the looks of the video the fact the wall failed when Katrina was approaching was really coincidence. Yes, Katrina was the “final straw” but so could any winds from the southeast. Or any given winter storm. (we often get winds out the south that “stack” the lake far higher than this.) Indeed these same walls held much higher surges in the past; that is, before they were undermined by seeping water for a year.