It wasn’t the contractors who were shot. The group of shooters were the ones who got deaded. Still your basic point is well taken. Yes it can get more insane (stay tuned and see).

NEW ORLEANS – Police shot eight people carrying guns on a New Orleans bridge Sunday, killing five or six, a deputy chief said. A spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers said the victims were contractors on their way to repair a canal.

The contractors were walking across a bridge on their way to launch barges into Lake Pontchartrain to fix the 17th Street Canal, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Corps.

Earlier Sunday, New Orleans Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said police shot at eight people, killing five or six.

The shootings took place on the Danziger Bridge, which spans a canal connecting Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.

The paper cites the Rescue Services international manager as surprised. It continues to say that his personal judgement, after talking with several collegues in Europe and US, is that US wants to avoid a situation where it can not handle the relief offered. He speculates that the problem is that the relief will be stuck in the airport for several days, thus creating (comparatively more) criticism.

There is a great contrast here in This photography.

It is worth noting that the Chinese government donated 5 million dollars as a guesture of sympathy. That is certainly a generosity of astronomical scale, comparing with the two million US cents the US government donated in the 1991 flood of Eastern China, which affected 50 million people and was far worse, but the people responded in far more rational manner than the people of New Orleans.

It\’s a total disgrace! I just can not put two pictures of New Orleans together that some one who had been without food and water for 5 days and in dying condition can at the same time openly assault and rape women under broad daylights on the streets. Is 5 days without food enough to destroy human dignity? Such lawlessness in unimaginable!

Quantoken

Entry Word: incompetence
Function: noun
Text: the lack of sufficient ability, power, or means — see INABILITY

As surely as Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf of Mexico, at some point – today, tomorrow, 10 years or perhaps decades from now – a catastrophic earthquake will strike California with equally cruel fallout. But unlike Katrina, there will be no warning signal, no chance to evacuate communities close to the quake’s epicenter. A major quake near the Sacramento Delta could bring flooding on an unimagined scale by destroying the 1,100-mile maze of earthen levees, many built a century or more ago. This is an area 30 times the size of Manhattan that is now 20 to 30 feet below sea level. In addition to inundating Delta communities where some 400,000 people live, the Delta flood would cover millions of acres of agricultural land and contaminate the water supply for 22 million Californians. These are not just doomsday predictions. The Association of California Water Agencies reported in a May 2005 report, “No Time To Waste,” that “the “risks posed by levee instability, land subsidence, major flood events, rising sea levels and earthquakes … could imperil the water supply for much of the state.”

It was desperate in the Sacramento area in 1986, when residents had to be rescued by boat. Again in 1997, there were 40 levee breaks in a 100-mile radius. Today, 1600 miles of shoreline are in a constant state of repair. Three of Sacramento’s most desirable neighborhoods are at risk. In fact, so are many developments up and down the valley. “The risk of flooding in Sacramento is higher than most every major metropolitian city.” Local officials believe that Sacramento is one freak weather season from a castrophic flood.

Here is an editorial

(1) We have Risa to thank for keeping a sharp eye and a clear head and pointing up several of the issues very rapidly (and usefully) here at CV. Thanks Risa!

(2) We have some excellent readers and commenters who helped point to excellent sources, (which I for one was then able to share with everyone by writing posts based on them) and in addition those readers and commenters contributed to the usual high quality of discussion we’re getting used to here. Thanks everyone!

(3) Actually, the discussion is not so much about party politics as it is just trying to bring faster action and some accountability to the people in power who have been entrusted to look after us. Not too much to ask. I for one would be just as angry and vocal if it were Democrats who had screwed up so royally. We are going to need a focus on infrastructure for emergency rapid response in the future. If we don’t shout about this lack of action and preparedness now, we’ll be partly to blame if we have another mess like this in the future….whoever is in the White House.

Cheers,

-cvj