MORE BLOOD ON BUTCH’S HANDS

[greenpagan]

Hurricane Katrina: a calamity compounded by poverty and neglect

According to an article in the New Orleans CityBusiness, from February 7, 2005, the US Army Corps of Engineers “identified millions of dollars in flood and hurricane protection projects in the New Orleans district,” however “chances are... most projects will not be funded in the president’s 2006 fiscal year budget.”

The article noted that between 2001 and 2005, the amount spent on such projects declined from $147 million to $82 million. “Unfunded projects include widening drainage canals, flood-proofing bridges and building pumping stations in Orleans and Jefferson parishes.”

Officials have deemed a revamping of the levee system to protect the city against a category four or five storm prohibitively expensive, but the cost would have been far less than the damages caused by Hurricane Katrina. That these resources have not been marshaled to address the pressing needs of social infrastructure in New Orleans is due to the fact that the priorities of the government and the American ruling class lie on an entirely different plain.

http://wsws.org/articles/2005/aug2005/katr-a31.shtml

[Skink]

1. I wouldn't be surprised if they were trying to force La to privatize the

levees.

turn a buck in other words.