Please everyone; it is not about New Orleans, it has it's own flood way, their spillway is already open(bonnie-carrie) as big as Morganza; it is about the giant industrial-petroleum plants and factory's south of Baton Rouge to the gulf; if they would flood the economic impact on this nation would be a depression; the hardy Cajun people will survive as they have for the last 250 years along this area, they have very large extended family's, plus they will be welcome by other Cajuns, who have a history of always helping each other; these are not some wimps living on government welfare these are close knit, hard working Americans, if you can survive and prosper in that enviorment for all those years, you can survive and prosper anywhere, good luck to all my Cajun friends !

Thank you saxon....the whole argument about New Orleans being the only reason for the Morganza opening is very frustrating for those of us who live down here. It's about the economic impact like you said...but it's also about all the small towns along the river between Baton Rouge and New Orleans that will be effected as well. You're exactly right abou the Bonnet Carre as well....it's job is to divert water from New Orleans...which it is doing...but you don't hear about that on the National News because it isn't an entertaining enough story. Everyone down here will be just fine...they have lots of friends and neighbors, including myself, who will be more than happy to lend a hand to help them get back to normal as soon as possible.

I seriously have no understanding of any of this political or otherwise...just know that every night around our table we are saying prayers for you from way up north.

alma jean

get real these people knew they were in a spillway. they may not have believed it would ever be flooded but nature sooner or later does its thing.

why are people allowed to build in a flood plain?

Prayers from the north coming down your way as well!

I hope the people / companies this intentional flooding is helping will come to your aid now and in the time to come. They should be the first in line to offer assistance to their neighbors who sacrificed so they could be spared!

Actually most countries but USA would have diverted the Mississippi river centuries ago for irrigation of crops instead of draining under ground wells. I visited countries with aqua-ducts built over 2000 years ago. IA, MO and AR exclusively drain from underground. Instead of building levee's they should have built irrigation canals.

The Cajuns lived in those regions for 300 years before there were flood levies on the Mississippi River. And it has never been a "flood plain". It is being subjected to deliberate flooding to protect the lower Mississippi R.

Maybe where Baton Rouge & New Orleans were built was stupid, but they were built hundreds of years ago-- long before the nuances of the river were well-understood. Billions of dollars of infrastructure are there now. We should just abandon it? Maybe building more infrastructure in those locations would be a bad idea, but we should protect what we have. And we should fully compensate the Cajuns, whose land we've taken for flood control to protect that infrastructure.

saxon, You are right about the Cajuns being a strong group of people. However, this 'displacement' is sadly reminiscent of their forefathers being thrown out of Arcadia. But look what was accomplished once they got to Louisiana...! The culture and people survived...and added wonderful music, food, and colorful language to us all. Anyone who has visited this area can feel the spirit of the people.

They may be splintered now, but they are not broken apart.

And as for you who keep harping about why they would build in a flood zone in the first place, maybe you need to read the history of the Cajuns, Number One...and Number Two, when the group originally moved to Louisiana there was no altering of the Mississippi by the Corps of Engineers, among many other reasons for thinking the place would be (and for the most part has been) safe! So if you can't be helpful, please stop badgering.

It's so sad to see so many hateful people. If this was happening anywhere other than the US, people would be falling all over themselves to do whatever they could to help out.

What kind of country do we live in where we blame innocent Americans for being born to a place and way of life, but will go to great lengths to help out the same type of people who live in a different country after they are affected by a natural disaster?

Not everyone, everywhere can live on a safe piece of land that will never be affected by a disaster. If you are one of those people, be thankful instead of judging others.

I have many Cajun friends and y'all are right. They will bear down and work to help their friends and neighbors just like they were their own families. You won't hear them crying for any handouts from the government or blaming anyone else for their troubles either. I'm thankful for my Cajun friends and God bless them all.

The "5 P" principle would work here... Unfortunately it is our government at work!

It isn't like this just happened over night, they've had plenty of warning... Where is FEMA in this? FEMA has THOUSANDS of trailers that are sitting empty and they are telling the residents to "move out" with no place to go.

The government KNEW this was an eventuality so why isn't there an evacuation plan already in place to house these people?

You can yell and scream all you want about "you knew this was a flood zone so why do you live there" but the government wants them there tending the fertile soil, growing crops to feed the nation.

The government is more complacent than the residents in this situation. And, the government wants us to think they can provide health care to everyone when they can't even manage something they've known about for years?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those who wants the government to take care of everything but, in this case, they should have had this well in hand, before hand. They evaluate this possibility EVERY YEAR and the only recourse is "Ya gotta evacuate"...

another knowit all idiot

1.7

IA, MO and AR exclusively drain from underground. Instead of building levee's they should have built irrigation canals.

Well you got part of your name right anyway,.....as for the rest you don't know what you are talking about. (Note the Ia, in my name.)

Residents of MS who have already lost their homes and are in shelters require our assistance too as do those residents living along the MS River. United Way of Warren County in Vicksburg, MS is providing housing assistance to those who are in harm's way.

Its a flood plain. They all know it! And most do not carry flood insurance. Who's fault is that?

These events are "once in a lifetime", that last being 40 years ago, and that's the problem, people forget. Same as in Japan and the Tsunami Stones that warned not to build below a certain level. It is unfortunate that some are sacrificed to save the majority, but that's how it works.

The bigger problem is that saving New Orleans is a waste of money and resources. The city is below sea level, sea levels are rising and another hurricane will pummel the city in the near future. This is not a once in a lifetime event, this should be expected to happen every year.

It's not saving the rich to bury the poor at all. It's about flooding fewer than flooding more. Many wealthy people choose to live in rural areas. Also, most cities have quite a bit of lower income sections in them. It's about numbers of people and property damage. You can either cause billions in damage and cleanup in cities, or millions in rural areas. Neither choice is a fun one, but they are making the right choice.

Save the rich, sacrifice the poor. When has it ever been different than that? The poor are cannon fodder.

t f mulderig

New Orleans is a NATURAL flood plains- but these people, who were chosen by bureaucrats to sacrifice all they have to save the big cities, lives in MAN-MADE flood plains. It's not about mother nature doing her thing... otherwise- they'd let New Orleans and Baton Rogue get hit by the Ol' Mississippi- after all they chose to build there.

By your logic... There should be no houses along the western coast- Earthquakes. Plains would be empty- Tornadoes. FL, the Gulf, and Eastern Coast wouldn't have anything there- Hurricanes. Rockies... rock slides.. and so forth. There isn't one place here in the US that isn't subject to Mother Nature and her fury. Heck even in these mountains we get a tornado or two.

Leave it to MSNBC to make this a "rich versus poor" issue. Yes they are living in a man made flood plain that was built over 50 years ago. This flooding should not be a surprise. 50 years advance notice that you will be flooded to prevent flooding in Baton Rouge is plenty of notice.

Its the oil industry's fault, no its the fault of the rich, no its republican's fault, actually its those republicans who are rich from the oil companies fault.

Gadz people, can't we even have a natural distaster with out all you loons turning it into class warfare? People who live in flood plains pay less for housing and are warned of doing so (guess what you may have to be evacuated). When are we going to start taking individual responsibilty for our choices.

I live in California, earthquakes and tsunami's don't care if you are rich or poor, and I know that someday I may have to deal with one of them. Flooding is much more predictable, and wherever levees are built, there is a pretty good chance you will be flooded out at some time. Be ready, rich or poor.

Property owners in New Orleans and Baton Rouge should pay a one time property tax to help those who are being sacrificed for them.

The Corps of Engineers have caused much of the problem. By building levees up and down rivers, they have increased the magnitude of the problem.

The upstream levees act like dams to raise the water level. Normally, without levees the flood waters would be dissipated the entire length of the river in a much less destructive and more predictable fashion. With the levees holding back the upstream water, the downstream flooding is much more catastrophic and devastating.

This is just one of many magnificent problems caused by politically motivated projects by the Corps of Engineering. This should be a lesson for all who think that nature can be "managed".

Save the Rich / Bury the Poor - That can be construed as the new American Way no? Does not matter if Democrat or Republican, still the same BS, and the rich get richer.

Actually, the first thing I thought when I read this is that the "wealthy" cities, were screwing the poorer country folks, and I am not usually one to buy into class warfare crap. This is pretty blatant. I have developed a pretty low opinion of the state of Louisiana over the last 10 years or so. New Orleans in particular. After witnessing some of the crap that happened in Katrina, I wouldn't cry if the whole city got washed out to sea. I mean really, there were reports of citizens of New Orleans shooting at rescue workers. Talk about a cesspool. I realize it's not everyone there, but talk about giving your town a bad name. Kind of like the wonderful PR the 9/11 terrorists gave Islam. Also, I realize that this is going to protect Baton Rouge too, but wow it still seems like it would be fairer to let the cards fall as they should and not engineer a disaster to cause some to suffer that shouldn't, while people that built in an actual flood plain skate.

tf..lets see, don't build in the west because of fires and earthquakes, don't build in the east because of hurricanes, don't build in the south and midwest because of tornados, don't build in the mountains because of landslides, don't build in the desert because of flash flooding, don't build in a river basin....where exactly do YOU live???? Should we all come there???

I mean really, there were reports of citizens of New Orleans shooting at rescue workers.

That was more than a report that was a fact. My daughter was down there doing rescue work and witnessed it.

"Saving the rich and burying the poor." Uh, wasn't the exact opposite being said after Katrina hit? Which is it, we can't flip flop just to inflame hostility - oh wait...that is the #1 objective of the media these days. Still angry about how savagely people behaved during the wake of Katrina, such an embarrassment for our country - especially after seeing how people of Japan handled their catastrophe with such grace and dignity. Heard a news anchor state the other day Katrina was a man-made disaster, as if the hurricane had nothing to do with it! If you label Katrina as man-made then so is this, but I would say it is more so since we are choosing who will suffer (I wouldn't want to make that decision-tough). Nevertheless, I have no doubts our Cajun community will rebound and overcome!

Mac,

As I didn't see it, I had to call it a report, but yeah...there you go. What a bunch of human garbage. I mean really, what kind of person shoots at people coming to help them? After that Bush should have ordered FEMA out of New Orleans and let the animals fend for themselves. Maybe Kanye could have gone to help them.

While I can't speak about the other rivers, the Arkansas River in Arkansas has too much salt, picked up as it flows over salt deposits just west of us, to be used for irrigation. Under heavy, persistent use, it would kill crops. We do use various bayous for irrigation where available and for as long into the summer as they are available. However, overuse causes many of them to dry up until winter rains return. Many farmers also have dug reservoirs to trap winter rains and use this water to irrigate.

Farmers in Kansas and Colorado, above the salt beds, do irrigate with Arkansas River water. Consequently, most to the time, the river in central Kansas is little more than a tiny trickle in the bottom of the river bed, something you can wade across.

Know it alls probably need to do a bit of research.

Logical and your 26 friends, so far, who approve of your comments have no real concept of the history in the area. There are people/families who have lived in the same area/homes for hundreds of years. They were never offered compensation to move at the time the levy/causeways were built, yet you wanted them to abandon their homes/security/businesses/HERITAGE because people like you don't have any soul? I agree, there may be some instances where people are foolish, building homes NEXT to water that is known to naturally flood and often, we shouldn't have to compensate them year after year, but this is NOT the case for the vast majority of the towns that will flood. Shame of all of you and all the people making hurtful and completely erroneous statements. You should be spending some of you time getting facts.

Alma Jean - What's God got to do with this? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Somehow people want to keep bringing their personal religious beliefs into Newsvine comments.

Water was meant to flow in the wide, wide Atchafalaya River Basin to the Gulf of Mexico. That's what it will do.

You are now in my 'Ignore This Author' category - won't have to read your comments again.

Kanye is all talk; is he still alive? It seems that he hasn't spewed any of what is very loosely referred to as "his music" in quite a while.

I am amazed at most people that post here and "bicker, complain hate".

This is a sorrowing time for these AMERICANS! They are AMERICANS! Remember your fellow man and countryman. This is not the America it once was from looking at the above post.

This tragedy for so many is MOTHER NATURE clearing her throat. Cajun's ( I was born one) have endured this region for CENTURIES now.

What I almost can no longer endure is the bickering, greedy, complacent people most Americans have become.

In dark times AMERICANS help everyone. We do not complain when it is hard, we do not accept handouts and entitlements either. WE WORK HARD to defend freedom and liberty.

We should all here be discussing ways we can HELP and BENEFIT the people affected by this event. We should NOT be fighting amongst ourselves from arm chair computer forums.

Does any nation offer us AID when AMERICA has catastrophic events? NO none at ALL. They offer to loan us more money though.... and BOTH political sides barrow it.

Here are a few topics for you to discuss about this article instead of all the rhetoric:

• Where can I send AID
• Where can I go to offer help?
• How can I help If I am able to in any way?
• What Help is needed?
• Who are the resources to bring help?

--------------------------------------------------

These are subjects we should be discussing here and not lame over rated talking points and hatred and politics.

Houses on stilts seems like a good idea when your going to live next to a mega river in low-lying regions.

Save the rich, bury the poor.

Yea, because New Orleans is filled with rich people these days.

Can someone answer a question for me?

Does the Mississippi river ever flood?

Build in a flood plain, a flood plain that everyone knows may be flooded at some point in time , then don't be surprised when it get's flooded. But why make this a 'rich versus poor" issue? This is about living in an area in which a homeowner takes a chance that this could be the year it gets flooded. Did people think that the spillway gates, that were built years ago, are there for looks? Why is a media site like MSNBC hyping this like if it were a surprise and the poor are being sacrificed?

People make choices.

To live in a flood plain is a good choice for some in that they can have more land than they ever dreamed of having for some limited period of time. No surprise that they didn't have flood insurance... most cannot afford it. For those that are getting flooded, their time in the sun is over temporarily and they will begin again. Its not the rich over the poor, its what a spillway is designed for and what these people chose to do.

Doesn't stop us from feeling for these people and wishing them a quick recovery.

When I lived in Baton Rouge a number of years ago I was told the reason the Morganza spillway was built was to keep the Mississippi from changing course. This was built strictly for the economic benefit of N.O. and Baton Rouge.

Gary ........... get a clue. These people and their ancestors have lived in this area for hundreds of years or in the case of the Houma indians thousnads of years. This was not a flood plane untill the Morganza control structure was built.

"The good of the many outweighs the good of the few... or of the one."
-- Mr. Spock

It's remarkable how many posters are not reading anything about what is happening. Let me break it down slowly... The Army Corp of Engineers built a system of gates that floods what is not normally a flood plain to protect New Orleans and Baton Rouge from flooding. They did this roughly 50 years ago, and did not offer compensation, or relocation to people that live in the newly constructed artificial flood plain. As I understand it, it is completely the governments fault that these people are in harms way, and it's basically a case of the big, relatively wealthy, urban voting block getting preferential treatment over the little guy farmers. Correct me if I am wrong on any of this as I don't live down there, but that's what I am getting from the news story and the discussion.

Tad,

May need to go back a little further in history. The levees are what keep most of southern LA from flooding periodically. So to say that the levees created the floodplain is erroneous. The levees created arable land that is "less" prone to flooding, but a floodplain nonetheless.

Kallie and concernedone

Thank you. What is needed in our area is compassion not ridicule. May God bless you also.

Sifu

You undoubtably are the most disgusting thing that ever slithered across the face of the earth.

Mikey -

Spock "The needs of the many outweigh..."

Kirk "-the needs of the few."

Spock "Or the one."

I so outgeek you....

This is a case where nature has forced us to make hard decisions. We are not deciding the "best" decision, per se, but the "least bad" decision. Sometimes in life, no matter which decision you make someone will be hurt. And of course the one hurt always thinks the decision should have been made the other way (so that someone else was hurt instead of them).

When these levees and spillways were constructed, they were done so in such a way that should something like this happen, the authorities would have some degree of control over what would flood and what wouldn't. Unfortunately, there is so much water that not everything can be kept from flooding. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is. I feel for the people who will be driven from their home and land, and hope they will be compensated in some way for the problem.

IA-Scooter-Tramp,

Just to expand on your post regarding irrigation lakes and canals...

Too many people have the misguided thought that everything west of the Mississippi is flat, until the Rocky Mountains start. But as you and I know, little of Iowa is flat. Additional lakes, canals and pipelines would require huge diversions of land, roadways, and cash.

To accomplish what goals? Most Iowa flooding occurs from spring melt-off in Canada, North Dakota and Minnesota. The same source of Iowa's aquifers. Yes there is the occasional flash flood due to deluge, but these are generally light. Pooling irrigation water in Iowa (which already happens in some areas) only delays the pain in cases of severe drought, and offers no relief to containment of melt water or excessive rainy seasons (this year's problems). Ironically, Iowa seems to have escaped this year's extreme flooding. or at least it didn't make the news. But none of this would have helped the flooding this year, which came from the EAST side of the Mississippi, the Upper Midwest and the Ohio River Valley. Ohio River flooding this year is due to high snowfalls and continued heavy rains which keeps us all wet and raised flood levels to the top four in recorded history (about 200 years here in Madison Indiana). These folks should just be happy that we didn't reach 1937 levels, when steamboats took people out of downtown Louisville buildings through THIRD and FOURTH floor windows.

I blame the beavers.

Shosyn "This is a sorrowing time for these AMERICANS! They are AMERICANS! Remember your fellow man and countryman. This is not the America it once was from looking at the above post."

I love when people say America isnt what it used to be.

Which America are you referring to?

The only constant that i've seen from America is a need to hate/demonize/marginalize a group of people in order to build "real americans" up.

"Does any nation offer us AID when AMERICA has catastrophic events? NO none at ALL. They offer to loan us more money though.... and BOTH political sides barrow it."

Yes, quite a few of them...but our media doesnt report it, and naturally...people like you, take that silence to mean it didnt happen at all. After all, if the media doesnt go on and on about it, it didnt exist...right?

Just like im sure every single Japanese person was the height of civility during the tsunami and aftermath. Or perhaps, the media simply isnt reporting the INSTANCES in which a few select humans decided to behave like animals.

Leave it to our media to go on and on about the few black people looting new orleans during the aftermath...I mean, its not like we can intellectualize why THOSE people chose to do that, and by "those" people...I dont mean black people, but rather...poor, uneducated people who probably have only known a life of crime of some nature. Do you think a natural disaster was going to change who they fundamentally were? Cuz it didnt change many of you...

MSNBC shoud be ashamed and needs to be called out during this time of great difficulty, to make this a class warfare issue in order to attract eyeballs and sell advertising.

Pure liberal media filth.

nature does not care ..rich.. poor.. white.. black.. religious ..atheist..dem or repub ..nature takes no prisoners ....the people along the river will re build and get back to life and wait for nature to take its course the next time ... we can only hope that not all will be lost and we can always help each other ...

MSNBC shoud be ashamed and needs to be called out during this time of great difficulty, to make this a class warfare issue in order to attract eyeballs and sell advertising.

Pure liberal media filth.

I second that. It's disturbing.

t f mulderig, you wanted to know why people are allowed to build on a floor plain. What you've forgotten is that most of the mainland US IS a flood plain for the whole of the Mississippi river system. Unless you're west of the Rockies, east of the Appalachians, in a small ribbon of land around the Great Lakes - St Lawrence River system, or in Alaska or Hawaii, you live on that flood plain.

You may as well be asking, though, why do people keep returning to the area round a volcano? The answer to that is that volcanic ash makes for extremely fertile soil. The same is true of flood plains, because the silt laid down during a flood is just as fertile as is volcanic ash. That's why, even in ancient Egypt, people lived close to the edge of the Nile River - yes, they had to move out of the way of the floods every spring, but the knew that the best farming was to be had on those same lands once the waters had receded.

The real answer to your question is simply this - in most of the US, there's no choice other to live on a flood plain.

Stang

I thought it was very interesting that Fox noted that this was a Corps of Engineers decision without mentioning that the final decision was actually Governor Jindal's. Wouldn't want to criticize a Republican governor when you have the federal government to blame ..... right?

Tad.S, by all means, let me correct you.

The Army Corps of Engineers was created almost 150 years ago with the expressed job of building levees and dams along the Mississippi River system. These levees and dams have actually served to make matters much, much worse along the whole of the system, but they serve to protect not the people but the commercial interests along the river.

However, on more than a few occasions in that period, they have actually caused worse flooding than existed originally, In addition, by not allowing the rivers to flood where they normally would flood, the ACE has done a huge amount of damage to the soil, to the flood plains, to the bayous, to the marshlands that protect the land and to the barrier islands that help to protect the coast.

The creation of the Army Corps of Engineers what extremely short-sighted, and that attitude continues to this day.

You don't have to believe me here, but do read this book:

"Rising tide: the great Mississippi flood of 1927 and how it changed America"

which details some of the hydrological history of the Mississippi River system, the beginning of the Army Corps of Engineers and the damage that has been wrought by the latter.

You'll also see in that book that contrary to the opinions of too many people who have responded here, the are is question IS not only part of the natural flood plain of the lower Mississippi River, but also much of the area of which, for almost all of it's history, the lower Mississippi River has wandered back and forth, as all mature river systems want to do. This same wandering back and forth is what changes the maps and creates oxbow lakes.

I learned about mature river systems vs younger ones (the Mississippi vs the Colorado, for example) in grade school. It seems as though you are among the many here who never learned much, if anything, in geography class. It's showing now, but it something that you can remedy.

Rpearlston

I think that's what the gist of what I was saying was, that the Army Corp of Engineers had made the situation worse in many ways by not allowing the river to naturally flood where it should. My question was more to whether the people that are being flooded now, are in a natural flood plain, or in one that is a construct of the ACoE. Actually, I did well in geography, it was just a very long time ago.

The fact is that theses areas are/were a flood plain. The levees were built to keep those very flood plains from being flooded every year when the river overflows.

I am not a proponent of levees, nor the original reasoning behind building them (neither the philosophy nor use of government), but the fact is they are there and people up river (where the levees are) know that they may be opened if the river gets too high. It is not a rich vs. poor issue, it is a few upriver vs. many downriver issue. The article is grasping at straws to turn this into class warfare

Stang

I thought it was very interesting that Fox noted that this was a Corps of Engineers decision without mentioning that the final decision was actually Governor Jindal's. Wouldn't want to criticize a Republican governor when you have the federal government to blame ..... right?

I'm not sure where you got your information but the local news has never said it was Jindal's call.....it has been the ACOE's call whether or not to open the spillway from day one. They gave the order....not Jindal. But thanks for bringing politics into the situation....everyone down here appreciates your concern.

Touche, Gina! I'm so not worthy.

Stang

My comment was not a political statement. It was a statement about the bias exhibited by Fox News.

rpearlston: you are right, modern civilization and agriculture developed because of ddeveloping on flood plains. if it weren't for the Mississippi flooding regularly over the last millennium we would not be the "bread basket" of the world. "Civilizations start with rivers and end with oceans" was a common term in my ancient history classes used to define the trend of where civilization will rise and where they meet boundaries. The truth is the losses caused by the flooding are always out weighed by the gains of developing the area. (hard to accept when lives are lost, but in the big scheme of things a few hundred people is not a big deal)

The Cajuns lived in those regions for 300 years before there were flood levies on the Mississippi River. And it has never been a "flood plain". It is being subjected to deliberate flooding to protect the lower Mississippi R.

Maybe where Baton Rouge & New Orleans were built was stupid, but they were built hundreds of years ago-- long before the nuances of the river were well-understood. Billions of dollars of infrastructure are there now. We should just abandon it? Maybe building more infrastructure in those locations would be a bad idea, but we should protect what we have. And we should fully compensate the Cajuns, whose land we've taken for flood control to protect that infrastructure.

Easy to be smug and self-righteous, isn't it, "Logical"?

logical?.... hardly.....and YOU are perfectly safe from mother nature exactly where? i dont know which is worse, that comment, or those who voted for it.

Somehow the people who build their multi-million dollar homes on the mudslide-ridden cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean or on hurricane-prone beaches along the Atlantic coast manage to get compensated when disaster strikes.

I understand that the decision to flood people out of their homes must be a terrible choice to have to make, and that what is being done here is in the interest of minimizing damage and disruption when you look at the big picture.

But still, property will be damaged and lives will be disrupted. Let's hope that some assistance will be available to these people who don't have second (and third, and fourth...) homes to retreat to!

It may be 'logical' to you, "logical", but what an inhumane outlook!

Thank you! This is so true. They are notified yearly about such a possibility, and lots of people do have a plan in place. I know in Butte La Rose almost everyone had a contingency plan to move their entire households out in such an event. I don't believe this was done strictly to help the refineries-it's simply collateral damage. Look at the statistics:put out 25,000 people and their homes or have a levee in Baton Rouge break and have a million people/homes wiped out in the surrounding areas. Also, the Corps said that water would come over the Morganza spillway if it wasn't opened, so water damage would occur regardless of opening it or not. USDA has already verified that this is considered a natural disaster and they will pay out on the insurance policies for all the farmland. Also, the so-called "rich" building houses in danger zones being reimbursed-well that's probably because they have homeowner's insurance that they pay regularly so yes, they will be reimbursed from that.

Its a flood plain. They all know it! And most do not carry flood insurance. Who's fault is that?

Absolutely agreed. You can argue about who was there first and when levees were built but it's all moot. That river has been there for ages and choosing to build in a flood plain without an evacuation plan is as dumb as building on a smoking volcano.

I have compassion for those stuck in bad situations, but this is ridiculous.

There has been plenty of news about this lately but no where have I seen information about where the rest of the country can provide some kind of help / aid to those who are being displaced, possibly losing all that they have. Does anyone here have information / suggestions to help Americans going through this??? How can the rest of us help???

chefaz...thats true! But when there is an earthquake in Japan or Haiti, donation seekers are everywhere! Never for our own people.

Thanks, AZC. I'm skeptical about using the "regular" routes for donations / aid and hoping some of the of the posters local or familiar with this area can give us good guidance with this.

It is NOT A FLOODPLAIN! It has been ARTIFICIALLY ENGINEERED into one without the inhabitants' consent.

What part of this concept is so difficult to comprehend?

Evidently you have not had sentimental losses for you to be so cruel with your comment. You don't know why these people chose to live there and maybe some had no choice. Where is your compassion? I hope you won't be in that kind of situation ever....... and then again I will help you if you do because it will come from my heart.

Who was there first? The river that the Mississippi tries to follow or the Cajuns?

Ray and others repeating

"The Cajuns lived in those regions for 300 years before there were flood levies on the Mississippi River. And it has never been a "flood plain". It is being subjected to deliberate flooding to protect the lower Mississippi River"

What exactly do you guys think a levee is? Levees are created to keep rivers out of a "flood plain". Capitoliziing or bolding your silly notions about levees and flood plains does not make them any more true.

Red Cross in Baton Rouge is setting up 22 shelters in the region-I'm sure they would take donations if contacted directly

Thanks, mitzi but Red Cross is large and not all of the money received by them is seen by those for whom it is intended. Any info on reputable organizations local to the area??? Would be appreciated. I'd like to help and I'm willing to bet that other viners would also appreciate the opportunity to help, as well.

I'm with chefaz. I would be happy to donate to someone where my money will go directly to those in need. The red cross, while they do an excellent job with relief efforts worldwide (keyword worldwide), my money would get lumped into the general fund to help worldwide. I REALLY want to help those in my own country first. If this is untrue please let me know.

I don't understand why people live in areas prone to tornadoes, or fault lines, or devastating snow storms, or tsunami's, or droughts, or nuclear reactors..... blah, blah, blah!

It is amazing to me how people can say this crap, feeling all superior until the day comes that a disaster comes knocking on their doors. Funny how every single location on the planet is prone to some kind of catastrophe be it natural or man-made.

Most of the people being flooded right now DO NOT live in a "flood plain". New orleans is a flood plain... My House located in Morgan City LA (yeah, the one they keep talking about on TV) is well ABOVE sea level. Will that fact stop my house from flooding? Only if the government decides to stop playing God and allows nature to run its course instead of building spillways.

No. We DO NOT get notices every year stating that we live in a flood plain and should be prepared to buy flood insurance and move my every possession to another location.

Boy some people on here give stupid a whole new meaning!

Kanth -

They are building housing developments in flow valleys "downstream" from Mt. Ranier with only one narrow road out to escape an eruption.

Angel - "I don't understand why people live in areas prone to tornadoes, or fault lines, or devastating snow storms, or tsunami's, or droughts, or nuclear reactors..... blah, blah, blah! " Exactly, where on earth can you find a place free of potential disaster (natural or man made)- where is a person to live these days?

No one is safe from flooding or earthquakes, both can happen almost anywhere. But I would agree that some areas are more "prone" than others. Being above sea level doesn't mean you aren't on a potential flooding plain. Being near any body of water makes you "prone" to flooding, at any elevation. Heartaches for all affected, and hoping we all pull thru!

Logical and your 26 friends, so far, who approve of your comments have no real concept of the history in the area. There are people/families who have lived in the same area/homes for hundreds of years. They were never offered compensation to move at the time the levy/causeways were built, yet you wanted them to abandon their homes/security/businesses/HERITAGE because people like you don't have any soul? I agree, there may be some instances where people are foolish, building homes NEXT in an area that is known to naturally flood and often, we shouldn't have to compensate them year after year, but this is NOT the case for the vast majority of the towns that will flood. Shame of all of you and all the people making hurtful and completely erroneous statements. You should be spending some of you time getting facts.

Tod: I think you missed some information...your comment certainly shows you missed the point.

logical for your benefit I will repeat myself:

lets see, don't build in the west because of fires and earthquakes, don't build in the east because of hurricanes, don't build in the south and midwest because of tornados, don't build in the mountains because of landslides, don't build in the desert because of flash flooding, don't build in a river basin....where exactly do YOU live???? Should we all come there???

Worst sign seen; "We've been through this three times before. We'll rebuild!"

If you have a mortgage, you are required to buy flood insurance, otherwise, the government can not force you to buy insurance until the Health Care law that is.

*sigh*

A levee is usually an artificial, man-made embankment designed to prevent the natural flooding of a river.

The Morganza Floodgate is an artificial, man-made structure designed to artificially divert the flooding waters of the Mississippi into the Atchafalaya River Basin.

One is used to prevent. The other is used to divert. Capiche?

A lot of flooding has occurred in the states north of Louisiana, but much more flooding has been prevented by the existing levees in those regions. So much so that there will be too much strain on the Louisiana levees when the cresting waters arrive.

I'm not criticizing the decision of opening the floodgate. If they don't open the floodgates numerous oil refineries and chemical plants will become flooded between the Morganza and New Orleans. Some of that oil and/or chemicals is bound to wind up in the waters creating another ecological disaster. And on top of it all, the levees will eventually break under the pressure of so much water. It'll be Katrina all over again without the hurricane.

There is no 'right' call here. It's a lose-lose situation. What I'm objecting to is the use of misinformation to justify and/or rationalize the decision that has been taken.

I repeat: the Atchafalaya River Basin is NOT a floodplain. What is happening in the basin is of human making, planning, and design. Remember that when you try to disparage the inhabitants of the area.

Umakemelaugh; Agreed on all, especially the lose-lose situation. You can argue the Atchafalaya River Basin is not a flood plain, but being a river basin it is absolutely prone to flooding so no residents should have ever thought themselves immune. This flood is natural, what is man-made is the decision of what will flood and what may not - which is quite extraordinary (but not in a good way) when you think about it; that fact that we have the option to choose. But bottom line, it is mother nature who says something is going to have to flood - and it is still a tragedy no matter where.

Scomata- you stated"If you have a mortgage, you are required to buy flood insurance, otherwise, the government can not force you to buy insurance until the Health Care law that is." Well the health care law will force you to buy insurancebecause the government forces the hospitals/doctors to treat your poor, broke a$$ when you walk into their emergency room regardless of your ability to pay. However, the government does not force the contractors to build you a new house free of charge if your floats down the river.

Umakemelaugh;

The Mississippi River has been "engineered" to be a TRANSPORTATION tool. Many of the dams, levees, and flood-gates have only a secondary function to control flooding. The primary purpose is to preserve the river channel and landing (port) areas. Much of this transportation and related business structure is south of the Morganza Floodgate. This floodgate was erected to protect THEM, not the Atchafalaya River Basin. The river basin is actually a traditional overflow area (IE. river basin). But it is not a sustainable river channel for commerce and industry.

Other dams, levees, and flood-gates are exclusively to protect a certain area from flooding. But every such control exposes someone else to the flooding hazard. Ultimately, ALL such efforts will be overcome by a convergence of natural events like those of this year. The question the becomes who must be sacrificed so others may be spared. I doubt the Corps of Engineers enjoys making these decisions, but they cannot sit back and watch everything fail.

You say "choose" to live there. I say they were mostly BORN there. That makes "there" their HOME. What if the gov't wrote you a letter saying that your HOME was to be sacrificed for someone else's home? We need to put this in the perspective of the recent, people. There is a nuclear power plant on the Mississippi that WILL be flooded if measures aren't taken to stop it from happening. Fukishima right here in America. This makes the spillway opening a national disaster plan. This makes the decision, therefore, a reason to provide national disaster relief after the intentional flooding. THEN, we need to address to sanity of putting a nuclear power plant next to the monster Mississippi. THEN, we need to address why the big cities aren't protected from flooding. This won't be the last time this happens. It's merely the first, albeit in quite a while. Unplanned urban expansion is THE CAUSE of the necessities of Sunday's decision. What will we do to CURE the intrinsic cause? (And BTW, you can't get flood insurance for a house in a flood plain, duh!)

"They choose to live in a flood basin...."

New Orleans is ALSO in the flood basin!

morrigan-1568233, yes, lives will be disrupted, but life goes on. And yes, constructed property will be damaged. But property is also land, and the hydrological history of the land in this area includes just about annual flooding. The land will more than survive.

Please remember that property includes the land on which people have built, the land that has llooded just about every year for hundreds of thousands of years, until the Army Corp of Engineers decided that they knew better than does nature.

yep below sea level nawlens the future home of sponge bob..what my uncle nay bob says...

Many of the people replying think the area to be flooded is not part of a natural floodplain. They are wrong. It was a natural floodplain long before Europeans came to the area.

The expected water levels from this flood are much lower than the water levels in a 1920's flood. (Sorry I don't remember the exact year.) And, whoever wrote that Morgan City has never been flooded is wrong. Morgan City was flooded in the 1920's. Even New Iberia had a couple of feet of floodwater on downtown Main Street!

By the way, long, long ago waters from the Mississippi River backed up in the Red River basin all the way into Texas. Lets hope that doesn't happen again.

Cindy,

My comment begins with a quote from Ray and others on this thread who keep stating that the areas being flooded were never a flood plain. The fact is that they are/were a flood plain. The levees were built to keep those very flood plains from being flooded every year when the river overflows.

I am not a proponent of levees, nor the original reasoning behind building them (neither the philosophy nor use of government), but the fact is they are there and people up river (where the levees are) know that they may be opened if the river gets too high. It is not a rich vs. poor issue, it is a few upriver vs. many downriver issue. The article is grasping at straws to turn this into class warfare.

First, to Tad S, Moron! Most of the reports of shooting at rescue helicopters were disproven, as in the claim that someone shot at a Guard helicopter at the Superdome, in many of the cases you didn't see anyone doing the shooting, many people trapped inside the rooves of their homes shot to attract attention in the first days of the flood, black and white neighborhoods... not to say it was totaly false, there are nuts with guns everythere, just ask Giffords! As to the rest of your New Orleans bashing and outright race bating, one your'e sick in the head, and second you don't know what you are talking about because you are so sick in the head!

The Spillways were built after the 1927 flood, when the idea of the "Levees Only Policy" was abandoned by the Army Core, the first spillway was buit to save New Orleans just after the 1927 flood, the Bonnet Carre, just up river of the city, and the second was completed in 1954 was the Morganza that goes through Acadiana "Cajun Country" along side the Atchafalaya River. The Morganza does more than protect the eastbank cities of New Orleans and Baton Rouge, it also helps protect the entire westbank of the Mississippi in southern Louisiana. At Cabin Teele Louisiana, across the river from Vicksburg Mississippi, the levee failed in the 1927 flood, that one failure of the levee covered over 6 million acers of land and affected almost 300,000 people... which flooded many more towns than the Morganza ever will and dewarfs by many times the area of the Spillway. With an equal chance on any of the Mississippi River's Levees when the water gets even near this high, there always is the chance of a Cabin Teele like failure, even with all the Spillways going, with all the engineering, it just takes something overlooked or miss understood... anything built by people can be undone by nature! If the Mississippi River ever gets out anywhere below the Ohio River with this much water in it, the flow would seem endless, it would take all you have and leave several feet of new soil to cover your grave.

The Mississippi River flood plane has moved all over Louisiana in it's history, if not for man it would still be moving, if not for the "Old River Control Structure" next to the Morganza Spillway, which the Atchafalya River is inside of, it would be the new Mississippi. The rule for the Old River Control Structure states that by law that 30% of the Mississippi water must flow down the Atchafalya River, the reality is all of the marshes of Louisiana are part of the Mississippi's floodway and were built by it. The Mississippi River has the Brids Foot shape delta from the massive amount of soil it brings down with it, everything man has done to its watershed, right up into Canada, Dam's, Levees, and cites has caused problems with the river. The worst problem for the Mississippi is the Jetties built at the rivers mouth/delta to allow ocean going ships to any port on it built wherever it was built. The soil that built all of southern Louisiana now moves at a high rate of speed into the ocean depths and can no longer slowly sperad out over a large area to drop its suspended soil to make new land, or save the old.

Water seeks it's own level, it's why the Mississippi's Oxbows run so far north, many past the point of the Ohio River, the same reason is why all of southern Louiaiana is a flood plain. The way it did work, each year as the rivers natural overflow came, it dumped new soils on top of the last, when the land rose high enough at some point, those yearly overflows allow it to also start making a channel with less resistance, and like the river wants to do now, it would move to the less resistance of the Atchafalya River.

The Port of New Orleans was built over 300 years ago, Jefferson's stated reason for making the Louisiana Purchase was to get the Port of New Orleans. That port is one of the main reasons the United States is as Rich as it is, while the City is a political mess, just as much as the rest of Louisiana, it takes a whole state to be ranked at or next to 50th in education for most of the 20th century and into 2011! The port now makes cities all over the Mid-West and the states farmers prosper in a good economy, it allows exports to compete, it affects the price for goods and services right down to the cash regesister. After you go north of Baton Rouge the depth of the Mississippi starts dropping, if you move the port north of that you soon start to run into the endless dredging of the river, it was built in New Orleans because it was the shortest distance to a place with stable enough land. 300 years ago sailing ships had to fight the current the 100 miles up river, and the marshes at the time were untouched and mitigated hurricanes, the floods were easier to deal with on that spot... a river was slower in this area and spread out. Today it is still a good place for a port, above Baton Rouge the cost of giong past that cities 200 miles to dock costs too much in fuel to fight the current, which adds a lot to the price goods moved, New Orleans at 100 miles takes a long time transit, costs a huge amount of fuel to move up river, and is the first that can give enough trust to harbor in a storm... insurance costs of the ship and what it contains.

Lastly, every city and town on the beaches of the Gulf and Atlantic play a game of Russian Roulette every Hurricane season, look at ariel photos of just how much of the Mississippi Gulf Coast was wiped flat by the storm surge of Katrina. Miami Florida had the second worst amount of damage and costs from Hurricane Andrew, that was alomst 15 years ago, the damage costs would be very colse if allowed for inflation. The same type of FEMA mess happened there, everyone was mad at Bush the 1st for the slow response, the same fights with Home Owners Insurance, and National Flood Insurance, took place, but it hit a much richer city, and the worst pat of Andrew missed hiting most of the poor sections of the city... No Core of Engineer's levees failed completely like New Orleans. If cities of bigger size, or many towns, where the people in those places can afford more expensive homes, and much more, and those who move in behind for jobs, or into large cities right on the cost for jobs, what is the difference between a Mississippi Gulf Coast city wiped flat and all of the others in which one day the odds are will be hit. Most of the arguments aganist New Orleans and its place in The United States, are from race baters, anti goverment nuts, and are most like both!

Connie, you are completely ignorant and rude on top of it.

The federal government, if you lose your house and do not have insurance, will pay for your losses anyway. I lived on the Ohio River flood plain, the "Bottoms" for 18 years. I always had flood ins, most of my neighbors did not, and they got paid a lot more than I did in 97 when we had 6 feet of water surrounding our houses.

As for the insult, it just shows how petty and ignorant you really are. If you dont have a point, insult, and you have no point, so you did the only thinng you know how to do apparantly, because you know nothing of living in a flood zone.

Laugh, "I repeat: the Atchafalaya River Basin is NOT a floodplain"

You can repeat it 50 times if you'd like, that does'nt make it true or sensical. Re-read what you wrote, its like saying the Mojave desert gets only trace amounts of rain per year but is NOT arid.

Tod,

River Basin - the entire geographical area drained by a river and its tributaries; an area characterized by all runoff being conveyed to the same outlet. (Source: Princeton University's Word-Net)

Flood Plain - a nearly flat plain along the course of a stream or river that is naturally subject to flooding. (Source: Random House dictionary)

See the difference?

As you can see, your desert analogy is what is known as a 'false analogy'.

Exactly...if everyone on here spent half as much time donating time, money or resources to help the people of the basin instead of pointing fingers and criticizing that which they know little about....the cajun country people would be in good shape. I'm thankful I live close enough to help in person.

Help in person is what I think is needed most. Labor to get the belongings of these people moved to higher ground, places to put said belongings and people. They'll have their clothes, possibly their jobs. The labor of moving, cleaning up, rebuilding, and moving back in is gonna be hard to come by.

And if it floods every year are we suppose to spend half our lives donating time, money and resources. Levee's didn't work for katrina and they won't work now. The ice caps are melting and the water increase in the atmosphere alone is 17%, not to mention that big surprise increase in the mississippi and ohio rivers that no one could ever predict! not to include the oceans and rainfall. The flooding didn't even start yet. check back at the end of the month when its rolling down the delta to the gulf, did you know water runs down hill, who would guessed that.

The Morganza hasn't been opened since 1973.....how does that equate to it flooding every year? You could not have picked a more appropriate handle for newsvine.

And it's been seventy years or better since these flood levels have been seen.

Some people have no brain to mouth filter.

GM StangSalie. Just saw your post about donating too late - already posted a request for helping our brother and sister Americans in the 2nd thread. Do you have information or suggestions to provide to the rest of us around the country how we can help??? The "regular" routes - large "corporate" type organizations concern me - and I was hoping some of the local posters like you would be able to provide some guidance for the rest of us.

@chefaz - if you follow this link: http://feedingamerica.org/ it will bring you to Feeding Americas webpage, from there you can find links to local food banks in each state.

To everyone wanting to help flooding victims.

First, the Red Cross remains the tip of the sword in virtually every disaster relief effort. Establishing communications, relief centers and distribution points.

Second, you own church denomination probably has a relief arm, with trained relief wokers and a distribution network.

Finally, CASH is KING. Cash can buy food, fuel, tents, sanitization, essential clothing and other neccessities. Donations of food (especially out of the pantry), clothing (especially used), and even cleaning supplies all require sorting before distribution, not to mention time and money for transportation. Purchased goods arrive pre-sorted, in good condition, when and where needed. And, REMEMBER, Water first (this includes infant formula), Sanitation second, Secure Shelter third, Food fourth, Clothing and cleaning supplies can follow. This maintains the body and health of the victims.

Hopefully, the people in the river basin area can evacuate in time, relieving the needs for clothing and some food. Access to Water, Sanitation, and secure Shelter will have to be addressed in the area. But clean-up and lost wages will be longer term issues, which again are best approached through CASH.

Everything I have heard as far as organizing donations for relief have been through the Red Cross. I totally understand not wanting to donate through the big 'corporation' types but from out of state, either the Red Cross or the Food Bank link provided by natedom above would be your best bet. Churches who gather donations to send to other local churches in the effected area also usually do well. With the Red Cross though they will get the money and supply what is needed, when it is needed. Like Bill said...water first. If I can find out any other specific sites set up for donations that are more local I'll shoot you a message with a link. Anything you do will be appreciated!

Thank you all so much for your help and suggestions. I'll peruse these links and a check will go out this week. Together we can try to make a difference for Americans who have been through so much for years now and it just continues. My Prayers are with Louisiana.

chefaz....I've sent emails to each of the local news stations asking for them to compile and post a listing of places accepting donations locally....if anything comes of it I'll be sure to pass it along. I explained to them that people from out of state who want to help may possibly already be going to their website looking for information and it would be helpful to all if they posted a list. Crossing my fingers!

Links to local places for donation:

St. Joseph The Worker Church - Pierre Part, LA - This is in the middle of the flood zone and if you are familiar with the TV show Swamp People, this is also where Troy Landry calls home... http://sjworker.org/

Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge was also recommended by a local news anchor because they do a ton of work to help during disaters....I don't see a link specific to donating for the flooding but you can contact them about it.. http://www.healingplacechurch.org/

St Vincent De Paul in Baton Rouge....they run a shelter as well as a dining hall for those displaced by disasters... http://www.svdpbr.org/

If I run across any more I will be sure to post them. If I had to pick between the 3 I would try to donate to St Joseph The Worker...Pierre Part is directly in the line of water and is a very cool town full of extremely hard working folks. The type that wouldn't ask for help. Look up the history of the town...it's a really neat place.

StangSalie - this is great. This is exactly the kind of information that I was looking for to help the people of this area. I can't thank you enough. I will divide what I had planned to give between your three charities. Another viner, Levi777, after reading these threads sent me this link directly and I'm going to include it here since this covers a multitude of different needs throughout the country.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/?gclid=CPPvl6P27agCFUkZQgodqjKlEQ

Now if only MSNBC (and the rest of the national media) will get out to these organizations and get some stories featured about them and how they are helping so that the rest of the country will become a little more aware.

forgot to mention i took your advice and checked out Pierre Part here on line. :)

Do some research.....that isn't the case. I live between Baton Rouge and New Orleans and work in Baton Rouge a few blocks from the river. New Orleans is by far not their only concern. There are many many small towns between Baton Rouge and New Orleans that could be inundated with water if the levees breach or if they are overtopped. Not to mention the back ups created with all the rivers and bayous connecting into the river that could hit towns farther away from the river...including the town I live in. This isn't just New Orleans...there is much much more at stake. I wish people who weren't from here would read up on these things instead of popping off after reading the National News that barely covers the story. You're taking information from a news source that gave more attention to the Royal Wedding than they did the tornado devastation in AL, GA and TN as if it is the gospel. Go to a local Baton Rouge or New Orleans news station website and read up on what is actually going on....instead of what the National News deems to be the most entertaining.

StangSalie - Some people will just never get it. Relax. I firmly believe that most of us do understand that there are many nuances to this situation, just as there were when everyone was up in arms about sacrificing Missouri farmland to save "Cairo". It really wasn't about Cairo, it was about numerous communities up and down the Mississippi.

Only the loudmouth NOLA haters refuse to see the big picture here. Let them spew their hatred. They aren't worth your time and frustration...all they want to do is hate, not help.

salie..you right...but unfortunatly i have to agree with lyndsey...a rare occasion in itself.....some people only post, and dont think or read first.

Please listen to Stangsallie

I'm giving up.....I've worn myself out trying to explain it to those who really don't care to understand...they just need something to b!tch about this week....next week it will be something else they know nothing about. Thanks to those who do get it! I appreciate you!

I agree with you StangSalie. Its as if when they open Morganza, the flood of idiots also came out.

What's really going to suck is if they go to all this trouble of inundating these rural areas only to have New Orleans and Baton Rouge flood anyway.

THX,

Actually, the real concerns that Sallie has tried to emphasize are oil refineries, metals processing plants, plastics plants, river ports, and similar industries built ON THE RIVER to utilize the RIVER and OCEAN PORT system that is the Mississippi River. Closing the river due to a tanker spill (it hit a bridge abutment) cost an estimated $274mil a day in lost business to not only Louisiana, but the the country as a whole. An unrelieved flood would cost billions in business, on top of tens or hundreds of billions in real damage, and would affect the WHOLE country.

They've already had several barges break loose and go sailing down the river on their own....hitting a bridge before they were stopped. The height of the river isn't the only problem either....it's the strength and speed of the current. These are massive barges it just slung around like a bath toy. Had they not been stopped they could have easily slammed into a tanker causing another spill like the one Bill mentioned above. There are so many things to take into consideration with all this decision. People just see New Orleans and have this knee jerk reaction to it without really fully understanding what is happening.

Oops....I said I wasn't going to do this anymore. Ya sucked me back in!

I need to preface this by saying I was a McCain supporter but the Obama Administration is being the pro-active administration that the Bush Administration SHOULD have been. What they're doing is a tough call and I doubt it's to save a voting base. Maybe my GOP pals believe that but hopefully the world is not as paranoid and fearful as most of them. There is no win/win solution. Maybe the real fault here is that the weather change was named 'global warming' because most folks only see the world around them and don't think globally. Everyone but the people with aluminum caps realizes that there is change. Pretending it's a myth or listening to the talkinghead entertainers is simply delaying the inevitable. THese folks need all the help we can muster and so do the people devastated by previous climatalogical events. The genie won't go back in the bottle people, and if you look real close, you'll find there IS no bottle.

You have literally no clue what you are talking about New Orleans has its own flood gates and no storm surge to contend with the army corps of engineers is trying to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people...in fact I can guarantee they are, there are tons of small towns that would be flooded out(thousands and thousands) mostly white people by the way

I can't stand to see "It's Bush's fault" comments when it comes to Katrina. That mess was a complete break-down of local and state gov'ts. Pictures of acres of school buses roof-deep in water because people thought they were too good to ride in a school bus. Or the "We don't have licensed drivers for them." BS excuse. If you would have read the article Kevin McGonigal, there are refineries and chemical plants, that if flooded and forced to shut down, would turn into an economy problem(we sure don't need any more excuses for gas to go up). And possibly an enviromental problem also. Flooding rural areas is just the lesser of two evils(alot lesser). Besides, why let it flood a city where there could be loss of life because someone is too lazy to leave.

Jeremy-664722-

Thank you for your post! It has always been, city, county, state and then Federal when asked for natural disasters! I was in Florida when Andrew hit and the Federal Government didn't even get there until 4 days after it hit. The biggest issue was that the then Governor of LA did not want Federsl help and until the state asks for help, the Federal Government can not just step in.

Think of it like this, local law enforcement has a serial killer on the loose, until the local law enforcement asks the FBI for help, the FBI can not just step in, unless it is determined to cross state-lines.

I remember watching the news the night of Katrina and there were IDIOTS partying in the hotels having hurricane parties! Really, you want me to have sympathy for that.

As for this disaster, my prayers are with those who are losing everything because of this, but I also have to wonder, if you get a letter every year, do you not try to prepare to some extent, flood insurance, flood walls, something or like Katrina, ignore the warnings, because they have come before and nothing has happened?!?!?! My thought, better to prepare and be safe.

Flood insurance is probably outrageous, if not impossible to get. They're(Army Corps of Engineers) talking about twenty foot of water in places. The average hieght for a single story home is 14.

@Jeremy - the 20 foot quote is misleading. I am assuming this is above the normal level of the river, typically, it has to rise significantly higher than that before it reaches flood stage and starts hitting houses and what not, as most people don't build their houses right on the river.

As I read your post, sadly, I am forced to believe that racism is alive and well in this country. How sad for you and all the others like you to harbor so much hate for a man who has dedicated the past two years of triving to fix one mess or another. None of which were brought on by him. I am pleased to see that at least the administration and the army corp. of engineers had a plan. Was it the best plan? Who can ever be sure.

Hey great idea! I will pass your message along...

Where should they move? You can give me a specific place please, a town name? But there needs to be a "job" for them so maybe you can email a list of job openings available.

Oh and I didnt read where the man who actually opened the spill way and is causing the flood in these small towns was named "nature". I would like to read that article, where can I find it?

Since you say this flood is caused by Nature, I figured that the actual person who is opening the spill way must be named "Nature".

If our cajuns have paid as much taxes as me and my husband have paid out through the years the government should give some of it back in a case like this.

erinleigh6,

Can you name the MAN responsible for the Ohio River valley receiving near record snows last winter, along with an extra 30-36" of rain this spring? BTW, the local forecast of the Ohio for this week, four more days of rain.

Obviously, this must really be Al Roker's fault, since I'm sure you think that TV weather reporters actually control the weather.

Or maybe it is the fault of the hundreds of thousands living on the other side of the spillway. You know, the ones contributing $100's of billions to the economy each year. And by the way, where are the thanks for the flood protection for the last 30+ years that these Cajuns received. I guess they should have been intentionally flooded routinely, just to keep their annual Corp of Engineer's warning real in their minds.

Because it was set up for this after 1973. This is part of their agreement to live there. Missouri also lost. They knew this could happen and have known it forever. These are part of the choices they made to live and farm there. If you look at the pictures you will see that the river is almost to the top of all the levees.

Fairs are where pigs win ribbons.

@Siara Dalyn, are you completely unaware of the flooding that the Midwest has been experiencing since March? Unfortunately, the water has to run South at some point. It is mid-May and the farmers in MN, IA and WI still haven't been able to plant due to the flooding.

If shes not allowed to be depressed about whats happening to her, your not allowed to gloat about it.

These areas in Louisiana do not flood every few years. This is historical flooding. One for the history books.......

It's like condemning people for living in Tornado Alley or those who survived the Dust Bowl. Let's condemn Californians for living in a quake zone or near a forested area. Maybe we should all move to Idaho...

People can live anywhere they choose as long as they buy insurance for potential disasters.

tim

Maybe we should all move to Idaho...

wont work. 2 reasons off the top of my head

1.Forest fires

2.ever hear of that filthy four letter word that started all this flooding?...you know....snow..............................:)

Some of us like snow. I like pictures of it.

I don't understand why people live in areas prone to tornadoes, or fault lines, or devastating snow storms, or tsunami's, or droughts, or nuclear reactors..... blah, blah, blah!

It is amazing to me how people can say this crap, feeling all superior until the day comes that a disaster comes knocking on their doors. Funny how every single location on the planet is prone to some kind of catastrophe be it natural or man-made.

Most of the people being flooded right now DO NOT live in a "flood plain". New orleans is a flood plain... My House located in Morgan City LA (yeah, the one they keep talking about on TV) is well ABOVE sea level. Will that fact stop my house from flooding? Only if the government decides to stop playing God and allows nature to run its course instead of building spillways.

No. We DO NOT get notices every year stating that we live in a flood plain and should be prepared to buy flood insurance and move my every possession to another location.

Boy some people on here give stupid a whole new meaning!

Actually, this year's flood is as much about rain as it is about snow. The Ohio River valley has received between 30-36" of excess rain so far this year. That equals about 30 feet of snow. Everything was already saturated from the snow melt, so it all has gone downstream. BTW, the mid-valley forecast is for four more days of rain this week. We can measure sunlight in hours per week, and may not have to remove our shoes to count that high.

UPDATE,

Monday, I heard NPR talking about widespread flooding in SE Montana. The governor was talking about a late snow melt and a snow-pack nearly 4x deeper than usual as being the chief problem. Unfortunately, this just means more water downstream in a month or so. The life lost so far and property lost have been lost in the misery of the Mississippi rive, Tuscaloosa, Joplin and now Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kansas.

BTW, sitting in the middle of the source of the Mississippi misery, the Ohio River Valley, more thunderstroms and brief heavy rain this night and more coming. We may have FOUR days of sun next week, this will be a new record since February. But, our tornado warning just expired. Good morning!!!

The Mississippi floods every year, some years more than others.

The Refineries and oil infrastructre were build on the Mississippi, because it's the gateway to the mid west.

your thirst for oil has allowed the Army Corp of Engineers to divert the Mississippi over the last 50 years and change its natural behaviour. This is why lower Louisiana has been so much more prone to flooding; beit via Katrina or other.

just how do you beleive the majority of grain is transported in this country? i got news for you, it isn't by truck or train. its by barge DOWN the river, not to mention the tons of other things in and out of a major port. Guess those of us on the river are just ignorant or have moral issues though according to you. Think about that when you drive to the store as well as when you are having a nice dinner.

TruthHurst the levee system you are refering to was actually originally built in the 1800's after the Civil War to prevent the Mouth of the Mississippi from silting up which prevented vessels from traveling up the Mississipp. It has nothing to do with the thirst for oil. I also hate to tell you this that many of the people living in S Louisiana moved there after this country was formed, study some history. As for the spillway that whole area from just east of Lafayette to the Pearl River (MS-LA border) is part of the Mississippi River flood plain. In fact over the past hundred years or so the Mississippi has been trying to switch over to flowing down the Atchafalaya River Basin.

kriley

Right on! The people of both New Orleans and along the Atchafalaya have been living on borrowed time via the floodgates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atchafalaya_Basin

I am of the opinion we should look to allowing the Mississippi to shift into the Achafalaya now (as in within 25 years). It would reduce the river to ocean path by at least 100 miles.

And how would we move all those refineries?

I live near the Ohio river at a mid-point between Louisville and Cincinatti. The Ohio carries more freight per year here that the Panama Canal. The numbers only increase down river.

The typical tow here is only about the size of one or two barges on the Mississippi. A large tow here is 9-12 barges, primarily due to the serpentine nature of the Ohio. Tows on the Mississippi are more like 16-24 barges, primarily limited by the locks at dams.

The Achafalaya probably is not sustainable as a shipping channel, or it would have been developed by now. The Corp tried to "channelize" the Missouri to improve shipping; and they created a river with a 7-9 mph current, too fast for tow boats in a narrow channel. Just remember, Nature always wins. It is just a question of what cards you want to put on the table.

@country gal

There ARE refineries on the Atchafalya.

The operating refineries in Louisiana account for approximately 16 percent of the nation's refining capacity.

http://www.lmoga.com/refinerylist.html

@Bill Marvel

The Atchafalaya River is navigable and provides a significant industrial shipping channel for the state of Louisiana, as well as the cultural heart of the Cajun Country. The maintenance of the river as a navigable channel of the Mississippi River has been a significant project of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for over a century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atchafalaya_River

RainDaze,

I did not mean to disrespect the Atchafalaya basin. However, saying the basin is the heart of Cajun Country to the rest of the US is like saying N.O. is the heart of Louisiana.

How much development exists on "The Old River" vs. N.O. and Baton Rouge, and all points to and between?

A BIGGER QUESTION IS: What would happen if the Mississippi returned to "The Old River"? Would it be like the Missouri after the ACE channelized it? Currents too swift to safely navigate?

I deeply feel for the flood victims in Cajun Country. I lived through and drove by the Great Flood of 1994 in Iowa, Illinois, Missouri and points south. The area I live in was hugely affected in the 1937 floods. I personally have always been gifted to live on high ground, but my wife was flooded out of her home as a girl. I have known many others flooded out of homes and farms. I know that the nightmare does not begin until the water actually goes down to "normal". The vermin, the smell, the muck and the filth. and for farmers, fields drowened out or stripped bare, or baried in sand. I am sorry. I can only offer you and yours my prayers.

People need to do their homework and don't look to the government to hold your hand, because it won't.

A realtor must reveal if a property is in a flood zone, and most mortgages require flood insurance in that case.

Tim,

your right not only Realtors, every bank i have done business with requires it should the property fall in the 100 year flood plain. and even then many if not most Banks wont loan money as they also don't trust insurance people any more then we do.

Flood insurance is not a federal requirement. The NFIP exists to provide insurance at deeply subsidized rates to those who live in floodplains. Without the Federal program, there would be no flood insurance as the insurance companies would not accept the risk. So, saying the federal government (read all of us citizens) should help those in flood prone areas pay their flood insurance is adding subsidy to subsidy.

Sadly, many folks who pay off their mortgage let their flood insurance lapse and with it their options for the future if a flood occurs.

I will not agree to compensate ANYONE with tax dollars. THis is America and WE all have CHOICES; choose to live in "the place where I grew up" is childish, and selfish and just plain redneck. I feel bad for the "innocent lives impacted". I wonder how many businesses will ask for Federal help after the way they have blasted, insulted, degraded the President...inspite of THEIR pettiness, HE rises above it all and will share to help those affected.

We already Know what and how the GOP feels about the darker members of our society, so in the words of my dearly departed Pops: you only have to piss on an electric fence ONCE, unless you're stupid

Keep paying those taxes stedums, we need to rebuild faulty destroyed areas all over the country and cant do it without your help. Thanks again Citizen.

Stedums is quite the bigot...

Also, the President is not the all powerful OZ, the programs to help have been in place for decades.

stedums-- So the Cajuns settle in S Louisiana in the 1700s, living in the low country in houses built on stilts to handle the occasional low-level flooding, & along comes the US Army Corps of Engineers in the 1950s. The Corps builds a levee & floodgate system designed to flood Cajun lands with up to 30 feet of water-- far more than Cajun building systems can handle. The US gov't offers no compensation to help Cajun families relocate, & most Cajuns are too poor to do so on their own. Yet you would refuse federal assistance to these families whose homes that they've lived in for over 200 years have been destroyed-- not by a natural disaster-- but by a deliberate gov't decision?

I fully realize that the US gov't is in dire financial straits, but I live in a world of "you break it-- you fix it." The US gov't has broken Cajun Louisiana. Good decision, bad decision-- whatever. They broke it-- they need to fix it. Compensate the freaking Cajuns, not because they "chose" to live in a flood plain-- but because the US gov't turned it into a flood plain.

There's a huge difference between 6 feet of water & 30.

The spillways were constructed to be used in case of a situation as this...

you don't know what you are talking about read up on the situation and realize that New Orleans was built 400 years ago before detailed flood info was available further more its one of the most important ports in the world, and also the gates are being opened to save many small towns not just a few communities with a few hundred residents

so your not a "hater" huh? then you launch a rant on politics. leaving aside for a moment this is an article on F-L-O-O-D-I-N-G. can you say hypocrite?

Tim W -

FEMA is used after the disaster, not before. Has always been this way. Usually the only way the Federal Government can help a state in a natural disaster is when asked.

Then why aren't they asking? Didn't take them long to ask the last administration. Something stinks.

So, you're not a hater? Then why are you blaming the Republicans? You are probably one of those that blamed Katrina on Bush. It's nature!

Sadly, Danny, you may be right.

Naomi Klein wrote a book called The Shock Doctrine. In it she shows how again and again people have taken advantage of a disaster, natural or otherwise, for personal and/or corporate gain. I call those people Shock Doctors.

Your "they" are my Shock Doctors. What they are doing is greedy, selfish and morally wrong, but nobody seems to be willing or able to stop them.

Keep talking about them! I think they will be stopped only when enough people realize what they are doing and demand that measures be taken to put an end to their predations

.

I read that book, a good example you speak of is the war on terror. The nullification of personal liberties for the fight against terror. The TSA does these ridiculous body pat downs and it makes everyone feel safer but the real threat are the thousands of cargo containers that get in to this country without being properly screened. We have the war agaist drugs but the budget for that has increased every year since Nixon started it. You have the DEA and feds quoting that 90% of the drugs in the world come from (name country here) and there is not definite way to determine that. Perception and reality are two different things.

Meh.

Seriously....you don't think 300 years ago Cajuns didn't have the basic knowledge to know that if you live near a river bank the rivers may flood? Egyptians living along the Nile figured that out about 4000 years ago, the Chinese along the Yangtze about 5000 years ago, and the Sumerians between the Tigris and Euphrates about 6000 year ago. Don't you realize that it is PRECISELY these floods which make the soil near the riverbanks so good for farming and thus desirable? Do you not realize that the Cajuns 300 years ago were only building semi-permanent structures because they KNEW the flooding was going to hit them at times? It was an exercise in futility when the Army Corps of Engineers, ACTING ON BEHALF OF THE VERY PEOPLE NOW BEING FLOODED, decided to build the dams/levees/canals in an attempt to spare many of these farms from 2-3 floods per decade (although they have successfully reduced it to 2-3 floods per century instead). This just allowed the people to forget what used to be a regular occurance and turned it into a generational one. Now they don't get the flood insurance and play the betting game that they can make it through their 30-40 years of homeownership before the next flood wipes them out.

Unintended Consequences, great post. You hit the nail right on the head.

siara...ahem... I am a conservative that in NO way blames these people for their misfortune. I could assume and generalize from YOUR post that you are a "typical, mean spirited" liberal. But, I am one that believes that empathy is not restricted to one political party. YOU are proof of that.

The Army Corps of Engineers assures them everything is going to be the same. Richer people downstream become concerned about flooding. The Army Corps of Engineers opens the dam and destroys the Cajun's home on the new riverbank.

Then you brainless, gloating "conservatives" call the Cajuns stupid for living in a flood plain. What a miserable excuse for human beings you nasty creeps are. And how corrupt.

You could not be more wrong. Anyone building in the Atchafalaya Basin knew this day would come - just not when. No one promised them otherwise. And the fact that they chose NOT to purchase flood insurance (which is a government-subsidized bargain) earns them no sympathy from me. I paid for flood insurance when I lived in New Orleans.

Oh - and as to protecting the "rich"? Does anyone remember that we we discussing just the opposite after Katrina???

As far as being brainless - you have demonstrated that in your posts. So, using your analogies, I guess we could apply the terms "miserable excuse", "nasty", "creep", and "corrupt" to you.

nice could not be said better

I guess it doesn't help when the river route was diverted to make that area into a flood plain.

Everyone seems to not do research before they leave comments.

While your sentiments might be heartfelt they lack the ooomph because no research was done before it was made.

If money can be spent to rebuild countries we deliberately blow up, why not spend money to help people in THIS country that are driven from their homes by government action, albeit action that is necessary to reduce overall damage?