hastert has a point.
Dennis Hastert is going to get a lot of grief for his recent remarks concerning rebuilding efforts in New Orleans. Let me be the first to defend him.
In an article released by the AP, Hastert said there are "some real tough questions to ask. How do you go about rebuilding this city? What precautions do you take?"
Asked in the interview whether it made sense to spend billions rebuilding a city that lies below sea level, he replied, "I don't know. That doesn't make sense to me."
Whether or not I agree with his sentiment, I think it's important that every avenue is examined once the search and rescue mission is completed.
Of course, Knee-Jerk Nation is going to beat on him (unfairly, I might add). But let's be real for a minute. New Orleans is built in a sub-sea level bowl. This wasn't even a direct hit. Imagine what might've happened had Katrina hit it head-on. The levees, so I've read, were not built to withstand anything about a Category 3 hurricane.
In the end I do believe New Orleans will be rebuilt. But it needs to be rebuilt stronger. Once and for all, I would love to see someboday in authority think pragmatically! So Hastert is right to raise the question.
In the meantime, perhaps civic leaders and elected officials on the local, state and federal level will finally wake up and begin working toward more capable disaster recovery plans. I don't blame Bush for this, of course. But I do think he and most others on the federal level were once again slow to respond to an imminent threat of disaster.
Perhaps the Bush administration will begin to listen to FEMA, who back in early 2001 predicted three cataclysmic scenarios that would seriously hurt the U.S.:
* Terrorist attack in NYC
* Earthquake in San Francisco
* Hurricane in New Orleans
When I hear about situations like this, I seriously lose what little faith I have in our elected officials -- ALL of them!
In an article released by the AP, Hastert said there are "some real tough questions to ask. How do you go about rebuilding this city? What precautions do you take?"
Asked in the interview whether it made sense to spend billions rebuilding a city that lies below sea level, he replied, "I don't know. That doesn't make sense to me."
Whether or not I agree with his sentiment, I think it's important that every avenue is examined once the search and rescue mission is completed.
Of course, Knee-Jerk Nation is going to beat on him (unfairly, I might add). But let's be real for a minute. New Orleans is built in a sub-sea level bowl. This wasn't even a direct hit. Imagine what might've happened had Katrina hit it head-on. The levees, so I've read, were not built to withstand anything about a Category 3 hurricane.
In the end I do believe New Orleans will be rebuilt. But it needs to be rebuilt stronger. Once and for all, I would love to see someboday in authority think pragmatically! So Hastert is right to raise the question.
In the meantime, perhaps civic leaders and elected officials on the local, state and federal level will finally wake up and begin working toward more capable disaster recovery plans. I don't blame Bush for this, of course. But I do think he and most others on the federal level were once again slow to respond to an imminent threat of disaster.
Perhaps the Bush administration will begin to listen to FEMA, who back in early 2001 predicted three cataclysmic scenarios that would seriously hurt the U.S.:
* Terrorist attack in NYC
* Earthquake in San Francisco
* Hurricane in New Orleans
When I hear about situations like this, I seriously lose what little faith I have in our elected officials -- ALL of them!
