09-02-2005, 06:57 PM
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/ne...t_id=1001051313
I urge anyone interested in the problems caused by the breaching of the Lake Ponchartrain levees to read the article by Mr Bunch. New Orleans is not the only city that relies on major infrastructure to function in its present form.
When reading the article, consider the following points of interest.
1. An expensive war was undertaken AND tax cuts were implemented at the same time. (This still irritates me, has since the tax cuts were announced in the wake of the decision to go to war.) This decision was a risk, taken for political reasons, under the expectation that the debt/debt burden could be overcome over time. That by itself may not be a bad thing, all decisions have their risks, but there is NO free lunch.
2. Short term impacts of Guns And Butter is that short term budgets/revenues are curtailed, which requires spending austerity measures in the fiscal year execution. Projects funded and budgeted all of a sudden get "zero funds" assigned to them. Having been under the federal programming and budget execution rubric for over 20 years, I know all to well how things "just dry up" that were planned and budgeted years prior. It comes with a cost to operations, to function.
3. No one can be certain that had some of the Army Corps of Engineer projects, which appear to have been under a 10-20 year time line after the 1995 floods, remained funded, they would have prevented all of the damage to the Lake Ponchartrain water control system, but it is probable that the failure/breech would not have been as catastrophic. That is speculation, however, and cannot be proven as far as I know. It is also water under the bridge, or over the levee as it were.
4. Consider: even if the levee could not have been saved via repair and maintenance projects over the past few years, the direct impact of the LANG 256th Brigade (5000 men the Governor could not mobilize) and their current deployment in Iraq. They are based in Fort Polk, LA. You will hear quite a bit about this before it is all over.
5. Some of the Katrina mess is bad timing, of course. How powerful a hurricane will be at land fall is extremely hard for the meteorolgists to predict. (Oh, but we can surely be certain that global warming is purely man caused? Right.)
Very good piece on the Discovery Channel last night on how the Chimney effect in the Gulf of Mexico gives some hurricanes a little "steroid shot" as they head north and west. Those uncertainties are why FEMA exists and disaster preparedness plans have to be in place in any major urban center. I have been familiar with Disaster Prep Plans since Hurricane Gilbert, 1988, on an intimate basis. They still have to be adjusted when they meet with an actual disaster, as no plan survives contact intact.
6. In the the next few weeks as all the finger pointing and posturing fire up, which they surely shall -- no one avoids a political opportunity when presented with one -- consider the complexity of modern urban based society and how expensive it is to sustain the infrastructure to keep it going. Consider how the two decades long "reduction in government" movement has slowly cost many municipalities the political cost of having to increase taxes, particularly property and sales taxes, to fund significant infrastructure programs.
There is no free lunch.
Pretty much everything costs something, other than sunlight, love, and thanks.
If you don't keep your car's fundamental components maintained, it will break down. If you don't keep a society's infrastructure maintained, your society will break down.
Two classic cases are Cumae, Italy/Rome, and Pestum, both of which basically died out from malaria by the 600's AD once the Roman water works completely broke down due to inattention, and the lands reverted back to undrained, unmanaged, swamp.
As for Mogadishu on the Mississippi™, that speaks for itself. Robert Kaplan wrote a perceptive article in 1993/4 called "The Coming Anarchy." (Atlantic Monthly) What he didn't project, I don't think, was conditions that would trigger the same sort of symptoms within a modern, western country.
Locally, we just shipped five pallets of food and drinking water, from donations collected at the high school my daughter attends, via the State of Texas EMA, up north to whoever needs it. No idea if it is headed for the Astrodome, or NO, or Mississipi.
A drop in the bucket.
Occhi
I urge anyone interested in the problems caused by the breaching of the Lake Ponchartrain levees to read the article by Mr Bunch. New Orleans is not the only city that relies on major infrastructure to function in its present form.
When reading the article, consider the following points of interest.
1. An expensive war was undertaken AND tax cuts were implemented at the same time. (This still irritates me, has since the tax cuts were announced in the wake of the decision to go to war.) This decision was a risk, taken for political reasons, under the expectation that the debt/debt burden could be overcome over time. That by itself may not be a bad thing, all decisions have their risks, but there is NO free lunch.
2. Short term impacts of Guns And Butter is that short term budgets/revenues are curtailed, which requires spending austerity measures in the fiscal year execution. Projects funded and budgeted all of a sudden get "zero funds" assigned to them. Having been under the federal programming and budget execution rubric for over 20 years, I know all to well how things "just dry up" that were planned and budgeted years prior. It comes with a cost to operations, to function.
3. No one can be certain that had some of the Army Corps of Engineer projects, which appear to have been under a 10-20 year time line after the 1995 floods, remained funded, they would have prevented all of the damage to the Lake Ponchartrain water control system, but it is probable that the failure/breech would not have been as catastrophic. That is speculation, however, and cannot be proven as far as I know. It is also water under the bridge, or over the levee as it were.
4. Consider: even if the levee could not have been saved via repair and maintenance projects over the past few years, the direct impact of the LANG 256th Brigade (5000 men the Governor could not mobilize) and their current deployment in Iraq. They are based in Fort Polk, LA. You will hear quite a bit about this before it is all over.
5. Some of the Katrina mess is bad timing, of course. How powerful a hurricane will be at land fall is extremely hard for the meteorolgists to predict. (Oh, but we can surely be certain that global warming is purely man caused? Right.)
Very good piece on the Discovery Channel last night on how the Chimney effect in the Gulf of Mexico gives some hurricanes a little "steroid shot" as they head north and west. Those uncertainties are why FEMA exists and disaster preparedness plans have to be in place in any major urban center. I have been familiar with Disaster Prep Plans since Hurricane Gilbert, 1988, on an intimate basis. They still have to be adjusted when they meet with an actual disaster, as no plan survives contact intact.
6. In the the next few weeks as all the finger pointing and posturing fire up, which they surely shall -- no one avoids a political opportunity when presented with one -- consider the complexity of modern urban based society and how expensive it is to sustain the infrastructure to keep it going. Consider how the two decades long "reduction in government" movement has slowly cost many municipalities the political cost of having to increase taxes, particularly property and sales taxes, to fund significant infrastructure programs.
There is no free lunch.
Pretty much everything costs something, other than sunlight, love, and thanks.
If you don't keep your car's fundamental components maintained, it will break down. If you don't keep a society's infrastructure maintained, your society will break down.
Two classic cases are Cumae, Italy/Rome, and Pestum, both of which basically died out from malaria by the 600's AD once the Roman water works completely broke down due to inattention, and the lands reverted back to undrained, unmanaged, swamp.
As for Mogadishu on the Mississippi™, that speaks for itself. Robert Kaplan wrote a perceptive article in 1993/4 called "The Coming Anarchy." (Atlantic Monthly) What he didn't project, I don't think, was conditions that would trigger the same sort of symptoms within a modern, western country.
Locally, we just shipped five pallets of food and drinking water, from donations collected at the high school my daughter attends, via the State of Texas EMA, up north to whoever needs it. No idea if it is headed for the Astrodome, or NO, or Mississipi.
A drop in the bucket.
Occhi
Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the Men 'O War!
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete