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What a crock!
So many of you who are indecisive to negative about rebuilding are surely not suggesting the entire country of the Netherlands and the city of Venice should be evacuated and allowed to flood, resettling the entire country and letting the population and architecture of a major city in Italy be left to essentially "die"?
It only took 5 months, (I'd like to think they read my Email of Sept. 12th on calling the Dutch; it just took them awhile, we're on Southern time out here y'all)but they finally had a pow-wow with Dutch engineers.
Proper levees and dam structures make rebuilding absolutely viable. The ULI and Joe Canizaro, an "Italian businessman" type land developer want to redesign the city without its 300 year ancestral African and Creole families. The looooooong delay in allowing anyone to salvage their belongings had NOTHING to do with safety. Many of the apartments were above the flood line. Everything was STILL thrown out because it SAT for 3 months. More than 1800 public housing units with minimal damage are sitting empty while FEMA pays for ocean liners to board workers. You have NO idea unless you come down here and see with your own eyes.
As for toxic waste; they aren't worried about toxic waste! There are 390 petro-chemical plants in this area! This has been a superfund cleanup site for the last 30 years...or it should be.)
And my final observation is regarding WHY were people evacuated thousands of miles away? There are 4.5 million people in this entire state. Lots of vacant land for many apartments, trailers, permanent federal housing developments. How many units do you suppose could have been built for the $40 BILLION spent on temporary housing? My God, this country is in a major mess. Who IS running this asylum?
God Help America!
Anne Gabriel
Baton Rouge LA
