Their Levees - Our Levees(OMG)

[cal04]

And...
Here's how the richest, most powerful and technologically advanced
nation on earth protected against the long-forecasted flooding of New Orleans:




http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0112-15.htm

[rodeodance]

1. just to be fair--Holland holds back the ocean, NO holds back Gulf--but

as a country, Holland has invested in its people.

[Occulus]

4. Isn't the Gulf PART OF the ocean?

:)

edited to add: HOLY CRAP, theirs swing up and down, too?

HOW does THAT work?????

[DefenseLawyer]

11. The levees that broke

hold back Lake Pontchartrain and a series of canals, such as Industrial Canal, which connect the lake to the river, but I'm not exactly sure what difference that makes.

[liberal N proud]

2. Amazing, isn't it? and the band played on

[MountainLaurel]

3. But, but

If we actually invested in our infrastructure, it might mean that some poor CEO involved in the military industrial complex only makes 300 times what his lowest paid worker earns instead of 400.

[SammyWinstonJack]

12. But Pinhead** said just yesterday that he was glad to see that

NO's infrastructure was "back on it's feet". :banghead: Jesus H. Christ, he is so STOOPID!

[long_green]

21. He said that?

Where did he go? We've made some progress but yeesh!

[Zan_of_Texas]

34. it's a matter of priorities.

Funds for Levee Repair & Hurricane Protection.

George W. Bush's budget slashed funds for needed repairs and bolstering of the levee and pump system that had been protecting New Orleans. Over the past few years, these were cuts of 40%, sometimes 80%, as the levee was sinking. This year, with money disappearing into tax cuts that mostly benefited the nation's wealthy, and billions PER WEEK for Iraq, there was a freeze on that budget. One of the main levees that was breached, 17th Street Canal, had repairs underway when the storm came. Had the levees held, arguably most of the damage and human suffering in New Orleans could have been avoided. ("In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Army Corps of Engineers said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness." Early in 2005, "in its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."
--"Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?" E&P, http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313)

"Federal flood control spending for southeastern Louisiana has been chopped from $69 million in 2001 to $36.5 million in 2005, according to budget documents. Federal hurricane protection for the Lake Pontchartrain vicinity in the Army Corps of Engineers' budget dropped from $14.25 million in 2002 to $5.7 million this year. Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu requested $27 million this year." --
Knight-Ridder, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines05/0901-01.htm)

Note: by comparison, an estimate of how much the federal government spends on the war in Iraq is $18 million EACH HOUR.

[Jayhawk Lib]

5. Does Holland have hurricanes?

The NO levees were holding back the gulf but the high intensity storm took them out. I have never heard of a hurricane or cyclone that affected Holland but I may have my head in the sand.

[justabob]

7. They have hellish storms blowing in off the North Sea (?)

Its not hurricanes, but they still get big surges, and Holland is 24 feet under sea level.

on edit:
http://www.sed.uga.edu/people/students/critroom/land3030/leveesdykes.htm

[MountainLaurel]

9. Yes

And, according to this source, regular tides could flood a portion of the country, so they really don't need much of a storm to cause huge damage.

http://wonderclub.com/WorldWonders/ProtectionHistory.html

[txindy]

8. I don't know about hurricanes, but they do have storm troubles

This info. may help:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/08/0829_wiredutch.html

[hatrack]

14. Have you ever heard of De Ramp? The great storm of 1953

Check out this link - interesting.

In February 1953 the Netherlands faced disaster when the dikes protecting the southwest of the country were breached by the joint onslaught of a hurricane-force northwesterly wind and exceptionally high spring tides. The flood came in the night without warning, a fateful combination of freak high tides and gale-force winds that killed 1,835 people. Almost 200,000 hectares of land was swamped, 3,000 homes and 300 farms destroyed, and 47,000 heads of cattle drowned. It was The Netherlands' worst disaster for 300 years.
Flooding caused by storm surges were nothing new to the Netherlands, but this time the nation was stunned by the extent of a disaster unparalleled for centuries.

Emergency aid flowed in from all over the world to help soften the blow to a country only just recovering from war. Ironically enough, the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management had published a policy document only a few days previously detailing plans to prevent precisely this sort of disaster. The document proposed that all the tidal inlets and estuaries in the provinces of Zeeland and South Holland should be dammed. In the light of the disaster, urgent action was taken to implement this plan, known as the 'Delta Project'.

EDIT

http://www.thehollandring.com/1953-ramp.shtml

[uppityperson]

24. The Tide in the Attic by Aleid van Rhijn

Edited to add image. This is a book I had as a child about this. This book, along with The Road to Agra helped shape how I looked at the world, at people in other places doing other things, humanity, world citizenship. Scared me bad also.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/pegkerr/511647.html?mode=reply

The Tide in the Attic
I have a book recommendation for parents who want a good book for talking about this week's events related to Katrina with their kids. It's a book I enjoyed greatly as a child, called The Tide in the Attic, translated from the Dutch by Aleid Van Rhijn (the original Dutch title was Een Helicoter Daalde), illustrated by Margery Gill, translated by A.J. Pomerans, published Criterion 1962, 127 pages.

"When the dikes broke and the water rose higher and higher, Kees, his parents and little sister, Sjaantje, their maid and hired man moved up and up in the house until the only place they could escape from the rising water was the roof. There the six, with the dog and the cat, crouched for a day and a night until they were rescued by helicopter. There are no heroics in this story of the disastrous 1953 flood in Holland; the writing is simple, realistic reporting." (Horn Book Apr/62 p.174)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9999239366/qid=1125902254/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-9885111-1019359?n=507846&s=books&v=glance

[bullwinkle428]

26. It was only a Cat 3 strength when it hit the New Orleans area,

the hardest hit actually took place on the Mississippi Gulf coast; those levees couldn't even handle what could be termed medium-intensity hurricane winds.

[FogerRox]

31. IIRc HOlland had a levee break back in the 1930's that wiped a good

part of land out

[MindPilot]

6. It's just the sacrifice that Americans have to make

so they can blow shit up and kill people. Keeping our money and building infrastructure wouldn't be very Christian now would it?

[pocket]

10. they learned the hard way, just like us

http://www.thehollandring.com/1953-ramp.shtml

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. To be fair, Holland doesn't have to spend a quarter of it GDP

on its military.

Ya gotta choose your battles, ya know.

[MadHound]

15. Neither do we

After all, our military is more powerful than the next twenty eight military forces combined. I think we could cut that number in half, at least, and still have a military sufficient enough to protect our country.

[RaleighNCDUer]

19. Oh, but to do that we'd have to abandon our 700 overseas colonies -

er - bases. How could we dictate to - uh - influence foreign governments without them?

[A Simple Game]

16. That and they have that young boy with the famous finger. n/t

[txindy]

25. Yeah, but the poor little guy must be AWFULLY tired by now

Dontcha think?

:rofl:

[Blue Belle]

17. Yeah... they also didn't have 9 billion dollars...

mysteriously disappear in Iraq either. :eyes:

[Dhalgren]

18. We don't "have to", we choose to...

[TallahasseeGrannie]

20. Really, I am not surprised

that Holland's engineering is superior to Louisiana's. They've had a lot longer to figure it out, first of all. And Louisiana is a lot of things to this country but an engineering mecca it is not.

[Senator]

22. Amazing what the Brits can do with simple Duct Tape

Gaffer, live the dream!

[qanda]

23. Good gracious

I remember seeing larger cinder blocks protecting the green zone in Iraq.

[bullwinkle428]

27. But if we just let government get out of the way, private industry

will figure out a way to take care of us all... :sarcasm:

[hunter]

29. Eat Soylent Green!

Private industry cradle-to-grave service for all Americans brought to you by The Halliburton Green Biscuit Company.

Yes, we really are becoming sort of like the old Soviet Union was.

"Look! We have Laundromats in the United States! They don't have those in Europe. Those poor socialist people in Europe have to wash their clothes in the river. I saw it on Fox News. We invented the washing machine. God Bless America."

[Pirate Smile]

28. Guess where Mary is right now?

Louisiana delegation to study flood control systems in the Netherlands

Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS - U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu is leading a delegation to the Netherlands on Monday to study the flood control systems protecting a nation much farther below sea-level than New Orleans. The Netherlands' ambassador invited Landrieu after Hurricane Katrina broke floodgates and levees, flooding most of New Orleans and all of neighboring St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, she said. The storm's death toll so far is 1,326 in five states, including 1,077 in Louisiana.

"We've had this patchwork, catch-as-catch-can attitude from Washington," said Landrieu, D-La. "What we need to see is a nation that has really made flood protection a priority." House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and others have questioned whether areas 3 to 5 feet below sea level should be rebuilt or returned to marshland. "The Netherlands is 21 feet below sea level," Landrieu said.

The delegation includes political, business and education leaders. Landrieu said the trip will show that "with the right science and the right engineering and the right investment priorities, people can be safe in the United States whether they live below sea level on the coast or on a mountain 3,500 feet above sea level. It's all about the technology, the will and the right priorities."
Holland recently completed a 50-year program to build dams, sea walls, and surge barriers designed to protect the south of the country against almost any storm. It includes twin rotating gates that can seal the mouth of Rotterdam's harbor against a storm surge, and a set of 62 big gates that can close off the Oosterschelde estuary in Zeeland.

The program will start Tuesday in The Hague with a daylong seminar about Dutch water policy. The group's itinerary also includes the Delft hydraulics laboratory, where scaled-down tsunamis can be pitted against model floodwalls, said Landrieu's press secretary, Adam Sharp.

In general, participants arranged their own transportation to and from The Netherlands. A second group, largely from southwestern Louisiana and East Texas, will make a similar trip in March, Landrieu said. "If I have to do a third, I will."

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/nation/13580041.htm

[shireen]

33. Netherlands flood control is amazing!

Discovery Channel had a fascinating documentary about it, "Extreme Engineering: Holland's Barriers to the Sea" (http://shopping.discovery.com/product-39953.html).
Those gates that protect Rotterdam harbor are ingenious. Look for this documentary on Discovery, it's really worth watching.

[Lori Price CLG]

30. It's easier for Bush to blow them up that way, and give Halliburton...

500 million dollars to 'repair' that which they destroyed, and pay Blackwater USA to kill as many poor people/minorities as possible in the flooded regions.

Lori Price

[girl gone mad]

32. That third one is a computer is a computer graphic...

of a levee systesm designed for Venice.

It's never actually been buit, even though they desperately need one, and it isn't likely to be built anytime soon.

[SoCalDem]

35. AND.. they still manage to provide health care and education

for their citizens..:thumbsup: