My name is Fred.

I had a house. It was destroyed by this big predictable hurricane called Katrina. After Katrina I asked you for money and took that money to rebuild my house exactly as it stood before. Even though it happened once, it couldn’t happen again. But now there is another hurricane coming called Gustav, so I’m evacuating again. I’m gonna come hang out with you for a little while, and before I go back will probably need some cash to rebuild my house again. No actually, I’m going to demand the cash, and then blame the hurricane on you.

That is what I imagine New Orleans residents are saying to FEMA right now, which I don’t understand. How can you build an entire city in a below-sea-level area, in a hurricane-prone area, with sub-par levees? The argument that Katrina was an extraordinary storm are just wrong. Katrina was a strong hurricane, but its not like Andrew wasn’t as bad, or a number of other storms that have hit in the four decades since the construction of the levee system. NOLA rolled the dice for 40 years and when it finally got unlucky it decided to call on FEMA / our government … to rebuild it.

Now here is the thing. You would think that that money would go towards a) building the sickest sea wall ever or b) moving out. However, the levee system is not nearly enough to stop another hurricane (like Gustav) or anything else for that matter until up until 2011. What? How does it take 6 years to throw some dirt on a hill. I know thats an extreme exaggeration but you think a little bit more effort would go into fortifying an entire city. So, 15 billion is going into a ‘plan’ to re-protect the city, but only 20% of that is done and the rest won’t be done for some time.

I wouldn’t rebuild a house there. In 2008 there are expected to be 8  hurricanes that hit the US, 4 of which will be major hurricanes, along with 15 tropical storms (because parts of the levee may not hold up to that).  Note that these are on the east coast (since on the West they are tsunamis), and that the Gulf of Mexico is sort of Hurricane Alley. So any resident of NOLA is rolling the dice that between 2005 and 2011 (6 years), that 1 of 48 (predicted) hurricanes will not hit close to the city (because if you remember Katrina wasn’t even a direct hit) . Yikes. Not odds I would bet my livelihood and home on.

While looking up some of these facts I found some other interesting tidbits such as parts of NOLA have sunk 3 feet in the past couple of decades, and some parts quite a bit more than that. Meaning a) the levees are lower than designed and b) the future of the city as a whole is seriously in doubt. Yikes, again.

So, it is with the above statements that I kind ask my government to not send my money to New Orleans this time around, that they can keep it and use it for other things, like re-painting the white house pink for Obama’s daughters…

P.S. Why stay in NOLA anyways? It sorta sucks outside the French Quarter, and really, you can move that anywhere. I hope I get hate mail.