I don't mean to sound like an idiot...so here goes. If Rita hits Galveston as predicted, does N.O. still get a storm surge?. Hell, 3ft is probably the height of a small wave...oye.

I'm fully aware that I'm interjecting politics where it may not belong, but I just wanted to point out that, according to MoveOn's latest mailing, they are indeed blaming Tom DeLay and Karl Rove for the hurricanes.

Hurricane Katrina exposed the rot at the core of the Bush Administration. Folks are seeing the consequences of corruption. Together, we'll work to prevent people like Tom DeLay and Karl Rove, who have betrayed the public trust, from doing so again.

Are there really that many nutty people in this country? Color me naive.

Mark,
With the size and intensity of this storm, I would think so. N.O. will also be receiving some pretty hefty winds since they will be on the northwest side of Rita as it approaches. The updates keep bringing it more northward as well - which just makes it worse for NO - I'd be surprised if the city wasn't flooded again come Saturday.

falze,
The species insanus democratus is not a highly populated species, but what they lack in number they make up for in funding from Soros and great PR.

When I saw the so called levee I almost fell
of my chair!!No wonder the damn thing failed,
I'm used to levee's 40 to 50 ft. high by 80
to 150 ft.wide covered with rip/rap (large rocks)
Ugly and not cheap but they work...

Also, like the species winnus the poohus, insanus democratus are people of "very little brain"....

This time around, the Corps of Engineers is trying something to protect the levee in the canals. They are driving in giant steel paltes that will rise to 14 feet above the water perpendicular to the canal near it's intersection with Lake Ponchatrain. The plates will be buttressed in back against a bridge. The hope is that these plates will stop the surge from the lake entering the canals. It may mean the levee nearest the lake might be overtopped, but it will protect the breaches that they are still repairing. Flooding is flooding, but you get less water over the levee than through it.

You mean no objections from the eco-freaks at EARTH JUSTICE and SIERRA CLUB?

Location beneath sea level surrounded by an Sea of water and a very large lack of brackish water and a very large inland river pushing downward on that locale...does not equal or even balance out with one man-made "levee" system surrounding the location that is still beneath sea level, surrounde by all that water that remains in motion, vulnerable to whatever greater force of wind occurs (and it will and does occur).

It just does not equal any balance. New Orleans should be rebuilt, yes, BUT SOMEWHERE ELSE.

Anyone who wants to go to the French Quarter can be taken there by flat bottom boat or push/pull method by gondoliere. Because we should allow the water to mostly go where it 'wants' to and stop trying to make an oil-rig-in-reverse-suspension out of a city (N.O.).

Think about it. Billions upon billions of dollars, years and years of work later, another Category Five hits and probably will hit N.O. where it is now directly. Storm surges far exceed three feet, as you write here, and will again.

If they can build an inpenetrable levee system (a wall) around New Orleans, there is no excuse for not building a twenty foot inpenetrable wall across our southern border, just take it from New Orleans all the way to San Diego.

...El Paso to San Diego...