If you actually voted for Bush, or live in a state that contributed to his election, feel guilty enough to send at least as much in aid as you’ve received in tax cuts while Bush has been in office, because that money has come–at least in part–from downsizing and marginalizing FEMA, which used to be the kind of agency that could help out with disasters like this.

Thank you for linking this Luis. The original work was done by, of all people, a British friend of mine going to school in Houston. She and I just keep expanding it as we find more places. There really is no excuse at this point if someone doesn’t donate at least a $1. I would hope more, but at least some sort of sign should be made by every person in this country, because next time, it could very well be anywhere, or anyone, who needs the help.

Thank you for this wonderful link. I’d like to pass this on to our military families on Yokosuka, Ikego and Negishi as most want to donate but have been unable to find such a large resource of information. Nothing can make up for the completely criminal lack of initial response from this administration, but perhaps as individuals we can help ease the load.

This fellow is in charge of the army corp of engineers and he makes some interesting comments about Katrina here:

http://www.dod.mil/transcripts/2005/tr20050902-3847.html

YKW, I appreciate that you have a point here, but I don’t think people enjoy being asked to read lengthy documents without having any clue of what they should be looking for. Interesting how? Which part of the document is interesting? What’s the general point?

The window disappeared, so I’m typing again.

The General in charge of the US Corp of Engineers said that the New Orleans levee system was rated for a category 3 huricane and that the probability of a direct hit from a >4 each year is 1 in 200; and that is why more money was not spent upgrading the levee to a cat 4+ structure.

Perhaps they made a mistake in this 1 out of 200 calculation. Perhaps they did not model what happens when a cat 4 hits 200 miles away, which is more likely than 1 out of 200 each year (direct hit from cat 4). My guess is the scientists did not do a good job here.

This talks about Katrina further and say that upgrading the levee system to a cat 4 would cost approx $1 Billion. This does not seem like much if the damage is $100B.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina