The Good News is The Government Saved 40 million dollars on not repairing the dike; the bad news:it's going to cost 100 billion dollars to rebuild

While I feel overwhelming compassion for these poor folks who are stranded, who've lost members of their family, had their homes destroyed, and are now flooded with nowhere to turn, I have to ask why the City of New Orleans, the State and the Federal government have been so slow to respond.

Did they not realize that when you inhabit a place immediately next to the water and that place is between ten and eighteen feet below the level of the sea next store that that's not a great place to be. And with all of the best planning, you could be asking for it.

Shouldn't there have been an emergency plan for all contingencies involving the sea spelling out possible rescue alternatives and options?

To me, that seems like living on a cliff in California and then being totally surprised when an earthquake hits. I mean in virtually every environmental and global warming script I've read, it says that the current level of fresh water melt due to global warming caused by burning of fossil fuels will raise the level of ocean water by anywhere from twenty to fifty inches over the next fifty years. That means places like Florida which average a maximum of about twelve inches above sea level are at risk. New Orleans is 10 to 18 feet. Therefore, shouldn't there have been a damn good plan in place.

It seems to me that if that's the best we can do to handle a natural disaster that is inevitable, how are we ever going to prepare and fend off a terrorist attack. If someone wants to know why thinking people's level of confidence in this government is zilch, this should tell them why!....

I'm sorry, but this is a disaster that was coming down the pike; not to believe that it was going to happen at some time or place, was just a question of fooling one's self.

That's my take on our preparedness as a city--which is painfully instructive--and as a nation. . We pour hundreds of billions into weapons and preparedness and where has it gotten us???

Have we as a people stopped thinking? Have our leaders been chosen for their lack of brains? What the Hell is going on here...

The lesson here is clear: Want to save yourself, don't expect the government to even think about a plan: Figure it out yourself and prepare a plan to escape from a government disaster that it will not anticipate or plan for.

Les Aaron