Patricia
Konie - victim of
NEW ORLEANS LOCAL INCOMPETENT ADMINISTRATION
The Hurricane that
hit New Orleans in 2005 was a huge storm - but not
the most intense
of the season. At sea, it was rated a category 5 - the
most intense category.
However, by the time it actually hit the city, it had
begun to slow down
and was only rated as a category 3 by the weather
service.
The wind did a modest
amount of damage in the city. But, the storm surge
created by this
200 mile diameter storm moved through two natural channels
called "Rigolets
and Chef Menteur" which connect the Gulf of Mexico with
Lake Pontchartrain
allowing massive amounts of salt water to pass through
and on into the
City, pretty much destroying most of it.
Forty years earlier,
hurricane Betsy (1965) did an enormous amount of
damage to "The big
Easy". After "Betsy", there was a consensus that
something more than
levees must be constructed to protect the city.
With the backing
of Louisiana's congressional delagation and the levee
board of New Orleans
(both of which were predominently Democrat),
the US Army Engineers
proposed large steel and concrete gates to be
built primarily
in the water to block the storm surge. These gates were
to operate pretty
much like the "sea gates" which are used in The Netherlands
to protect against
North Sea storms.
See:
www.geerts.com/holland/holland-modern
They would be activated
only during a storm to close the two main channels
which allowed the
storm surge to enter the lake and then the city, according
to Joe Towers, who
served as counsel for the New Orleans district of the Corps.
After, Katrina,
Towers told the Los Angeles Times,:
"If we had built the barriers, New Orleans would not be flooded".
Louisiana State University
Hurricane Center cofounder, Ivor Heerden writes
(in his book, The
Storm), "These floodgates at the entrances to the lake have
always been considered
the ultimate protection for the city"
By 1977, the Corps
was on track to build the gates. Their EIS had met the
approval of the
EPA. But (NEPA), the National Environmental Policy Act,
allows any citizen
to sue to stop a government project if he or she thinks it
bad for the environment.
The
Environmental Defense Fund and a Local
group, Save our
Wetlands, sued. (They now brag that they "saved the
wetlands") and convinced
Judge Charles Schwartz to issue an injuction
which stopped the
project. So, a couple of thousand people are dead on
account of two enviro
groups - - One wonders how their "wetlands (swamps)
faired when submerged
in salt water.
Note:
I have 68 references to various media and government reports that
confirm this. If anyone is doubt let me know and I will post them
- - If you
promise to look them up and read them - - - JMC
So far, nothing I
can find on any national media that says anything about those
gates being built.
Most likely, the future will some day see another Katrina
(or worse) which
will again kill thousands.
Allas
- If only we Americans were as smart as the Dutch --
And, if ENVIRONMENTALISM WERE NOT OUR NATIONAL
RELIGION
When law and order became
outlaw and disorder
New Orleans following Katrina Sept. 2005:
SEE also: THE MAN-MADE DISASTER OF THE WELFARE STATE
Buel Teel is a commercial crabber who lives in
"The Big Easy". Since he knows
the waterways around New Orleans very well,
emergency personnel sought his
help to find a safe route -- amongst sunken boats,
collapsed bridges and floating
storm debris -- to navigate a barge carrying
emergency supplies into the city.
Before launching, Teel packed away two deer rifles
in his 30-foot boat to protect
himself, his crew and his vessel. While
enroute, he was stopped by a St. Tammany
Parish sheriff's boat that motored up with its
blue lights flashing.
There were six men aboard the police boat -- "one
in camo and five others in black,
SWAT type uniforms", Teel said. They asked
whether he had any firearms on board
When he answered in the affirmative, they boarded
and searched his vessel while
holding him at gunpoint
- siezed his .270 and 9 mm rifles. When Teel asked
for a receipt, they told him, "If we took the
time to write a receipt for every firearm we
confiscate, we'd be here all day". Nor
did they give him any badge numbers or names.
As soon as Teel got to a phone, he called the
NRA
and
reported what happened. Next
morning NRA lawyers knocked on his door.
That day, Sept. 23, they filed a federal
lawsuit against New Orleans mayor, Ray Nagin,
NO police supt. P. Edwin Compass,
Tammany Parish Sherrif, Jack Strain and six of
his deputies.
The suit contended:
1- That the confiscations violate the federal
Second Amendment as well as the right
to keep and bear arms
in the Louisiana constitution.
2-That the confiscation violated due process.
3-That by confiscating some residents firearms,
but allowing others to keep theirs, or
have armed security
guards, authorities violated the equal protection under the law
clause.
4-That by detaining citizens at gunpoint --
in effect seizing their persons -- without charging
them with a crime,
authorities violated their fourth amendment rights against
unreasonable searches
and siezures.
Before nightfall, federal judge Jay Zainey
granted the motion, ordering law enforcement
officials to stop confiscating firearms from
lawful citizens and to return seized firearms
to anyone "who lawfully possessed them".
Teel, along with several others who had joined
the suit received their guns back. Attorneys
for the officials denied
that any guns had been confiscated, but agreed to give them
back
anyway.
Patricia
Konie - victim of
NEW
ORLEANS LOCAL INCOMPETENT ADMINISTRATION
This
elderly woman was prepared. She had a supply of food and
fresh
water. The street she lived on was high enough so as not
to
be innundated and so was dry on September 7, 2005.
The
mayor (Nagin) of New Orleans, after releasing criminals to
roam
the streets (because he hadn't arranged for a secure jail
for
them) ordered police to confiscate all guns. The cops knew
they
had to return with some guns - - but feared the
armed
gangs
that were rampaging through the city, raping and
looting
-
- So, they went door to-door taking the guns of
law-abiding
ciitizens.
When
they arrived at Konie's house, she told them she didn't want
their
help, and it happened there was a London Times reporter with
a
cameraman in her home that she had just been showing her stock
of
food and water and an unloaded .32 pistol (and two dogs) for her
protection.
The cops forced their way in, body slammed this poor
lady
against the wall, breaking her arm and her denture, giving her
a
black eye and numerous bruises. It was brutal. Fox News got
hold
of
the video and - - I saw it - - so don't tell me it didn't happen.
They
dragged
her off to South Carolina for "processing"
She
finally got back to her home on October 13. Her neighbors had
taken
care of her dogs. She now has a lawyer and is suing the city,
plus
the California Highway Patrol (there was a CHP cop in the mele.)
When
folks elect nincompoops to local office (as in the city of PA)
They sometimes have to rely on them in an emergency - with very
bad results.
Update, 4/18/07 - Federal judge Carl J. Barbier,
of the US District Court in
Eastern district of Louisiana found Nagin and Riley in Contempt of Court.
"for failure to provide initial disclosures and to compel answers to
discovery during the injuction against the city for their illegal gun
confiscation"
But, I'm sure it was all Bush's fault? One guy told
me that the federal government, using
new technology explained on talk radio, deliberately
aimed that hurricane at New Orleans
Others think he should have gone down there and
fixed the problem when the storm was
on it's way. They don't say how.
Postscript
on Katrina -
Dec 16,
2006 - column by Bob Herbert -- radically liberal NYT columnist
some
quotes from his column in Today's PDN:
"The city was brought
to it's knees by Katrina, and is being kept there by a toxic
combination of federal
neglect and colossal, mind numbing ineptitude at the
local level"
"The police department here is a sour joke, and crime is out of control"
"Blacks and whites,
feeling physically unsafe and frightened by long term
prospects of dwindling
opportunities are eying the exits"
"The city is on its way to becoming smaller, poorer and worse than before"
That last may be a blessing in disguise. When the next storm surge
drowns the
city, the loss of life will be less. . .
. . JMC
Credits: Fox News and America's First
Freedom - - the NRA magazine
Book: ECO-FREAKS ~ by John Berlau
and 1/16/07 PDN