Posted 8:32 AM by extinct

Talking New Orleans and Hurricanes in 2002

Check this out, the full text is even more detailed and prescient --

From Bill Moyers show in 2002


DANIEL ZWERDLING: We've tried to find scientists who'd say that these predictions of doom could never really come true and we haven't been able to find them. The main debate seems to be, when the country is facing different kinds of threats, which ones should get the most attention? The federal government has been cutting money from hurricane protection projects. Partly to pay for the war against terrorists.

DANIEL ZWERDLING:Do you think that the President of the United States and Congress understand that people like you and the scientists studying this think the city of New Orleans could very possibly disappear?

WALTER MAESTRI:I think they know that, I think that they've been told that. I don't know that anybody, though, psychologically, you know has come to grips with that as-- as a-- a potential real situation. Just like none of us could possibly come to grips with the loss of the World Trade Center. And it's still hard for me to envision that it's gone. You know and it's impossible for someone like me to think that the French Quarter of New Orleans could be gone.

. . .

JAY COMBE: I think of a terrible disaster. I think of 100,000, and that's just my guess. I think that there's a terrible lack of perception. The last serious hurricane we had here was in 1965. That's close to 40 years ago.

So, we've dodged bullets three times since Betsy and I'm not sure we can keep counting on the hurricane changing its mind and going someplace else.

DANIEL ZWERDLING: Stories about disasters in America usually end on an optimistic note. People rebound. The nation rebuilds. Life gradually gets back to normal. But officials in Louisiana are facing another possibility: If a monster storm strikes New Orleans, this city might never come back.