While most of the afternoon Monday had it looking like New Orleans may have dodged major damage from Hurricane Gustav, this is still a developing story. Three years ago, it wasn't until a day after Katrina that the levees broke.Ellen Livingston, on her blog teachingthelevees.org, writes:
"It is sobering to think that decisions already made will make the difference between life and death in the coming days. On the surface, things do seem different and at least some of the lessons of Katrina learned. We are already seeing what appears to be a well coordinated evacuation effort, with busloads of residents being whisked away to higher ground from all over the Gulf Coast. I keep hearing the word “contraflow” on news coverage — a word I don’t recall hearing three years ago — meaning that every available lane of traffic out of New Orleans has been re-routed to help with the evacuation. Mayor Ray Nagin has told residents in no uncertain terms to flee the “mother of all storms.”
As I watch television from my home in suburban New York, I can tune in to a channel dedicated to evacuation instructions for Gulf Coast residents. It posts maps of evacuation routes and lists of pick-up points for residents of every Gulf Coast county.
Only time will tell what Gustav will leave in its wake. As I speak, Florida Governor Charlie Crist is on CNN explaining that “we have learned from our mistakes of the past.” All most of us can do at this point is hope so — and be ready to do our own part to help the people of the Gulf Coast if we are needed."
Here's hoping and praying that the levees will hold, but it is an appropriate time to revisit a Political Warrior from last November entited "AP Students Can Take On An Army."
Linked here is who a group of Louisiana AP Government Students are battling for their right to free speech:
From the "Teaching the Levees.org" blog here is the story of the PSA Students ran and posted on YouTube and Levees.org that has been taken down (or has it?) by a "cease and desist" letter written by lawyers for the Army Corps of Engineers.
"Why Levees.org removed PSA from YouTube"
Further, Levees.Org in no way wanted to bring harm to Newman school who was copied on the Cease and Desist.
So we removed our PSA video from YouTube late Tuesday night Nov 13, when the webmaster, my 17 year old son returned home from his State Cross Country meet.
The term is used in two different contexts. A cease-and-desist order can be issued by a judge or government authority, and has a well-defined legal meaning. In contrast, a cease-and-desist letter can be sent by anyone, although typically they are drafted by a lawyer.
Full blogging coverage of the fansinating story of the power of students and the constitutional right to get the words out can be found here:
http://www.teachingthelevees.org/
2 comments:
To analyze federalism in the next unit, we will break down the break down the break downs at all levels (local, state & national) of government in its response to Katrina three years ago. We will watch portions of Spike Lee's "When the Levees Broke" and then write an essay assessing the effectiveness of shared power between the levels of government.
As we watch hurricane and recovery response this time, we are hoping to see a better, more effective government response at all levels.
It is true that we are hoping to see better and more effective government response, but how is this possible when our actual government is trusting the U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers to do it for them. Not only are the engineers breaking codes when it comes to checking the leves, they lie in thier reports about how the leves are okay, when in reality they could fail in a crucial moment like a hurricane. Also, they are lying about the death count to make it look like the leves breaking did not cause a lot of contribution to the death count. Also, there is even more corruption in this system, the U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers has hired the American Society of Civil Engineers to show the truth within the leve sisutation. Not only is this ineffective because they are paying off this company to give them good reports, they are lying about an issue that can mean life and death for some people in the southeast. Yes, the government is trying to seek reform in their recovery system, but they need to start with a different and more reliable company to know that they have structurally sound leves.
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