Please reccomend and email this to all your friends. New Orleans is in trouble and we desperately need your help.
Three months ago, Hurricane Katrina swept ashore just east of New Orleans, devastating the Gulf Coast with her strength. Many exhaled in relief, as it seemed New Orleans had been spared the worst of Katrina's impacts. The next day, as our levees gave way, it was clear that the worst lay ahead for one of our country's most important cultural and historical cities.
The slow motion tragedy that unfolded in front of the eyes of the world was horrible to watch, yet impossible to turn away from. Now, our city is dry but the future of New Orleans is in doubt, as it becomes clear that our levees were not able to withstand the storms for which they were designed.
A less-known component of New Orleans' tenuous future is the crisis facing our coastal wetlands. Although we know that each mile of coastal marsh diminishes a foot of storm-surge from hurricanes such as Katrina, coastal Louisiana continues to lose a football field's worth of wetlands every 35 minutes to erosion, jeopardizing the nation's oil infrastructure, Gulf seafood production, and, most visibly, our coastal cities. A comprehensive plan to reintroduce the land-building power of the Mississippi River into our dissolving coastal marshes has been written, but lies in Washington, unfunded and not prioritized.
New Orleans and South Louisiana must have Category 5 hurricane protection. This protection must integrate an effective levee system with marsh restoration and protection of coastal forests. If businesses are to have the confidence needed to return and revitalize the city that gave the world Louis Armstrong, seafood gumbo, and America's best Mardi Gras, we must give New Orleans the protection it deserves.
Click here to help flood Washington with 300,000 emailks demanding the funds we need for proper hurricane protection.
http://www.demaction.org/...
It's important. Things are not getting back to normal here. Without a comittment to levee protection people are afraid to come back.