You're reading Daily Kos. You already know that the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project was dying on the vine because of a lack of funds before Katrina came through. Now tell your neighbors. Write your local papers and destroy the myth being built that no one saw this coming. My letter after the jump. Use it as a starting point for your own if you wish, but please write your local papers.
In the September 1 editorial "Bailing out the Big Easy", the Record states "That those warnings were largely ignored hardly matters today." The tragedy is that warnings were not being ignored by local and state officials.
A years-long project to raise and strengthen the levees was underway, but languished for lack of required federal funds to pay for construction. Over the past five years, while tax cuts and war profiteering contracts have gone to the wealthiest among us, funds for the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA, was cut to less than 20% of the $250 million the Army Corps of Engineers said it needed.
Bush apologists will no doubt accuse me of politicizing this horrible event. I say that the choices that led to this tragedy, which was recognized as a real and present threat years ago, are inherently political. The way that our nation's leaders choose to use its wealth to safeguard its citizens, or not, is the fundamental basis of why we elect them.
How do you feel about your leaders now?