Responding to the threat of tropical storm Rita which is expected to be upgraded to a hurricane within hours, the mayor of New Orleans has now
suspended reopening the city and is already planning evacuations to begin as early as Wednesday of this week. The National weather service is now
predicting that Rita will reach at least a Category 3 before it hits any part of the mainland.
news.yahoo
.com
Under pressure from President Bush and other top federal officials, the mayor suspended the reopening of large portions of the city Monday and
instead ordered nearly everyone out because of the risk of a new round of flooding from a tropical storm on the way.
"If we are off, I'd rather err on the side of conservatism to make sure we have everyone out," Mayor Ray Nagin said.
The announcement came after repeated warnings from top federal officials — and the president himself — that New Orleans was not safe enough to
reopen. Among other things, federal officials warned that Tropical Storm Rita could breach the city's temporarily patched-up levees and swamp the
city all over again.
The mayor reversed course even as residents began trickling back to the first neighborhood opened as part of Nagin's plan, the lightly damaged
Algiers section.
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Our evening news just said the price of crude oil jumped $4.00 after this announcement was made. This does not sound good at all, however they are at
least taking action before it is too late. Had he allowed people to return this could very well have turned into a huge disaster considering the
levees were only rated for a category three and are already severely damaged.
I know this may sound crude, but since Mississippi and Alabama are already in disrepair perhaps it would be better if it tracked slightly farther east
of New Orleans to minimize the repair costs to the taxpayers and hopefully limit damage to oil wells.
Heaven only knows we have plenty of time to get the people out of there unlike when Katrina was projected and no one listened.
[edit on 9/19/2005 by shots]
