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September 3, 2005
The news reports indicate that the federal and state governments, failed to prepare for a catastrophe that many scientists had warned bout for years. The failure of the levees had been forecast for years, as they were only designed to protect New Orleans from a category 3 storm.
The news reports are saying that New Orleans has become a nightmare landscape of chaos,lawlessness, roaming gangs and random rapes. The tales from inside the Superdome say that the inside was a mass of stinking, hungry, frightened humanity without water, sewerage, food or air. Strangers were crammed against others who robbed them, beat them and raped them while armed guards stood oblivious.
How come the authorities did not airlift basic supplies to the convention centre and the nearby Superdome, where more than 40,000 people gathered in the aftermath of the devastating Hurricane Katrina?
Meanwhile, the economy is affected as Hurricane Katrina has made half a million people homeless, damaged the energy infrastructure by shutting down Gulf output, devastated transportation networks and trashed the electricity grids. So energy prices soar:
Leahy
Armed gangs have all but gained control of the city. It is the disabled, the poor who cannot afford cars, the sick and the elderly who have been left behind in the inner city. And most of those left behind are the poor and the black.
New Orleans does seem to be vulnerable to rising sea levels caused by global warming.
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