New Orleans Links

I saw the following links at Neal Boortz's site yesterday. I couldn't pass them up.

- Apparently Amtrak offered a train to carry about 900 people out of the city. But it left with equipment only.

- In 1997 Congress appropriated $500,000 to FEMA for an evacuation plan.

Frustrated by inaction two years later, Congress strengthened its directive. It ordered "an evacuation plan for a Category 3 or greater storm, a levee break, flood or other natural disaster for the New Orleans area."

The $500,000 that Congress appropriated for the evacuation plan went to a commission that studied future options for the 24-mile bridge over Lake Pontchartrain, FEMA spokesman Butch Kinerney said.

- In 1996, environmentalists sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to prevent them from fortifying the levees.

This suit argued that the Corps had not considered “the impact on bottomland hardwood forest wetlands” and the effect on Louisiana black bears and bird breeding.