Feds Say New Orleans Is Storm-Ready

"I think we're in good shape," Don Powell, the Bush Administratrion's coordinator of Gulf Coast rebuilding, said Sunday. "There's no question in my mind, we're ready."

New Hurricane Worries La. After Katrina

NEW ORLEANS - What was to have been a weekend of remembrance of Hurricane Katrina's destruction became a weekend of worry as Ernesto strengthened to a hurricane in the Caribbean.

The National Hurricane Center said Ernesto could grow into a Category 3 hurricane by Thursday, menacing a broad swath of the Gulf Coast. Katrina was a Category 3 storm when it ravaged New Orleans a year ago Tuesday.

However, some of the most substantial work planned on the levee system won't be done for the next couple of years. "I will feel better when they are fully functional and complete, but it will take time," (Gov.) Blanco said. "We've gotten as far as we could get in one year." Blanco said that although she is not happy with the current strength of the levee system, she believes as much work as possible has been done in the year since Katrina.

Col. Richard Wagenaar, who oversees the New Orleans district of the Corps, said the flood control system, which was breached in three places after Katrina, was equal to or better than it was when Katrina struck, but he said he and his staff had already begun making preparations for Ernesto.

The "flood control system" was in shitty shape before Katrina. I don't want to hear a year later it is "equal" to it's original pre-Katrina level of shittiness. If it is now "better" than shitty does it mean it is now just merely crappy?