Well, ok Dan. But why is it that the average US taxpayer (myself included), is responsible for footing the bill to construct the city of those who choose to live in a bowl... below sea level...on the friggin beach...in the Gulf of Mexico?  I mean come on.   "Hurricane comin' you say?"... I am so out of here...

I grew up on the top of a big hill in Appalachia.  I watched what the Ohio river does (year after year) to the people that chose to live in the flood plain on the bottom of that hill. There is the most perfect and fantastic farming soil there yes (thanks to the Ohio's beautiful deposits over the centuries...thanks to flooding), but still. It's not rocket science.  This sh** is gonna happen there eventually. And when it does, the right thing (the only thing) to do is to help the people first, and only then can you look for what went wrong.  Even if it should be obvious.

If you want to blame somebody, so badly, right now, blame the state of Louisiana and the mayor of NO for not being properly prepared. It's not the rest of the country's job to fortify the city against mother nature (not even close).  If they want to live there, it's their job to be prepared for the inevitable and so far, they have totally failed at that. Stop blaming the feds as if they created the mess. They didn't.

/also lived in Houston for 3 years and will never go back for exactly the very same reason. 

// Does nobody remember the tragic hurricane in Galveston in 1900?

Sheesh Dan...rail on.