David Ross wrote:

PatK wrote:


David Ross wrote:



chaz wrote:




What are YOU doing for the victims of Katrina?




I'm doing nothing. During 9-10 January, record-breaking rains hit
southern California, resulting in a Presidential disaster
declaration. The hill in my backyard decided to become part of my
lawn.

The cost to repair will be about 1.5 times what I originally paid
for my house, if I could only get a grading contractor to return my
phone calls. This is a loss for which there is no insurance and
never was. It's not a flood or earthquake; it's a landslide. And
when it is finally repaired, there is no guantantee that it won't
slide again.

No one had a fund-raising to provide me with any disaster relief.
While I have secured a federal disaster loan to pay for the repair,
I will have to repay the loan -- from my Social Security and
pension since I'm retired.

The rains may return in two months and make the slide worse,
endangering two homes on the street above me. But no grading
contractor will talk to me.

In the meantime, the Los Angeles Times today reported that the Army
Corps of Engineers repeatedly asked for more funds to renovate and
strengthen the levies around New Orleans. But President Bush and
Congress repeatedly cut the funding to half or less than what the
Army requested.




I sit and watch the rains and landslides in CA almost every
year. Most of those houses that slide are so precariously built
on the side of the hills and they seem to just be asking for
trouble. What I can't understand is why people live in places
like this? It doesn't look like it takes much for them to
slide. What's with that? I've been in CA and I know that all
the houses in that area aren't perched on the side of the hills.
What gives?



I'm not "perched on the side of the hills". The land had a
moderate slope. But to build houses and streets, the slope was
graded to create level lots. Between the lots on my street and the
lots on the street up-slope, the result was a steeper slope than
previously existed. The same is true between the lots across the
street from me and the lots on the street down-slope. No house on
my block or the blocks above or below me is "precariously built on
the side of the hills".

I own the slope in my back yard. I'm at the bottom and thus do not
get the great view across the community enjoyed by my neighbors
behind me or by the neighbors across the street from me.



I wasn't saying that you personally were doing this, but it just brought
to mind all of the tv coverage of the landslides out there. I was just
amazed at the amount of people who do. That's all.

Pat