Craig Colten Quotations

Levees have a tendency to cause a false sense of security.

Louisiana has sacrificed its coastline so those people in North Dakota can have fuel oil, so they can drive their vehicles.

Out West, there is a saying that water flows to money. But in New Orleans, water flows away from money. Those with resources who control where the drainage goes have always chosen to live on the high ground. So the people in the low areas were hardest hit.

Rebuilding here means so much more than walls and roofs and levees.

It demonstrated the inadequacies of the human component on a national level.

We need to use some of these lower areas as flood retention areas, as places to collect the hazards.

We shouldn't talk about bulldozing the Lower 9th Ward. There are some homes that are still in pretty darn good shape,

We tend to build for the last storm.

The whole thing takes a long, long time.

So much has to happen, so many things have to come together,

The Cajuns uprooted from Canada and moved as a group to Louisiana. Vietnamese communities have reassembled after moving much farther. There is precedent for doing this,

That may be good because we may be able to abandon some of those lower areas.

The evacuation plan was really based on people driving out. They didn't have buses. They didn't have trains.

The evacuation plan was really based on people driving out, ... They didn't have buses. They didn't have trains.

The lowest of the low areas probably shouldn't be redeveloped,