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The%20Exchange
Issue 10.6: Cunning Lingle
What Governor Linda Lingle said in a July 22, 2006 press release announcing her release of $1.3 million in hurricane protection money for public buildings:
by Anthony Pignataro
August 03, 2006
“Disaster preparedness is a responsibility we must all share. It is not a question of ‘if’ another hurricane will strike, but ‘when.’ The measures taken to retrofit these public structures will provide more space to shelter our residents during damaging storms.”
What she didn’t say:
Here we are, a full month into hurricane season, nearly a year after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and in her fourth year as governor, and Lingle is only now concerned about retrofitting public buildings and adding shelter space? At the typical rate of construction, we should be lucky to get all these improvements in time for next year’s hurricane season. And what about some kind of big statewide effort to retrofit all those privately owned but still threatening “High Hazard” earthen dams we’ve got strewn about the state? Is the state ever going to do something about them, or is the plan to just wait and see, like they did in New Orleans?
-Anthony Pignataro