Environmentalism is a luxury that we cannot afford while people are dying in a huge disaster.

(1) The city is practically empty, the dead are dead, the living are safe, so the urgency of drying it out is reduced, except for commercial reasons.

(2) The problem appears to have been caused in part by ignoring the basics of environmentalism over many decades. Good time to start doing it right?

(3) "Afford" is an odd concept for the USA.