I am sad to be an American.

[metoo113]

A lot of the reason for the slow response and the damage done by Katrina was because they cut the budgets for the Army corps of Engineers who are responsible to maintain the Dikes and Levee's. The Lousiana National Guard that would normally put sand bags on the dikes when a storm was coming were in Iraq and not available.

"Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars. "
"In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.
Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain."

The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:

"That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount. But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said."

 

[Bull]

A lot of the reason for the slow response and the damage done by Katrina was because they cut the budgets for the Army corps of Engineers who are responsible to maintain the Dikes and Levee's. The Lousiana National Guard that would normally put sand bags on the dikes when a storm was coming were in Iraq and not available.

Good point. The Americans certainly knew the risk they were taking. They gambled and lost. The people of New Orleans and area now have to pay the price for the politicians dithering and sheer negligence.

This article, which ironically was published on September 11, 2001, clearly spelled out the risks and danger (which have long been known) and forsaw Katrina with an uncanny accuracy.
______________________________________________

NEW ORLEANS IS SINKING

BY JIM WILSON
Published on: September 11, 2001

The surge of a Category 5 storm could put New Orleans under 18 ft. of water.

They don't bury the dead in New Orleans. The highest point in the city is only 6 ft. above sea level, which makes for watery graves. Fearful that rotting corpses caused epidemics, the city limited ground burials in 1830. Mausoleums built on soggy cemetery grounds became the final resting place for generations. Beyond providing a macabre tourist attraction, these "cities of the dead" serve as a reminder of the Big Easy's vulnerability to flooding. The reason water rushes into graves is because New Orleans sits atop a delta made of unconsolidated material that has washed down the Mississippi River.

Think of the city as a chin jutting out, waiting for a one-two punch from Mother Nature. The first blow comes from the sky. Hurricanes plying the Gulf of Mexico push massive domes of water (storm surges) ahead of their swirling winds. After the surges hit, the second blow strikes from below. The same swampy delta ground that necessitates above-ground burials leaves water from the storm surge with no place to go but up.

The fact that New Orleans has not already sunk is a matter of luck. If slightly different paths had been followed by Hurricanes Camille, which struck in August 1969, Andrew in August 1992 or George in September 1998, today we might need scuba gear to tour the French Quarter.

"In New Orleans, you never get above sea level, so you're always going to be isolated during a strong hurricane," says Kay Wilkins of the southeast Louisiana chapter of the American Red Cross.

During a strong hurricane, the city could be inundated with water blocking all streets in and out for days, leaving people stranded without electricity and access to clean drinking water. Many also could die because the city has few buildings that could withstand the sustained 96- to 100-mph winds and 6- to 8-ft. storm surges of a Category 2 hurricane. Moving to higher elevations would be just as dangerous as staying on low ground. Had Camille, a Category 5 storm, made landfall at New Orleans, instead of losing her punch before arriving, her winds would have blown twice as hard and her storm surge would have been three times as high.

Yet knowing all this, area residents have made their potential problem worse. "Over the past 30 years, the coastal region impacted by Camille has changed dramatically. Coastal erosion combined with soaring commercial and residential development in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama have all combined to significantly increase the vulnerability of the area," says Sandy Ward Eslinger, of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's Coastal Services Center in Charleston, S.C.

Early Warning
Emergency planners believe that it is a foregone conclusion that the Big Easy someday will be hit by a scouring storm surge. And, given the tremendous amount of coastal-area development, this watery "big one" will produce a staggering amount of damage. Yet, this doesn't necessarily mean that there will be a massive loss of lives.

The key is a new emergency warning system developed by Gregory Stone, a professor at Louisiana State University (LSU). It is called WAVCIS, which stands for wave-current surge information system. Within 30 minutes to an hour after raw data is collected from monitoring stations in the Gulf, an assessment of storm-surge damage would be available to emergency planners. Disaster relief agencies then would be able to mobilize resources--rescue personnel, the Red Cross, and so forth.

The $4.5 million WAVCIS project, which is now coming on line, will fill a major void in the Louisiana storm warning system, which was practically nonexistent compared to those of other Gulf Coast states. A system of 20 "weather buoys" along the U.S. coastline serves as a warning system for the Gulf of Mexico. However, the buoys are not distributed evenly and Louisiana falls into one of the gaps. From the mouth of the Mississippi River to the Louisiana-Texas border, there are no buoys. Only one buoy serves Louisiana, and it is 62 miles east of the Mississippi River and more than 300 miles to the south. So it's a bit like predicting the weather in Boston when your thermometer is in Philadelphia. The other buoys are near the coastlines of Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, and several hundred miles out into the Gulf.

Stable Platforms
One reason that WAVCIS will be more accurate is that its sensors are attached to offshore oil platforms. The older, floating buoys ride up and down with the waves and often can't give accurate pictures of wave heights and storm surges. Stable platforms mean that the sensors can be placed above and below the water, allowing more precise measurements. Data from each of the 13 stations, five of which are now on line, is transmitted to LSU, where it'll be interpreted and sent to emergency planners centers, via the Internet.

"With this new system [WAVCIS], we get to see real information on storm surge and we can feed that into our models and come up with real data," says Mike Brown, assistant director of the New Orleans emergency management office.

Because large areas would have to be evacuated, false alarms could be harmful to the economy. Stone sees it as a reasonable tradeoff.

"It's better to have that frustration than the loss of life. The potential loss of life in Louisiana could be catastrophic because there is just nowhere to go."

 

[luckydog71]

A lot of the reason for the slow response and the damage done by Katrina was because they cut the budgets for the Army corps of Engineers who are responsible to maintain the Dikes and Levee's. The Lousiana National Guard that would normally put sand bags on the dikes when a storm was coming were in Iraq and not available.

"Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars. "
"In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.
Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain."

The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:

"That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount. But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said."

And now I understand why thugs are shoot at the rescue workers......

 

[Bull]

Here's the link for the complete article from which metoo113 is quoting.

An interesting read indeed.

 

[Maury Beniowski]

Here's the link for the complete article from which metoo113 is quoting.

You mean we have plagiarists in here?

I'm shocked! Dazed & confused And just beside myself!

By the way, a fat lot of good it does for W to fly over the place

I wonder if he was sipping a Dom Perignon and sampling Iranian Imperial Beluga sturgeon caviar, whilst he was cruising by?

Me cynical? No way!

 

[Bull]

You mean we have plagiarists in here?

I'm shocked! Dazed & confused And just beside myself!

I wasn't suggesting that, by the way. It' s clear he was quoting from something, but didn't provide the source for whatever reason. The article is worth reading in its entirety so I posted the link.

C'est tout.

 

[FuZzYknUckLeS]

...Wanna bet the White House is wishing they'd coughed up the dough to fix that levee instead of telling N.O. to get lost?

All in the price of freedom!!!! Freedom!!!

 

[Maury Beniowski]

I wasn't suggesting that, by the way.

I know you weren't, I was!

There's nothing wrong with it; it's nice to know the source.

Finding it is simple anyway. Cut & pasting any part of the text into Google will reveal it...

 

[JustAGuy]

Most of the refugees were already too poverty-stricken to afford transportation out of the city.

Exactly the case. I saw a black fellow being interviewed who said "we live paycheque to paycheque ... we don't have the means to evacuate even if we're told to do so". So those who could afford to get out fled the city and those who were left behind got a free trip to hell.

Seeing George Bush admit (for the first time in his life, as far as I can tell) that something he's a part of might have been handled wrong was a true "WTF!! moment" for me. I expected him to go his grave confident that he had never made or been associated with a wrong decision.

Sixteen years ago, a close friend and business partner left his wife, three kids and our business to run off and join a cult based in Yelm, Washington (the J.Z. Knight/Ramtha cult, though I know they don't think of themselves as being one ... does any cult?). In the intervening years, they have been putting away vast stores of millet in preparation for the day when American society comes unravelled and it's every man, woman and child for themselves. I've always thought they were crazier than shithouse rats but this past week has given us all a tiny glimpse at just what might/could and very probably will happen if there's some kind of major catastrophe that disrupts society on a grand scale and the rule of law falls by the wayside. I've never been clear as to whether the Ramtha folks are also accumulating stockpiles of weapons but after seeing what happened in the aftermath of Katrina, I bet they are now if they weren't before.

 

[JFK]

This is not a time to point fingers at anyone other than the degenerates committing crimes of opportunism at this awful moment in history! (And maybe the shameless America haters and GWB haters who seem to be revelling in the chance to criticize...)

Do you mean luckydog?

 

[HankQuinlan]

This is not a time to point fingers at anyone other than the degenerates committing crimes of opportunism at this awful moment in history! (And maybe the shameless America haters and GWB haters who seem to be revelling in the chance to criticize...)

Crimes of opportunism suck. I totally agree with you about those fuckin' oil companies...you are right on.

 

[Sunset]

Posts by LuckyDog:

“What makes me sad….. is the shooting and raping of Americans by Americans in a time of disaster. Those thugs have slowed the rescue efforts. Why do they do that? If this is their chance to “get whitie” as some have suggested, they are hurting very few whites. Most of the people they are hurting are black.”

“LK - on the surface you seem to have made a racists statement. Only poor blacks are capable of such low morale conduct. Only a poor black would rape a woman in a refugee shelter... Only a poor black would shoot at a helicopter that was coming to rescue people.”

“In my opinion it is because they were mostly blacks and God knows a liberal can not be critical of an African-American….unless of course they have gone conservative. What is wrong with Americans....regardless of who is to blame for the fuck ups......what the hell are we doing firing upon rescue workers? I understand there are first responder Canadians in the area, but they are held up because they need a military escort to enter the war zone. What the fuck is the matter with this picture. Stop shooting and raping you fucking idiots....just fucking stop.…”

“And now I understand why thugs are shoot at the rescue workers...…”


LuckyDog,

The above are your posts relative to the recent Disaster in Louisiana and Mississippi.

As it turns out it was Whites who have been doing the shooting at Rescue Workers. Why? Just read about American Southern history

Although you’re a naturalized American, based on your posts, you find every opportunity to demonize American Black people. Why, because that is the essence of Southern Strategy. If Blacks can be made to be less than human, it’s easy to deny them an education, social programs, civil rights and employment. Why are you always the first one to point to a Black person as the Bad Person and even when it wasn’t a Black person?

Are we now to believe that you’re proud of American Slavery, decades of racial discrimination and hate? Apparently you must be proud of American enslavement of Black people and Southern Strategy to appease racist White Southerner since you never miss an opportunity to demonize American Black people.

The basis of Southern Strategy is to be against, civil right, social programs, public education and health care. In reality it’s a way of exploiting ignorant Southern Whites for their votes. It’s been a very successful strategy for Republican in winning elections in the American South. George Bush won every state in the American South by using Southern Strategy.

Who ultimately wins are the big American Corporations and the rich. Who ultimately loses are all Americans and any other nation who might be a snag in the interest of American Corporations. The results will be the destruction of the great American Middle Class as America becomes a land of the few rich people and a lot of poor people. Oh yeah, with lot and lots of guns.

 

[lenharper]

Hey sunset: where did you get the info that it was white people shooting at the relief helicopters. I'm not doubting it at all, just curious if you have link to source. No blogs please, just verifiable reports. Thanks.

 

[rockyy]

This time we have politicians trying to blame each other. We have the media staking out their particular agenda and accusing the other side of mis-management. One race blaming the other…

...you left out the part about Bush treating the whole thing as a giant PHOTO/OP. Last week he was telling everyone to stay put and wait out the storm (right!). Now he's down there hugging people in front of the cameras. Disgusting!!!!

 

[HankQuinlan]

I can only guess that you meant to respond to a different thread...

Or did the oil companies conjure up the hurricane so that refining capacity would be reduced and they'd have LESS oil to sell?

Again,

No --- I am saying that the oil companies are "opportunistic degenerates" who are profiteering from the disaster. And yes, I know you were referring to black citizens of N.O. And yes, I consider both disaster profiteers like Mobil and war profiteers like Haliburton to be lower than any murdering rapist you can find.

 

[greenvalley]

No --- I am saying that the oil companies are "opportunistic degenerates" who are profiteering from the disaster. And yes, I know you were referring to black citizens of N.O. And yes, I consider both disaster profiteers like Mobil and war profiteers like Haliburton to be lower than any murdering rapist you can find.

Haliburton aren't just war profiteers, they are also flood profiteers.

Halliburton hired for storm cleanup
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3335685

 

[Paris]

While the debate and analysis will go on for a long time, I think the racial/socioeconomic bias is more evident in the planning stage than the post recovery stage. The analysts knew well in advance that New Orleans needed to be evacuated and told the public to leave. People of means (car, money to relocate for a period) left safely. People without resources simply had no way out, they were left to face armageddon. No support was offered to help them exit before the hurricane. To me that is the unconscionable issue. While the physical damage was likely inevitable, the human carnage could have been prevented if the federal government cared about the poor, mostly black folks.

All we have to do is watch the news.....how many white people do you see lying around waiting for help in New Orleans????? Not alot. Most are black and poor....and had no way of evacuating in the alloted time. Real sad IMO!

The Americans are a very rich and resourceful country, not to mention the power house on this planet.....and the Government couldn't do more to at least help the poor get out in time? They didn't even try for Gods' sake!

Hello!!!!!!! We have a hurricane coming your way.....so jump in your car and head someplace very far away. Assuming of course that you own a car and can afford to fill it with gas. Oh????? You don't have a car and can't get out......too fucking bad for you then! Well some people don't own cars, and don't have the means in which to have evacuated in time. Something should have been put in place by the Bush administration. Don't get me started! I hate that man.

The whole thing makes me sick!!!!!!!!


Nuff said!

Paris/Caryn

 

[luckydog71]

Halliburton hired for storm cleanup

The American government, hires an American company, to fix American property, with American money and you have a problem with that.

MYOFB

 

[luckydog71]

Hello!!!!!!! We have a hurricane coming your way.....so jump in your car and head someplace very far away. Assuming of course that you own a car and can afford to fill it with gas. Oh????? You don't have a car and can't get out......too fucking bad for you then! Well some people don't own cars, and don't have the means in which to have evacuated in time. Something should have been put in place by the Bush administration. Don't get me started! I hate that man.

The whole thing makes me sick!!!!!!!!


Nuff said!

Paris/Caryn

Paris....you have hit the problem on the head. If more had been done before the storm hit, there would have been far fewer deaths and far fewer people stranded for days.

You obviously do not understand American government and how it works.

In another thread I used a scenario of a pending threat to Seattle and outline of the reaction many are saying Bush should have had in N.O. There were no takers on an answer, because most Americans do not want the federal gov’t involved in local matters.

Do you think it is odd that the storm hit 150 miles of Gulf coast and it is N.O. that is getting all of the attention? It is because other local officials had disaster plans in place and they seemed to work well when tested by a cat 5 storm.

The local N.O. officials sent the victims to centers with no food or water. Then they locked them inside and would not let them leave the location. It would have been possible for many held in the convention center to walk out of the area. The local police which are under control of local officials would not let them leave.

Things that make you say hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

BTW - you can still hate Bush many people do. Just do not let that hate blind you to who was responsible for disaster planning. It is local gov't.

 

[Sunset]

Paris....You obviously do not understand American government and how it works.

BTW - you can still hate Bush many people do. Just do not let that hate blind you to who was responsible for disaster planning. It is local gov't.

Luckdog,

Well, well we see you're still up to your rightwing ways of misleading people. Local government has responsibilities for small scale emergency preparedness but disasters have always been the responsibility of the Federal government.

It seems obvious that Paris knows more about how the American government works than you.


Here's the truth:

FEMA prepares the nation for all hazards and manages federal response and recovery efforts following any national incident. FEMA also initiates mitigation activities, trains first responders, works with state and local emergency managers, and manages the National Flood Insurance Program and the U.S. Fire Administration. FEMA became part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on March 1, 2003.

www.fema.gov