Oh, they knew the levees wouldn't hold. That's been known for decades, that they wouldn't hold in the scenario that was taking shape over the weekend before Katrina's landfall. Scientists knew it, and politicians knew it. The Dems knew that unless Katrina deviated from her track, those levees would break or be overflowed.
The plan was concocted during that weekend. At that time, Katrina was becoming a Cat 5 and New Orleans was in her cross-hairs. The impact of the storm, at that time, was feared to be even greater than it eventually was when she dropped to a 4 and sideswiped NOLA. Blanco knew big devastation was coming, because Bush told her so when he called her to evacuate. So the Dems knew, 36 to 48 hours before landfall, that things would probably be very bad, that this was the big one. And despite knowing this, nothing was done that you would expect to be done by a city with roughly two days of opportunity to do them. And nothing was done because they concocted the plan when they decided NOLA would probably be lost.
They knew very well the levees wouldn't hold in a Cat 4 or 5, because they didn't take care of the levees and diverted the funds to other things. The levees weren't designed to handle above Cat 3, anyway. With Katrina bearing down on them over the weekend, and knowing the levees wouldn't hold and that they had failed to improve or maintain them, they wrote off NOLA.
Two days before landfall was the proverbial moment of truth. It was the moment when they had to accept the probability NOLA would be lost, and when they had to choose either to follow their disaster plan or do nothing. When you're on a sinking ship, what do you do? Sit on your hands and do nothing, or try to save as many people as possible? They chose to do nothing, for the reasons I have outlined. I imagine no one was more surprised than they when NOLA appeared to have "dodged the bullet". But as we have seen, NOLA was grazed by the bullet and slowly bled to death, and the plan, already in motion, simply picked up where it had left off.
I'd like to see the phone logs and emails between the DNC and Blanco while all this was falling apart. I gotta feeling she was spending more time on the phone developing political strategy than cordinating with the Guard, FEMA and the Red Cross while people were dying.
If the President had usurped the state's rights and overstepped his bounds, the Dems would have started impeachment and would have had the justification to do so. Why do you think Bush didn't do it? Why do you think he tolerated the roadblocks, which must have been maddening to do? They wouldn't have been a laughingstock; they'd have had the grounds to do it. Hell, even though he stayed within his bounds, they STILL have hopes of investigations and commissions leading up to an impeachment somehow. But they misunderestimated him once again. He saw the trap and refused to take the bait. They tried even harder, continuing to block aid while the false accusations continued to mount all week, and still he didn't step into the trap.
The Dems live solely for the opportunity to impeach him, as payback for their failing to steal the election in 2000, and as payback for the impeachment of the Bent One. How many times have they tried to set him up? I think I've lost count. Nothing has stuck, though. This time, they went very far out on the limb, and gambled much. It appears they have lost again. Like Wile E. Coyote, they never learn. The Roadrunner just keeps slipping out of their grasp.