Posted on 09/02/2005 3:35:55 AM PDT by backhoe
This is a 1998 modelling of a CAT 4 or CAT 5 moving through New Orleans-- Here is what they predicted for flooding....
http://www.nola.com/hurricane/content/katrina_projected_flooding082805.pdf
Apocalypse Live (Description of a category 4 or 5 hurricane from three weeks ago)
Gone with the Water -- Published last fall - eerie...
Drowning New Orleans -- Scientific American ^ | October 2001 |
From Jeff Master's weather blog on http://www.wunderground.com
"I'd hate to be an Emergency Management official in New Orleans right now. Katrina is pretty much following the NHC forecast, and appears likely to pass VERY close to New Orleans. I'm surprised they haven't ordered an evacuation of the city yet. While the odds of a catastropic hit that would completely flood the city of New Orleans are probably 10%, that is way too high in my opinion to justify leaving the people in the city. -- posted on 08/27/2005 8:04:52 PM EDT
Masques of Death (A sewer of applied liberalism, New Orleans was lawless long before this week.)
Hurricanes, Hatred and Hypocrisy
The Zionist Christians say it's Bush's fault.
The Islamist Jihadists say it's Bush's fault.
The Democrats say it's Bush's fault.
Millions of idiots can't be wrong.
Thousands Feared Drowned in New Orleans -- I've never seen such poor planning and leadership in my life. the Mayor and Governor should be tarred & feathered. This is just inexcusable, unbelievable incompetence.
Heart of America: Common People Doing Heroic Things
Turn Bases into Refineries part 2 -- This is a excellent idea, which will help the LONG term problem (just like building 10 new nuke power plants).
For SHORT term help, suspend taxes on gas for 90 days, suspend requirements for 40 different blends of gas for the nation, pass legislation to end lawsuits against MTBE's (which the enviro-weenies are responsible for in the first place), proclaim closed military bases as "refinery empowerment zones", where they will have a 100 year lease on the land, be shielded against environmental lawsuits, and not taxed for 10 years.
Analysts see Katrina as `perfect storm' for already high energy prices -- We own all of the oil sitting underneath Iraq. Why aren't we pumping it for ourselves? Gas should be 50¢ a gallon. We also own tons of oil up in the arctic. To hell with the environmental wackos - start drilling!
Travel Pack --- BOB (Bug Out Bag)
(These items should be packed in portable "duffle bags" ready to go)
• 1-qt water per person
• Identification (copies of records/cd
• 2-"energy bars" per person
• Dehydrated food pack for one week dried fruit, vegetables, meat flour, oil, salt, pepper, spices vitamins, honey,peanut butter crackers, protein powder, powder milk
• Collapsible 5 ga. Water containers
• "Water washer" filter
• Lightweight cook kit large pot, dishes, spoons, forks knives, cups, non-stick skillet spatula, can opener, large spoon
• Towels
• 2-water proof nylon tarps
• Change of clothes for each person
• Coats,
• 1-thermal blanket
• 1-sleeping bag / person
• Matches, fire starter
• Compass, maps of areas of intended use
• 2-rechargeable/shakable flashlights
• 12v trouble light w/@cig. lighter plug
• First aid kit
• Toilet paper,
• Soap
• 1-pocket knife
• 1-fishing kit
• 1-large bowie knife (western cutlery) (perfectly weighted to serve as both fire knife and hatchet etc)
• 1-small portable mt. Climber's stove
• 1-back pack with frame
• Paper, pencil
• Signaling mirror
• 1-manual flashlight
• Whistle , portable cable saw
• Small bottle of bleach, insect repellent.
• Magnifying glass
• 100 ft. 1/2 dia. Goldline rope,
• 2 pulleys
• 50 ft. Nylon "shroudline" cord
• .22 caliber pistol w/ 500 rds. Ammo.
There are many, many variations of this Bug Out Bag. Some place more reliance on ‘defense’, property, records.
Seems one should prepare according to their own specific needs, location. Here's some info, left over from the Y2K 'scare' and survivalists
FYI …Google Search for Bug Out Bag = BOB
For those who want to see the transcripts themselves of the video conferences, the New York Times has them for the August 28th and August 29th briefings. The transcript for the 29th makes one garbled mention of the levees around New Orleans (page 6). After making the point that the storm surge would cause the greatest devastation in the Gulfport area of Mississippi, going as high as 21 feet, Max Mayfield then turns to New Orleans:
MAX MAYFIELD: ... The rest of the track we have 10 to 15 feet, in a few areas up to 16 feet. At least glimpsed it out, and Louisiana can talk a little bit more about this than I can, but it looks like the Federal levies [sic] around the City of New Orleans will not have been (incomprehensible) any breaches to.
That certainly doesn't sound like a warning -- and this was on the day the levees broke. That transcript clearly shows that the conference considered the storm surge and precipitation runoff to be the major threats of flooding in New Orleans. The possibility of breaches, even on the 29th, had been discounted.
The transcript from the August 28th meeting talked more about levees, but in the same vein, and this time no one mentions the word "breach". Starting on page 5, Max Mayfield again talks about the dangers of Lake Pontchartrain, but only in the context of the winds created a surge that could overtop the levees:
One of the valleys here in Lake Pontchartrain, we've got on our forecast track, if it maintains its intensity: about 12 1/2 feet of storm surge in the lake. The big question is going to be: will that top some of the levies? And the currrent track and the forecast we have now suggests there will be minimal flooding in the city of New Orleans itself, but we're -- we've always said that the storm surge model is only accurate within 20 percent.If that track were to deviate just a little bit to the west, it would -- it makes all the difference in the world. I do expect that there will be some of the levies over top even out here in the western portions where the airport is. We've got valleys that can't overtop some of the levies.
The problem we're going to have here -- remember, the winds go counterclockwise around the center of the hurricane. So if the really strong winds clip Lake Pontchartrain, that's going to pile some of that water from Lake Pontchartrain over on the south side of the lake. I don't think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levies will be topped or not, but that's obviously a very, very grave concern.
Again, the entire briefing that related to levees only focused on the effects of the wind on Lake Pontchartrain and its effect in pushing water over the top of the levees. Mayfield never even addressed the possibility of breaches in the levee walls. And in fact, the storm track shifted eastward in the final hours before Katrina hit, which eliminated much of the predicate for even the worries Mayfield expresses in this transcript.
The media got it wrong yet again on Katrina. The notion that the experts warned of levee breaches is nothing more than a hack job initiated by the AP and continued by the rest of the Exempt Media even after the source material has proven it false.
| #180 |  |
TMF 3/2/2006 05:19AM PST |
|
Looks like the "Bash Bush over the head with a Hammer" story of the day goes to...... The AP! With it's HIGHLY DISTORTED AND SPUN Katrina video story! Powerline deconstructs the APs Anti-Bush-op-ed-disguised-as-a factual-story lead. |
Taking a cue from the CIA, someone in the federal bureaucracy has leaked transcripts and video tapes having to do with Hurricane Katrina to the Associated Press. The AP treats the resulting story as an expose, with the headline: "Tape: Bush, Chertoff Warned Before Katrina."
In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage.The footage — along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by The Associated Press — show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.
Do the documents show any such thing? Beats me; the AP didn't release the documents or video footage so we could draw our own conclusions. It merely summarized them for us, in a way obviously intended to make President Bush and the administration look bad.
The AP writes:
Some of the footage and transcripts from briefings Aug. 25-31 conflicts with the defenses that federal, state and local officials have made in trying to deflect blame and minimize the political fallout from the failed Katrina response:***
Bush declared four days after the storm, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility — and Bush was worried too.
White House deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Brown discussed fears of a levee breach the day the storm hit.
"I talked to the president twice today, once in Crawford and then again on Air Force One," Brown said. "He's obviously watching the television a lot, and he had some questions about the Dome, he's asking questions about reports of breaches."
Let's take that apart. The AP says the transcripts show that Bush was "worried" about the levees failing. But the quote they cite is after Katrina hit, and after levee failures had been reported. This obviously has nothing to do with what was anticipated before the fact. What, then, is the AP's basis for saying that "federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees..."? Here is the only support for that claim in the article:
The National Hurricane Center's Mayfield told the final briefing before Katrina struck that storm models predicted minimal flooding inside New Orleans during the hurricane but he expressed concerns that counterclockwise winds and storm surges afterward could cause the levees at Lake Pontchartrain to be overrun."I don't think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not but that is obviously a very, very grave concern," Mayfield told the briefing.
But this has nothing to do with the levees breaching; it has to do with them being overtopped--a much less dangerous threat. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, there has been endless discussion about the difference between breaching and overtopping. If these AP reporters, Margaret Ebrahim and John Solomon, really don't know the difference, they have no business reporting on Katrina.
It is possible that the materials leaked to the AP support the claim that Bush was warned about the levees breaching, but nothing cited in the article so indicates. And the idea that Bush and Chertoff were "warned" about the possibility of overtopping is hardly a news flash. Maybe they were watching CNN:
New Orleans braced for a catastrophic blow from Hurricane Katrina overnight, as forecasters predicted the Category 5 storm could drive a wall of water over the city's levees.The huge storm, packing 160 mph winds, is expected to hit the northern Gulf Coast in the next nine hours and make landfall as a Category 4 or 5 hurricane Monday morning.
About 70 percent of New Orleans is below sea level, and is protected from the Mississippi River by a series of levees. Forecasters predicted the storm surge could reach 28 feet; the highest levees around New Orleans are 18 feet high.
Hurricane-force winds extend 105 miles from the center of the mammoth storm and tropical storm-force winds extend outward up to 230 miles. It is the most powerful storm to menace the central Gulf Coast in decades.
The last thing there was any shortage of in the days before Hurricane Katrina struck was warnings. The news media were full of often-hysterical predictions of death and devastation. The fact that a category 5 hurricane hitting the Gulf coast could cause catastrophic damage was obvious to everyone.
The real question, it seems to me, is one on which the AP article (and, as far as we know, the documents and video footage it is based on) sheds no light: how well prepared were the various local, state and federal agencies, and what was the quality of their response?
The AP asserts that "federal officials...were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster." But nothing in the article supports that claim. The AP alleges further:
In fact, active duty troops weren't dispatched until days after the storm. And many states' National Guards had yet to be deployed to the region despite offers of assistance, and it took days before the Pentagon deployed active-duty personnel to help overwhelmed Guardsmen.
This is simply untrue, as the reporters would know if they read Power Line. For a far more thorough and balanced look at the Katrina response, see Popular Mechanics:
In fact, the response to Hurricane Katrina was by far the largest--and fastest-rescue effort in U.S. history, with nearly 100,000 emergency personnel arriving on the scene within three days of the storm's landfall.Dozens of National Guard and Coast Guard helicopters flew rescue operations that first day--some just 2 hours after Katrina hit the coast. Hoistless Army helicopters improvised rescues, carefully hovering on rooftops to pick up survivors. On the ground, "guardsmen had to chop their way through, moving trees and recreating roadways," says Jack Harrison of the National Guard. By the end of the week, 50,000 National Guard troops in the Gulf Coast region had saved 17,000 people; 4000 Coast Guard personnel saved more than 33,000.
These units had help from local, state and national responders, including five helicopters from the Navy ship Bataan and choppers from the Air Force and police. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries dispatched 250 agents in boats. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), state police and sheriffs' departments launched rescue flotillas. By Wednesday morning, volunteers and national teams joined the effort, including eight units from California's Swift Water Rescue. By Sept. 8, the waterborne operation had rescued 20,000.
While the press focused on FEMA's shortcomings, this broad array of local, state and national responders pulled off an extraordinary success--especially given the huge area devastated by the storm. Computer simulations of a Katrina-strength hurricane had estimated a worst-case-scenario death toll of more than 60,000 people in Louisiana. The actual number was 1077 in that state.
The AP article is fatally compromised by its factual errors, and adds nothing to our understanding of the issues surrounding Hurricane Katrina. It also raises an important point about the leaks that form the basis for many news stories these days. The AP took what appears to have been a substantial quantity of leaked material, and turned it into a brief against the Bush administration. Whether the documents themselves contain anything noteworthy, and whether, on balance, they support the AP's tendentious interpretation, is impossible to tell. In view of the fact that no one trusts the AP, the New York Times and other news outlets who make use of leaked documents and other materials to report on them objectively, here is a modest proposal: let us see them. If the AP will release the leaked materials, the rest of us will quickly figure out what significance, if any, they have.
Controversy Du Jour Falls Flat
The Amazing President Bush Katrina Tapes are the latest here-today, gone-tomorrow controversy du jour cooked up by mainstream media, and Wizbang notes the Rathergate connection. That WizBang post was excellent, nice work tracking down the Dan Rather/60 Minutes crew: wisbangblog
" The MSM/DNC never-ending mission to take Bush out has almost become farcical."
http://news.yahoo.com/fc/US/Hurricane_Katrina
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060303/ap_on_go_pr_wh/katrina_videoUpdate 22: In New Video, Blanco Says Levees Are Safe
If only the "mainstream" media did some basic investigative journalism, as Popular Mechanics did for this month's cover story: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/2315076.html?page=2&c=y
link: 89 comments |
Comrades,
As we can see by the quantity of comments on this thread, the Katrina natural disaster is going to be a huge part of the Liberal talking points (theme) as we head towards the fall elections. Sad but true; this scum will turn a natural disaster into a talking point strictly for political gain. Truth is, they don't have anything of real value; they resort to lies and distortions due to the non-existance of any ideas or solutions.
Pop. Mechanics: Now What? The Lessons of Katrina ("largest, fastest rescue effort in US history")
New Video, Blanco Saying Levees Safe (Blanco assures Bush, all is well)
Do You Suffer From Bush Derangement Syndrome?
Blanco Responds to Levee Comments on Katrina Tapes
AP admits, Friday night when no one is paying attention, that THEY MADE A BOO-BOO WHEN THEY SAID BUSH KNEW IN ADVANCE THE LEVEES WOULD BREACH
The AP started a firestorm with its report that transcripts from emergency meetings somehow proved George Bush lied when he said that no one imagined the levees around Lake Pontchartrain would be breached in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This vaunted system of editors and fact-checking at Exempt Media outlets failed yet again, and yet again the hack job that emerged was intended to damage George Bush.
UPDATE: I got this from a media source who noted it hadn't been released through AP's web service as yet. Keemo points us to Drudge, who also posted it.
UPDATE II: CQ reader and frequent source River Rat notes that the AP still engages in some dishonest vocabulary in its clarification: "They are replacing the verb "breach" with the verb "overrun" ..." Comments (24)
Related Post:
Should We Impeach the Associated Press Now?
Since the Associated Press has had six months to get the story straight and still failed, and the whole point of its latest story was that President Bush failed by not delivering massive amounts of relief to New Orleans within a few hours rather than a few days -- it seems to me that the only serious failure we have documented is by the Associated Press.
Powerline also has good info on this:
Not the official record, but I've liked this article covering the myths and realities of Katrina, along with recommendations on what to do now, from Popular Mechanics
Now What? The Lessons of Katrina There's a good discussion of it on FR here.
And CNN has a good timeline, though it's not hour by hour, at their special Katrina interactive web site
Mayor Says New Orleans Is Better Prepared--Uhh, Mayor? That's the Mississippi, not De Nile. A heavy storm would tax your city, forget about something as big as Katrina. You're a sitting duck for the next five to ten years as engineers try to figure out the problem, and you're lying to people if you tell them any different.
Katrina evacuees score much worse than Texas residents on state's tests--One of the interesting things about Katrina's displacement of so many people from NO is that the liberals and the MSM lost the ability to shield the rest of the country from just how terrible pure liberalism has made of the lives of those unfortunate (maybe now fortunate) people
Observer foresees ongoing white majority (White Chocolate City?)
Great! One stop shop. Thanks for the links.
"Buses on Ebay" kind of says it all, doesn't it?
NO & Katrina have degenerated from tragedy, to farce, to parody, and finally, to Comic Opera.
Good link, thanks...
"This is not an idle threat, this is absolutely essential, " she said. "I will block the August lease sales."
Dog in the Manger attitude is little credit to her, but typical of someone promoted via the Peter Principle.
Thanks- I've heard tales that having been immersed in black water will give them "that authentic schoolbus smell..."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
