Posted on 09/02/2005 3:03:18 PM PDT by crazyhorse691
The warnings not heeded in New Orleans must teach other cities about the need to prepare for the worst
New Orleans is about to be flooded by recriminations. No levee is strong enough to hold back the wave of blame for the neglect of the city's protective barriers, the failed disaster plan and the slow, haphazard rescue effort.
You can already see it coming, just as experts long warned that a Category 4 hurricane like Katrina could breach the earthen levees around New Orleans and flood much of the city. The challenge now is to channel the anger and frustration so it is not just about condemning failures of the past, but about spurring the federal government, states and localities all over the nation to better prepare for similar catastrophes.
New Orleans should have been braced for something like Katrina. Engineers, elected officials and others had warned for decades about a breach of levees that protect New Orleans from the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. One 2002 study concluded that a Category 3 hurricane -- less powerful than Katrina -- would flood "the bowl of New Orleans."
In a 2002 series titled "In Harm's Way," honored as a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, The Times-Picayune of New Orleans warned that sinking land and chronic erosion had left south Louisiana highly vulnerable to hurricanes. It warned that it would be difficult to evacuate the million or more people who live in the area, putting thousands of people at risk. "Without extraordinary measures," the paper concluded, "key ports, oil and gas production, one of the nation's most important fisheries, the unique bayou culture, the historic French Quarter and more are at risk of being swept away in a catastrophic hurricane. . . ."
That exact catastrophe is now here. The Bush administration and Congress ignored pleas from Louisiana's elected officials for more help to protect their vulnerable coast. Instead, the White House was intent on trimming pork and deterring cost overruns at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
After deadly hurricanes struck the southeast last summer, the Corps compiled a list of $18 billion in new projects needed to shore up Louisiana's levees and other defenses. Those projects still are awaiting funding. Instead, the Corps' New Orleans district faced a budget cut of 20 percent, to $272 million from $343 million. The only major Louisiana-area project going forward -- a new 72-mile-long hurricane levee from Morganza to the Gulf of Mexico -- is at least a decade from completion.
No American city can be fully prepared for this kind of disaster, but the response in New Orleans was stunningly slow and confused. Today New Orleans looks, and behaves, like a Third World nation, not one of America's proudest cities. Four days after the flooding started, thousands of people remain stranded in the city, sitting next to corpses, desperate for food, water and rescue. With water still pouring into New Orleans, the Corps and other agencies still cannot find the right equipment to patch the levee breaks.
All the anarchy, all the terrible loss and suffering in New Orleans and other Gulf Coast communities, ought to be making a deep impression on elected officials, emergency planners and ordinary citizens in every city in America.
This is a moment for hard questions, and not just in devastated New Orleans. How serious, how thorough, how well-funded, is the emergency preparedness system in the Portland area in the event of a catastrophic earthquake? Are Oregon coastal towns truly prepared if a tsunami were to strike today?
New Orleans was warned.
So, now, are the rest of us.
forget the 9/11 comission
there needs to be a New Orleans commission, and the incompetent local leaders responsible for this need to be brought to trial and punished.
I'm sure somewhere, with the millions and millions giving to LA/ NO for federally funded projects, there is likely just a little teensy bit of corruption going on. Find it and nail them for misappropriation of federal funds. They need to be made an example of.
So, if Day One, 9:00 AM, Bush had taken the oath of office and said "Protect New Orleans," how much would have been finished in five years? Not a damn thing. The environmental impact statement probably would have taken ten. To blame Bush is ridiculous. The only way it would have been protected today is if the project had started in 1980.
Ditto: I will hold my local officials responsible
I was reading an acquaintances blog. It was the usually Bush knew crap. It's amazing how these people call Bush a stupid chimp, yet expect him to be Superman. As if there are no other people involved. I wish everyone would stop blaming all the time. I wish people wouldn't think it's up to the government to rescue them right away. We need to be more self sufficient and start working together. That's what past generations had that was better than what we have. Self sufficiency.
In other words, NO politicians sat around for years with their fingers up their noses waiting for a national government to do something instead of fixing the problem themselves.
All this about Bush not spending enough time or money on the levees is irrelevant to the NO disaster.
someone just reposted a report from last saturday- I had forgotten that Bush had declared a state of emergency EVEN BEFORE The hurrican hit
Exactly, we can go even further and ask why Clinton didn't fix the problem with the budget "surplus".
What exactly is the role and responsibility of the elected governor of LA in this disaster? The way the Democrats and MSM lay the blame on Pres. Bush, one would think he is also the governor of Louisiana.
New Orleans and Louisiana officials all knew that the levees could possibly withstand 15' of water at a Category 3 hurricane.
The US Army Corps of Engineers had made them painfully aware of that - But 33% of New Orleans residents had decided that they would never leave their homes for any hurricanes.
In matter of fact - Those who were aware that a Category 4 or above hurricane was very likely to hit New Orleans voluntarily committed suicide.
Not the 90-year-old widow in a wheelchair who lived alone and was mentally incapable of comprehending what was coming to float her away.
The mature adults (with less brains than cats and dogs and snakes and other wildlife) who ignored President George Bush's warning to evacuate New Orleans over 24 hours before Katrina roared in.
They were all aware that 22'-25' of water would flood New Orleans
The listened to the idiot racist SOB Mayor Nagin and the moron Governor Blotto who both said "We are prepared......"
While 208 bright yellow school buses sat unused and empty lined us in a parking lot.
While many New Orleans policemen turned in their badges and left for higher ground.
While Nagrin and Blotto refused to order NG and police to shoot, much less arrest looters.
While Governor Blotto whimpered and refused to activate Louisiana's 7000 member National Guard to duty.
Now Governor Blotto has decided to tell the media that the Iraq-trained NG (mostly from other states!) will shoot looters and killers with "locked & loaded" M16s.
And Mayor Nagrin is cursing out President George W. Bush because he will not be allowed to assume command of all NG, active-duty MP's, FEMA, EMS, fireman, and police from other states and cities.
What a slimeball Nagrin is - feebly attempting to divert blame from his worthless incompetent AA butt to GW Bush and FEMA and the feds......
Nagrin is now worried about future elections and his political career?
Have you seen Mayor Nagrin walking the streets of New Orleans?
Somewhere Nagrin is downing another mint julip as he digs into a big tasty New Orleans style feast.......
I grew up in Pompano Beach, Florida - and I experienced many bad hurricanes and tornadoes - and flooding - and I know how we built a new home that was built to withstand killer hurricanes - my older brother was/is a construction engineer and building contractor - He made sure the roof trusses were well over spec. on close centers, steel-strapped to reinforced-steel belt courses over concrete block exterior walls with rbar poured into every so many cells, tied into a heavy thicl poured steel-reinforced concrete slab - Well above the building code specs for being above sea level.
Homes built in Florida more recently you have seen come apart like matchsticks.
Some put a few bucks ahead of their families lives.
We were more careful with our Brahma cattle and quarter horses than Nagrin and Blotto they were with the morons who voted them into office.
Anyone wanna buy a few hundred slightly water-logged school buses?
What exactly is the role and responsibility of the elected governor of LA in this disaster?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1475914/posts
It was Bush that asked the Gov and Mayor to order a mandatory evacuation, NOT their idea at all.
CNN ^ | Sunday, August 28, 2005; Posted: 11:47 a.m. EDT | CNN's David Mattingly, Susan Candiotti, Jacqui Jeras and Rob Marciano contributed to this report.
Posted on 09/02/2005 2:22:21 PM PDT by joinedafterattack
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said that it was President Bush that had called and urged the state to order the evacuation.
New Orleans orders evacuation Hurricane Katrina's winds nearly 175 mph
Sunday, August 28, 2005; Posted: 11:47 a.m. EDT (15:47 GMT)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1475914/posts
I have got it bookmarked and saved. Thanks.
You are welcome.
Send it to the left wing editors of the Oregonian and tell us their response.
I will so enjoy doing that.
Thanks.
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