Truth one of the casualties of Katrina

WASHINGTON — One of the bigger casualties of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath has been the truth itself.

From federal emergency managers to Democrats, much fingerpointing — and even the promises not to engage in it — have fallen short of the facts.

For instance, the levees that broke weren't ones waiting for Army Corps of Engineer repairs as Democrats have implied. They were ones that had already been fortified, and still failed.

And, yes, some in government did envision long ago that the New Orleans levees might give way in a major hurricane — despite President Bush's comments to the contrary.

Such casualties of fact are the result of traditional politics mixing with the emotion of disaster, say those who study truth in government.

"I find this more troubling than deception in the political campaigns," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center who has studied truth in politics for years. "The level of misunderstanding and the consequences of misunderstanding can be much more dramatic.

"If we don't hold the right people accountable and the right processes accountable, we'll risk having another catastrophe without real preparedness, and more people will die needlessly," she said.

Like flooded or flattened homes on the Gulf Coast, misstatements abound in this disaster. Here are some examples:

Many Democrats have suggested that if the Army Corps had simply finished the incomplete levee reconstruction projects in that city, New Orleans might never have suffered the devastating flooding.

But the Army Corps' projects mentioned by those critics only were supposed to fortify levees in New Orleans to withstand a Category 3 hurricane. Katrina churned up the waters as a much more powerful Category 5 storm while in the Gulf and hit land while still at Category 4 furor.

Furthermore, the levees that were breached and flooded New Orleans— 17th Street Canal Levee and London Avenue Canal Levee — had already been fortified by the Army Corps to category 3 strength, with no additional work planned or even requested, the Army Corps said.

Even if the remaining levees had been upgraded as planned, the flooding would have occurred, officials say. More funding would have helped only to speed the post-flood draining of the city, they say.

"The levee failures we saw were in areas of the projects that were at their full project design. So that part of the project was in place and had this project been fully complete ... it's my opinion, based on the intensity of this storm, that the flooding of the Central Business District and the French Quarter would still have occurred," said Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Strock's answer, however, cuts against his own boss' credibility on another issue.

President Bush said shortly after the disaster that "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

In fact, many in New Orleans and the federal government anticipated exactly that scenario. And Strock's own comments make clear the Army Corps knew a hurricane over category 3 strength could pierce the levees.

The concerns were so serious that FEMA and the Homeland Security Department ran an exercise last year called "Hurricane Pam" that provided a dire prediction about a category 3 hurricane hitting New Orleans.

Flood waters would surge over levees, creating "a catastrophic mass casualty/mass evacuation" — 61,290 dead and 384,257 injured or sick in a catastrophic flood that would leave swaths of southeast Louisiana uninhabitable for more than a year, the Hurricane Pam exercise predicted.

Bush finally clarified his remarks Monday, saying his comment was meant to suggest that there had been a false sense of relief that the levees had held when the storm passed, only to break a few hours later.

But that too, doesn't pass muster. The Bush administration's own emergency preparedness site warns resident that big floods often don't occur right away but "generally develop over a period of days."

Put on the defensive, Republicans have offered another argument that hasn't held up.

"There will be plenty of time to play the blame game," Bush says in a refrain adopted by all of his top deputies to avoid assessing blame early in the crisis.

But almost as soon as they made the "no-fingerpointing" promise, Republicans pointed fingers back at local officials.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff did it on the Sunday talk shows a week ago.

"We will have time to go back and do an after-action report, but the time right now is to look at what the enormous tasks ahead are," Chertoff said, deflecting a question about whether government heads should roll.

Then a few minutes later, Chertoff suggested it was the fault of city officials that more people didn't evacuate. "The way that emergency operations act under the law is the responsibility and the power, the authority, to order an evacuation rests with state and local officials," he said, adding the city should have used public buses to move the poor from harm's way.

Democrats have alleged that funding for the Army Corps for New Orleans levee repairs and available personnel from National Guard were depleted by the war in Iraq, worsening the situation.

Critics can point to numerous spending proposals or ideas submitted to the Army Corps about the levees and New Orleans that didn't materialize.

But the Army Corps' spending for New Orleans' levee project actually has gone up under President Bush — $276.4 million total in his first five budgets, compared with $195 million in the last five years of the Clinton administration, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget.

The Army Corps' overall budget did take two hits during 2003, when the Iraq war started.

But the first was a reduction to finance a legal settlement unrelated to Iraq. And the second came as part of a 0.65 percent cut in nondefense discretionary spending for all agencies initiated by Congress. That means the Army Corps wasn't singled out.

As for the National Guard, it is true a third of Louisiana's troops were in Iraq or Afghanistan when Katrina hit. But numerous states — Michigan, New Mexico and Arizona to name a few — were ready when the storm hit to send in their troops, only to be left waiting for days.

And once the widespread activations occurred, both active duty and National Guardsmen flowed into the disaster zone, rising from 5,100 the day of the storm to more than 65,000 in the region this week.

The bigger question for Congress will likely be why more troops weren't pre-positioned or activated as the storm approached.

Uh no, actually it is par for the course for the AP. For example:

Strock's answer, however, cuts against his own boss' credibility on another issue. LEVEE FAILURES President Bush said shortly after the disaster that "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." In fact, many in New Orleans and the federal government anticipated exactly that scenario. And Strock's own comments make clear the Army Corps knew a hurricane over category 3 strength could pierce the levees. The concerns were so serious that FEMA and the Homeland Security Department ran an exercise last year called "Hurricane Pam" that provided a dire prediction about a category 3 hurricane hitting New Orleans. Flood waters would surge over levees, creating "a catastrophic mass casualty/mass evacuation" — 61,290 dead and 384,257 injured or sick in a catastrophic flood that would leave swaths of southeast Louisiana uninhabitable for more than a year, the Hurricane Pam exercise predicted. Bush finally clarified his remarks Monday, saying his comment was meant to suggest that there had been a false sense of relief that the levees had held when the storm passed, only to break a few hours later. But that too, doesn't pass muster. The Bush administration's own emergency preparedness site warns resident that big floods often don't occur right away but "generally develop over a period of days."

Either the writer doesn't understand the difference between a breech and an overtopping, or they are once again artfully spinning. An overtopping was predicted, a breach in a newly upgraded section was not. In fact they are now questioning if the materials or construction methods at the 17th street breach were substandard, because nobody anticipated a breach there. As for the emergency preparedness website's warning about delayed flooding, that is a general statement that has to do with runoff, not a levee breaking.

Note how in the fingerpointing section there is no mention of Senator Mary Landrieu starting the accusation on the Saturday BEFORE the hurricane hit. They also try and obscure the fact that the responses quoted as 'fingerpointing' came after the press continued to lob numerous slanted questions blaming the admin for everything including the price of tea in China.

Just more spin in the guise of 'objective fact checking.' Plus, as others have noted, the best and brightest don't head to journalism school.

First of all, we recognize that the flooding in New Orleans was predicted in an article in Scientific American in October, 2001. There have been many disputes between environmental groups and the Army Corps of Engineers as to how to manage the lower Mississippi. It surely is not a black and white matter.

There is dispute as to when the first levee broke--some say it was ca. 10 AM on Monday on the 17th St canal. Others say it was later that evening. In either case, all the catastrophe and suffering occurred after the levees broke, which resulted in flooding the city. Before that moment, the remaining residents were not in severe danger. All the horrors occurred because of the flooding. All the future expenses are due to the flooding.

It is truly amazing that no one seems to know when the first levee wall broke. How could it be that people were not monitoring the walls? Relatively simple and inexpensive measures could have been implemented in the months before. The levees did not fail because the water was so high that it overran them; it wasn't the direct effects of a category 5 hurricane that destroyed New Orleans. In fact, 99% of the miles of levees held perfectly well--there were two breaches, one about 50 ft wide on the 17th Street Canal and the other about 200 ft long on the Lake Pontchartrain levee. Maybe there was a third one--no account seems to know. How could people not know?

I emphasize that this was not a case of an overflowing bathtub. Cement walls failed, not due to a category 5 hurricane, but because there was no system in place to monitor and support the levees.

This is well explained in the graphics of the recent History Channel description. No earthen levee or cement wall failed { via snap}; in every case the failure took place over hours.

What should have been done:
1. All the major levees should have been outfitted with electronic sensors to monitor them. There are a host of simple means from simple water sensors on the dry side (shielded from rain), to breakable wires to monitor continuity, to tiltmeters--dozens of technologies geologists use to monitor volcanoes and earthquake zones. These could all have been connected to redundant monitoring centers provided with multiple battery and diesel generator backup. In the event of an incipient failure, alarms would be sent pinpointing the area.

2. The important levees could have been constantly patrolled on the parallel roads so any signs of trouble would be seen quickly. Trucks filled with sandbags and crews ready to work would be stationed at intervals. Mobile cranes, too.

3. How did the levees fail? The most probable scenario is this. Levees are at risk of water infiltrating under the barrier, percolating through and undermining the footing. This is well known, so engineers prevent this by carefully sealing the water side with mixtures of clay and grout to prevent any water infiltration. However, the dry side is usually not so protected.

Probably, water started to slosh over from waves. As it did, it ran down the dry-side walls and began to undermine the easily-penetrated dry-side foundations, possibly somewhat weakened by the heavy rains. Eventually, one section began to tilt slightly, allowing more water over, more erosion, and from then the result was foregone. The first breach probably was over only one or two 8-foot sections. But as everyone knows, as soon as water starts flowing fast through a breach, sections on either side go quickly. So a small breach became 200 feet wide.

4. Had the sensor monitoring system been in place and had the patrols been in place, this could have been prevented. Sensors and patrols would have noticed the water coming over and immediately two-feet of sandbags placed on top of the levee, preventing further undermining. The levees would have been saved, and there would have been no massive flooding.

5. Assume that even with monitoring for an incipient situation and timely response, a cement wall breaks {snap? there were no warning signs?}. How to stop the rush of water? Well, you have barges prepared for this--they move into place and block the flow enough. Takes some engineering to make it work, but certainly doable. Street-based crews provide back up.

6. In a worst case scenario, the levees would have failed despite these early warning and corrective activities. In that case, the monitoring and patrols would have been able to raise the alarm. In a well-organized emergency management system, immediately loudspeaker trucks and buses would fan out throughout the city. "The levees have broken, The levees have broken. You must leave now. A flood is coming. You must leave now."

At the time the levees broke, there was a 12-18 hour window to get into the city and evacuate people. In New Orleans, when the levees broke, everybody was clueless, there was no early warning, and there was no effort whatever to repair a small break before it became unstoppable. There was no effort to evacuate the residents with warnings of the NEW danger, after the hurricane had passed.

It is clear that a mere $50 million in monitoring technology and levee patrolling and response teams would have saved $400,000 million in future costs.

There is no excuse for the lack of a constant monitoring system; there is no excuse for not patrolling the levee walls; there is no excuse for not having a response plan to prevent a minor break from expanding to flood the entire city. Incompetence and stupidity are high on the list. I mean, why wasn't a simple monitoring system for failure in place?

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