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Petrol - you get your own response. There is a class division here in the States there is no doubt. But it is not due to some grand conspiracy. Stats are coming out that 60% of the population in Norleans is black. Eighty percent of those are on the dole. It is a bad deal. But what has caused thisis the welfare state IMO. Many blacks - and I am using them as a point as their plight has been demonstarted by this disaster - have gotten on the cycle of dependancy of State support in that as well as other areas of the nation far above their ratio to the population makeup of the rst of the US. I again will point out that the New Deal and the great Society social engineering plans have been the cause. But you must look at the ever growing black, as well as other "minority" (whies are now a minority in my State compared to the whole) groups in the US that are achieving weatlh, home ownership, business ownership etc etc.
Maybe this disaster will be a catalyst that ends this cycle of dependancy on the State. I hope so.
If 9/11 didn't, why would this? Just another example of 'My Pet Goat.' Of course if they had KNOWN a force 5 hurricane was on the way to a low laying city with force 3 level protection, they would have moved heaven and earth to get the lead out and help people.
Killed by Contempt
By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: September 5, 2005
Each day since Katrina brings more evidence of the lethal ineptitude of federal officials. I'm not letting state and local officials off the hook, but federal officials had access to resources that could have made all the difference, but were never mobilized.
Here's one of many examples: The Chicago Tribune reports that the U.S.S. Bataan, equipped with six operating rooms, hundreds of hospital beds and the ability to produce 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day, has been sitting off the Gulf Coast since last Monday - without patients.
Experts say that the first 72 hours after a natural disaster are the crucial window during which prompt action can save many lives. Yet action after Katrina was anything but prompt. Newsweek reports that a "strange paralysis" set in among Bush administration officials, who debated lines of authority while thousands died.
What caused that paralysis? President Bush certainly failed his test. After 9/11, all the country really needed from him was a speech. This time it needed action - and he didn't deliver.
But the federal government's lethal ineptitude wasn't just a consequence of Mr. Bush's personal inadequacy; it was a consequence of ideological hostility to the very idea of using government to serve the public good. For 25 years the right has been denigrating the public sector, telling us that government is always the problem, not the solution. Why should we be surprised that when we needed a government solution, it wasn't forthcoming?
Does anyone remember the fight over federalizing airport security? Even after 9/11, the administration and conservative members of Congress tried to keep airport security in the hands of private companies. They were more worried about adding federal employees than about closing a deadly hole in national security.
Of course, the attempt to keep airport security private wasn't just about philosophy; it was also an attempt to protect private interests. But that's not really a contradiction. Ideological
cynicism about government easily morphs into a readiness to treat government spending as a way to reward your friends. After all, if you don't believe government can do any good, why not?
Which brings us to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In my last column, I asked whether the Bush administration had destroyed FEMA's effectiveness. Now we know the answer.
Several recent news analyses on FEMA's sorry state have attributed the agency's decline to its inclusion in the Department of Homeland Security, whose prime concern is terrorism, not natural disasters. But that supposed change in focus misses a crucial part of the story.
For one thing, the undermining of FEMA began as soon as President Bush took office. Instead of choosing a professional with expertise in responses to disaster to head the agency, Mr. Bush appointed Joseph Allbaugh, a close political confidant. Mr. Allbaugh quickly began trying to scale back some of FEMA's preparedness programs.
You might have expected the administration to reconsider its hostility to emergency preparedness after 9/11 - after all, emergency management is as important in the aftermath of a terrorist attack as it is following a natural disaster. As many people have noticed, the failed response to Katrina shows that we are less ready to cope with a terrorist attack today than we were four years ago.
But the downgrading of FEMA continued, with the appointment of Michael Brown as Mr. Allbaugh's successor.
Mr. Brown had no obvious qualifications, other than having been Mr. Allbaugh's college roommate. But Mr. Brown was made deputy director of FEMA; The Boston Herald reports that he was forced out of his previous job, overseeing horse shows. And when Mr. Allbaugh left, Mr. Brown became the agency's director. The raw cronyism of that appointment showed the contempt the administration felt for the agency; one can only imagine the effects on staff morale.
That contempt, as I've said, reflects a general hostility to the role of government as a force for good. And Americans living along the Gulf Coast have now reaped the consequences of that hostility.
The administration has always tried to treat 9/11 purely as a lesson about good versus evil. But disasters must be coped with, even if they aren't caused by evildoers. Now we have another deadly lesson in why we need an effective government, and why dedicated public servants deserve our respect. Will we listen?
President Bush is just the boss of the federal organization FEMA. With me so far? Good.
Whenever a disaster strikes, the boss has to know and direct the people around well, so no I can't understand your point.
It is in these situations that a leader should show his leadership skills. Bush did not pass the exam once again, and it is not only me that is saying this.
Did you bother to read my post? There is another leader involved in the NO issue - the GOVENOR. She did not do shit.
As i said - there are still issues in the rest of the States that were hit but their disaster plans IMPLEMENTED by their respective Govenors seemed to have worked.
Yes I did, you seem to be excusing the 'My Pet Goat' paralysis because state resources (which haven't been helped by the Feds co-opting the very force best suited to deal with this situation) were overwhelmed. What is your idea of effective crisis leadership, waiting til everything goes to pieces and then wondering why?
Irrespective of the state failure, which should have certainly been anticipated by a competent federal agency, the feds should have been ready. We all watched it on CNN chug in gathering strength at what, 35 mph? The tone of an organization comes from above, and the head of this one was biking with Lance Armstrong at that time.
seemed to have worked
"New Orleans" due to centrality and population has acquired a catchall meaning encompassing pretty much the affected area. Other states were also not hit nearly as hard.
So you have no concern for the fact that the leadership in Louisiana was imeffective and that over the past 100 years or so have not taken the step to prevent or lessen their vulnerability to natural disaster?
States DO have to look after themselves - but you as a nanny State guy don't seem to feel that way.
Did you bother to read my post? There is another leader involved in the NO issue - the GOVENOR. She did not do shit.
Ok maybe you are right but that doesn't excuse Bush.
Also you mentioned the governor is democrat - for me and many other Europeans there is no real differences between democrats and republicans in the US of A, they share the same foreign policy, maybe they differ on some local issues.
States look after themselves as they are able, when that is overwhelmed, the Federal government has a duty to provide an adequate response. To me that entails a little more than sweeping up the aftermath a week past the event. Would you feel any different if a bomb had broken the levee? It could just as easily have been that, only without the 4-5 day advance notice.
The funding to upgrade the levees wasn't cut by LA, the Feds did that. The Governor of LA didn't appoint a horse show judge to head FEMA, Bush did. The Gov. of LA didn't fold FEMA into Homeland Security, the Administration did.
Imagine if earthquakes were suddenly predictable in their severity and location and a 10.0 were forecasted to be epicentered at Russian Hill in 5 days time. Don't you think it would be prudent to have the Federal response readied in case the states, much smaller resources are swamped? Or should we just wait til the last fire is out to bag and tag the bodies and hope you have fresh 'D' batteries and a goodly supply of Cheez N Crackers and Dasani.
FEMA is everywhere - they have warehouses in all States and they have various resources just waiting. How do I know this? My shop is directly across from one of those warehouses. Yes funding was cut....but what was done in the past decades? This problem should have been addressed BEFORE NO built a new basketball stadium, a new convention center...the list goes on.
Priorities my friend, priorities. Maybe NO and the State said that their priority was the strengthening of the levee 20 years ago.
No matter, the admistration was slow. Slow to push that lameo of a Govenor out of the way and told her to take her crying act elsewhere as the Feds were now in control.
There's still a couple of questions awaiting your response sir. In the meantime here's something else for you to get angry at the Louisiana Governor for:
Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen? 'Times-Picayune' Had Repeatedly Raised Federal Spending Issues
By Will Bunch
Published: August 31, 2005 9:00 PM ET
PHILADELPHIA Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city, the waters may still keep rising in New Orleans. That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal. With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until it's level with the massive lake.
New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.
Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.
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.
Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."
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."
The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late.
One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer: a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on Monday.
The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. ... In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."
Local officials are now saying, the article reported, that had Washington heeded their warnings about the dire need for hurricane protection, including building up levees and repairing barrier islands, "the damage might not have been nearly as bad as it turned out to be."
it's goin to be like watergate soon, Who knew what when?
My 6 year old pointed out to me tht we had watched a discovery channel show about the levees in new orleans but a few months ago. Everyone knew it could happen and the neo-cons where too busy with other stuff.
Yea, I think heads should roll on this one. Way too much infighting going on while people are dieing. Very poor leadership.
Everyone knew it could happen and the neo-cons where too busy with other stuff.
Whats with you and the "neo - cons"? You may remember that I still have Pat b posters proudly displayed in my shop. I am not a fan of this bunch but when are we going to see some accountability for the "leadership" in louisiana?
This might seem a bit far-sighted right now but it is important!
When the city of Darwin in Australia's north was completely destroyed by Cyclone Tracy on Christmas Eve 1974, a well orgnized response evacuated and dispersed residents around the country.
It was only much later, that people fully realised the utter social fracturing that had occurred to a whole community.
------
We are now hearing official statements from the Police like: "The city is completely destryed, there is nothing here, no power, no water, no jobs, etc..."
While we understand the need for people to stay out while the clean-up takes place, there is a need to put strategies in place to minimise the trauma to the fractured community of New Orleans.
Constantly hearing that there home and city is completely destroyed will reinforce the trauma of these altready suffering people.
Measures need to be taken to preserve social structures and contacts, through networks, shared activities and more hopeful official decalarations.
New Orleans has to be closed temporarily to allow the cleanup and recovery, meanwhile New Orleans Centres should be established in major cities to provide meeting places and sharing of feelings, grief and hopes, until return is possible.
...and the same for other cities where people have been evacuated.
lets assume the final death toll is 6,000 for new orleans in the end...
i dare say that this figure would be halved if help came 5 days earlier than it did and as it should have been for any other lesser countries than u.s. of america...
indecision, stupidity, finger pointing and just damn slow reaction in appreciating the severity of katrina's consequences despite all the authorities' forwwarning before katrina's arrival have killed more than the hurricane itself and killed more than those who died in 9/11!!!!
in the aftermath of katrina, there is definitely no reason whatsoever for protocol observation, name calling and finger pointing...only presence at the scene from the first hour of passing of katrina to save lives matters!
yup, neil_s, wouldn't end till after we find out if the body count matches ray nagin's estimates of thousands dead or if it exceeds 10,000 and till after the heads of those responsible for the additional deaths from tuesday till saturday have rolled.
wouldn't it shock fema, homeland security, la state governor and the president if the final toll is ten thousand or more?
PS I forgot to mention. I don't subscribe to a conspiracy against black people because I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories period. I prefer to look at the evidence and then base my decision. AFAIK Louisiana is the poorest stae in the Union. It does'nt take a neurosurgeon to know that people unable to leave the city were not going to be able to cope with the aftermath. The jibe I made about Trent Lott can be best illustrated by an e-mail I recieved from my brother in law. I had enquired about his best man at his wedding, as both he and his parents lived in Louisiana. He said he had not heard from them but was not worried, their luxury condos werre on the 3rd floor, and their yacht was moored in the Bahamas. In shor they were l seriously monied and thus insulated.
The lessons of hurricane Katrina and its terrible aftermath are not about disaster management but about exposing the falsehoods at the very heart of modern America
By Muriel Gray
4/9/05 "Sunday Herald" -- -- SINCE broadcasters precede any post watershed material that might shock, offend or disturb with a stern warning about content, it seems odd that this service is not extended to the news. Mind you, what would the reassuring voice of the female continuity announcer say? How about: ³Viewers are cautioned that the following programme contains images that may cause them to despise the entire human race and look forward to its inevitable self destruction.²
Surely that¹s not too far from the truth as we sit and watch a bewildering variety of individuals howling, wailing, weeping in agony, from Iraq to the streets of London, to tsunami-torn beaches to Beslan, to Africa to New Orleans, to anywhere really. Perhaps they¹re not beating their breasts and clutching their hair in grief on the streets on Helsinki or Dunedin yet, but our rolling news makes us suspect it¹s only a matter of time before some kind of apocalyptic suffering eventually visits everyone.
Long gone are the days when Angela Rippon would round up with the heart warming ³Ð and finally² story about a skateboarding duck or a toddler who dialled 999 for a mother tumbled from a stepladder. Channels like the BBC¹s News 24 are now devoted almost exclusively to reminding us what a nauseating species we are. Regardless of the latest tragedy or atrocity being brought to us in colour with subtitles, the commentators will almost always finish their lugubrious analysis with the question, ³But what are the lessons to be learned from this?² The answer is that demonstrably we learn nothing and never have, which is why we continue to abuse both ourselves and our planet, but if we are forced to dissect disaster in this manner then the American hurricane crisis is as good a place as any to start.
So what are those lessons to be learned from a destroyed city with thousands dead, little or no relief for survivors, and lawlessness taking over from wind and water as the greatest threat to life? Not very nice lessons unfortunately. As the bodies of the poor, black, disenfranchised southerners bob to the surface of the rat-infested and sewage-infused waters, we¹re reminded that America¹s position as a big, safe, morally decent democracy with opportunity for all is one of the world¹s biggest lies. The American dream that is being held up as the cause worth dying for in the Middle East is as rotten to the core as its demonic administration.
When Bush is temporarily propped up on two legs by his people, out of his natural position on all fours with knuckles resting gently on the White House carpet, to tell the world that his country¹s values and people are worth fighting for, he omits to mention that he doesn¹t mean poor people or black people. Not only is this huge slice of the American public kept largely invisible, in case it ruins the image of the culture which Bush¹s administration demands countries in ³the axis of terrorr² adopt, but even when such poverty is exposed to the world the US elite has little shame in publicly holding these stricken citizens in contempt.
Take the comments made to the press by Michael Brown, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. When quizzed on the probable death toll, which is now running into the thousands, Brown said: ³Unfortunately that¹s going to be attributable to a lot of people who did not heed the warnings. I don¹t make judgements about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans.²
So when those with cars left the city, leaving behind those with no transport, did that mean that every available coach, truck and helicopter was made available to get them out? Apparently not. Some of those who didn¹t ³heed the warnings² because they had no means of exit, included charity care homes for the elderly, hospitals, whole housing schemes of poor black residents, a children¹s care home, and countless thousands of dispersed penniless people living on state benefits who were trapped and killed, not because they were wilful irresponsible risk takers, but because they were poor, powerless and vulnerable.
In a breathtaking display of racism, some white British students who were trapped in the hell of the city¹s Superdome stadium, being used for refugees, were removed to a safer place in a basketball arena by a white policeman who one student described as having ³broken all the rules² to help them. The students were young, healthy and in no immediate distress except for experiencing mildly aggressive taunts about their colour, and yet the stadium was full of dangerously ill people, highly distressed old people, young children at great risk of dehydration, but for whom nobody ³broke all the rules² on account of the fact that they were black. Meanwhile the gangs of black youths stalking the city on orgies of raping, violence and looting are not the bogeymen Islamic ³enemies of freedom² but products of their own ³democratic² country¹s polices of exclusion and division.
The lessons we¹re learning from this horror are not about disaster management or speed of response, but about exposing the terrifying falsehoods at the heart of America¹s relentless and belligerent quest for world domination. With Bush turning his gimlet eye to Iran, and linking his arm through that of our own dear Tony Blair as he does so, it¹s never been more timely to be reminded so dramatically that the US is a deeply dysfunctional, decadent, declining society, imploding with its own prejudices, corruptions and hypocrisies.
John F Kennedy said: ³I look forward to a great future for America, a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.²
Yes that would be nice John, wouldn¹t it? I¹m sure that as soon as the honourable, honest, decent people who run the country work out who it was who really shot you, they¹ll get right on with the job of bringing your vision about.
I am bearing a whole lot of weight with this gas price thing! I am not happy with Bush and there aint' much that's gonna change my mind as long as money keeps leavign my pocketbook and lining someone elses that happens to be assocatied with Texas oil.
On the other hand...
Someone F'UP in NewOrleans. Who ever it was who ever let people die needs to be gone.
Of course I have pretty strong feelings about Rove revealing an agent. That is treason. He needs to be shot if found guilty. No excuse.
Don't even start on gas/petrol prices you blokes. You're paying what, equiv $0.80-$0.85 a litre. Wait until it hits $1.50 a litre then you start whingeing. If you buggers stopped using oil for heating the world oil price would decrease appreciable. Our fuel prices always increase just prior to the Northern winter.
Comments
Maybe this disaster will be a catalyst that ends this cycle of dependancy on the State. I hope so.
Killed by Contempt
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: September 5, 2005
Each day since Katrina brings more evidence of the lethal ineptitude of federal officials. I'm not letting state and local officials off the hook, but federal officials had access to resources that could have made all the difference, but were never mobilized.
Here's one of many examples: The Chicago Tribune reports that the U.S.S. Bataan, equipped with six operating rooms, hundreds of hospital beds and the ability to produce 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day, has been sitting off the Gulf Coast since last Monday - without patients.
Experts say that the first 72 hours after a natural disaster are the crucial window during which prompt action can save many lives. Yet action after Katrina was anything but prompt. Newsweek reports that a "strange paralysis" set in among Bush administration officials, who debated lines of authority while thousands died.
What caused that paralysis? President Bush certainly failed his test. After 9/11, all the country really needed from him was a speech. This time it needed action - and he didn't deliver.
But the federal government's lethal ineptitude wasn't just a consequence of Mr. Bush's personal inadequacy; it was a consequence of ideological hostility to the very idea of using government to serve the public good. For 25 years the right has been denigrating the public sector, telling us that government is always the problem, not the solution. Why should we be surprised that when we needed a government solution, it wasn't forthcoming?
Does anyone remember the fight over federalizing airport security? Even after 9/11, the administration and conservative members of Congress tried to keep airport security in the hands
of private companies. They were more worried about adding federal employees than about closing a deadly hole in national security.
Of course, the attempt to keep airport security private wasn't just about philosophy; it was also an attempt to protect private interests. But that's not really a contradiction. Ideological
cynicism about government easily morphs into a readiness to treat government spending as a way to reward your friends. After all, if you don't believe government can do any good, why not?
Which brings us to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In my last column, I asked whether the Bush administration had destroyed FEMA's effectiveness. Now we know the answer.
Several recent news analyses on FEMA's sorry state have attributed the agency's decline to its inclusion in the Department of Homeland Security, whose prime concern is terrorism, not natural disasters. But that supposed change in focus misses a crucial part of the story.
For one thing, the undermining of FEMA began as soon as President Bush took office. Instead of choosing a professional with expertise in responses to disaster to head the agency, Mr. Bush appointed Joseph Allbaugh, a close political confidant. Mr. Allbaugh quickly began trying to scale back some of FEMA's preparedness programs.
You might have expected the administration to reconsider its hostility to emergency preparedness after 9/11 - after all, emergency management is as important in the aftermath of a terrorist attack as it is following a natural disaster. As many people have noticed, the failed response to Katrina shows that we are less ready to cope with a terrorist attack today than we were four years ago.
But the downgrading of FEMA continued, with the appointment of Michael Brown as Mr. Allbaugh's successor.
Mr. Brown had no obvious qualifications, other than having been Mr. Allbaugh's college roommate. But Mr. Brown was made deputy director of FEMA; The Boston Herald reports that he was forced out of his previous job, overseeing horse shows. And when Mr. Allbaugh left, Mr. Brown became the agency's director. The raw cronyism of that appointment showed the contempt the administration felt for the agency; one can only imagine the effects on staff morale.
That contempt, as I've said, reflects a general hostility to the role of government as a force for good. And Americans living along the Gulf Coast have now reaped the consequences of that hostility.
The administration has always tried to treat 9/11 purely as a lesson about good versus evil. But disasters must be coped with, even if they aren't caused by evildoers. Now we have another deadly lesson in why we need an effective government, and why dedicated public servants deserve our respect. Will we listen?
[Edited on 5/9/2005 by dst]
It is in these situations that a leader should show his leadership skills. Bush did not pass the exam once again, and it is not only me that is saying this.
As i said - there are still issues in the rest of the States that were hit but their disaster plans IMPLEMENTED by their respective Govenors seemed to have worked.
Irrespective of the state failure, which should have certainly been anticipated by a competent federal agency, the feds should have been ready. We all watched it on CNN chug in gathering strength at what, 35 mph? The tone of an organization comes from above, and the head of this one was biking with Lance Armstrong at that time. "New Orleans" due to centrality and population has acquired a catchall meaning encompassing pretty much the affected area. Other states were also not hit nearly as hard.
States DO have to look after themselves - but you as a nanny State guy don't seem to feel that way.
Also you mentioned the governor is democrat - for me and many other Europeans there is no real differences between democrats and republicans in the US of A, they share the same foreign policy, maybe they differ on some local issues.
differences are cosmetic.
The funding to upgrade the levees wasn't cut by LA, the Feds did that. The Governor of LA didn't appoint a horse show judge to head FEMA, Bush did. The Gov. of LA didn't fold FEMA into Homeland Security, the Administration did.
Imagine if earthquakes were suddenly predictable in their severity and location and a 10.0 were forecasted to be epicentered at Russian Hill in 5 days time. Don't you think it would be prudent to have the Federal response readied in case the states, much smaller resources are swamped? Or should we just wait til the last fire is out to bag and tag the bodies and hope you have fresh 'D' batteries and a goodly supply of Cheez N Crackers and Dasani.
[Edited on 5/9/2005 by dst]
Priorities my friend, priorities. Maybe NO and the State said that their priority was the strengthening of the levee 20 years ago.
No matter, the admistration was slow. Slow to push that lameo of a Govenor out of the way and told her to take her crying act elsewhere as the Feds were now in control.
THAT is where the failure occured.
Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen? 'Times-Picayune' Had Repeatedly Raised Federal Spending Issues
By Will Bunch
Published: August 31, 2005 9:00 PM ET
PHILADELPHIA Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city, the waters may still keep rising in New Orleans. That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal. With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until it's level with the massive lake.
New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.
Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.
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.
Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."
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."
The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late.
One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer: a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on Monday.
The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. ... In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."
Local officials are now saying, the article reported, that had Washington heeded their warnings about the dire need for hurricane protection, including building up levees and repairing barrier islands, "the damage might not have been nearly as bad as it turned out to be."
[Edited on 5/9/2005 by dst]
My 6 year old pointed out to me tht we had watched a discovery channel show about the levees in new orleans but a few months ago. Everyone knew it could happen and the neo-cons where too busy with other stuff.
Yea, I think heads should roll on this one. Way too much infighting going on while people are dieing. Very poor leadership.
When the city of Darwin in Australia's north was completely destroyed by Cyclone Tracy on Christmas Eve 1974, a well orgnized response evacuated and dispersed residents around the country.
It was only much later, that people fully realised the utter social fracturing that had occurred to a whole community.
------
We are now hearing official statements from the Police like:
"The city is completely destryed, there is nothing here, no power, no water, no jobs, etc..."
While we understand the need for people to stay out while the clean-up takes place, there is a need to put strategies in place to minimise the trauma to the fractured community of New Orleans.
Constantly hearing that there home and city is completely destroyed will reinforce the trauma of these altready suffering people.
Measures need to be taken to preserve social structures and contacts, through networks, shared activities and more hopeful official decalarations.
New Orleans has to be closed temporarily to allow the cleanup and recovery, meanwhile New Orleans Centres should be established in major cities to provide meeting places and sharing of feelings, grief and hopes, until return is possible.
...and the same for other cities where people have been evacuated.
Spin
i dare say that this figure would be halved if help came 5 days earlier than it did and as it should have been for any other lesser countries than u.s. of america...
indecision, stupidity, finger pointing and just damn slow reaction in appreciating the severity of katrina's consequences despite all the authorities' forwwarning before katrina's arrival have killed more than the hurricane itself and killed more than those who died in 9/11!!!!
in the aftermath of katrina, there is definitely no reason whatsoever for protocol observation, name calling and finger pointing...only presence at the scene from the first hour of passing of katrina to save lives matters!
[Edited on 6/9/2005 by FactyCrab]
with neverending replies and contro-replies!
wouldn't it shock fema, homeland security, la state governor and the president if the final toll is ten thousand or more?
AFAIK Louisiana is the poorest stae in the Union. It does'nt take a neurosurgeon to know that people unable to leave the city were not going to be able to cope with the aftermath.
The jibe I made about Trent Lott can be best illustrated by an e-mail I recieved from my brother in law. I had enquired about his best man at his wedding, as both he and his parents lived in Louisiana. He said he had not heard from them but was not worried, their luxury condos werre on the 3rd floor, and their yacht was moored in the Bahamas. In shor they were l seriously monied and thus insulated.
The lessons of hurricane Katrina and its terrible aftermath are not about
disaster management but about exposing the falsehoods at the very heart of
modern America
By Muriel Gray
4/9/05 "Sunday Herald" -- -- SINCE broadcasters precede any post watershed
material that might shock, offend or disturb with a stern warning about
content, it seems odd that this service is not extended to the news. Mind
you, what would the reassuring voice of the female continuity announcer say?
How about: ³Viewers are cautioned that the following programme contains
images that may cause them to despise the entire human race and look forward
to its inevitable self destruction.²
Surely that¹s not too far from the truth as we sit and watch a bewildering
variety of individuals howling, wailing, weeping in agony, from Iraq to the
streets of London, to tsunami-torn beaches to Beslan, to Africa to New
Orleans, to anywhere really. Perhaps they¹re not beating their breasts and
clutching their hair in grief on the streets on Helsinki or Dunedin yet, but
our rolling news makes us suspect it¹s only a matter of time before some
kind of apocalyptic suffering eventually visits everyone.
Long gone are the days when Angela Rippon would round up with the heart
warming ³Ð and finally² story about a skateboarding duck or a toddler who
dialled 999 for a mother tumbled from a stepladder. Channels like the BBC¹s
News 24 are now devoted almost exclusively to reminding us what a nauseating
species we are. Regardless of the latest tragedy or atrocity being brought
to us in colour with subtitles, the commentators will almost always finish
their lugubrious analysis with the question, ³But what are the lessons to be
learned from this?² The answer is that demonstrably we learn nothing and
never have, which is why we continue to abuse both ourselves and our planet,
but if we are forced to dissect disaster in this manner then the American
hurricane crisis is as good a place as any to start.
So what are those lessons to be learned from a destroyed city with thousands
dead, little or no relief for survivors, and lawlessness taking over from
wind and water as the greatest threat to life? Not very nice lessons
unfortunately. As the bodies of the poor, black, disenfranchised southerners
bob to the surface of the rat-infested and sewage-infused waters, we¹re
reminded that America¹s position as a big, safe, morally decent democracy
with opportunity for all is one of the world¹s biggest lies. The American
dream that is being held up as the cause worth dying for in the Middle East
is as rotten to the core as its demonic administration.
When Bush is temporarily propped up on two legs by his people, out of his
natural position on all fours with knuckles resting gently on the White
House carpet, to tell the world that his country¹s values and people are
worth fighting for, he omits to mention that he doesn¹t mean poor people or
black people. Not only is this huge slice of the American public kept
largely invisible, in case it ruins the image of the culture which Bush¹s
administration demands countries in ³the axis of terrorr² adopt, but even
when such poverty is exposed to the world the US elite has little shame in
publicly holding these stricken citizens in contempt.
Take the comments made to the press by Michael Brown, the director of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency. When quizzed on the probable death
toll, which is now running into the thousands, Brown said: ³Unfortunately
that¹s going to be attributable to a lot of people who did not heed the
warnings. I don¹t make judgements about why people chose not to leave but,
you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans.²
So when those with cars left the city, leaving behind those with no
transport, did that mean that every available coach, truck and helicopter
was made available to get them out? Apparently not. Some of those who didn¹t
³heed the warnings² because they had no means of exit, included charity care
homes for the elderly, hospitals, whole housing schemes of poor black
residents, a children¹s care home, and countless thousands of dispersed
penniless people living on state benefits who were trapped and killed, not
because they were wilful irresponsible risk takers, but because they were
poor, powerless and vulnerable.
In a breathtaking display of racism, some white British students who were
trapped in the hell of the city¹s Superdome stadium, being used for
refugees, were removed to a safer place in a basketball arena by a white
policeman who one student described as having ³broken all the rules² to help
them. The students were young, healthy and in no immediate distress except
for experiencing mildly aggressive taunts about their colour, and yet the
stadium was full of dangerously ill people, highly distressed old people,
young children at great risk of dehydration, but for whom nobody ³broke all
the rules² on account of the fact that they were black. Meanwhile the gangs
of black youths stalking the city on orgies of raping, violence and looting
are not the bogeymen Islamic ³enemies of freedom² but products of their own
³democratic² country¹s polices of exclusion and division.
The lessons we¹re learning from this horror are not about disaster
management or speed of response, but about exposing the terrifying
falsehoods at the heart of America¹s relentless and belligerent quest for
world domination. With Bush turning his gimlet eye to Iran, and linking his
arm through that of our own dear Tony Blair as he does so, it¹s never been
more timely to be reminded so dramatically that the US is a deeply
dysfunctional, decadent, declining society, imploding with its own
prejudices, corruptions and hypocrisies.
John F Kennedy said: ³I look forward to a great future for America, a future
in which our country will match its military strength with our moral
restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.²
Yes that would be nice John, wouldn¹t it? I¹m sure that as soon as the
honourable, honest, decent people who run the country work out who it was
who really shot you, they¹ll get right on with the job of bringing your
vision about.
©2005 newsquest (sunday herald)
I am bearing a whole lot of weight with this gas price thing! I am not happy with Bush and there aint' much that's gonna change my mind as long as money keeps leavign my pocketbook and lining someone elses that happens to be assocatied with Texas oil.
On the other hand...
Someone F'UP in NewOrleans. Who ever it was who ever let people die needs to be gone.
Of course I have pretty strong feelings about Rove revealing an agent. That is treason. He needs to be shot if found guilty. No excuse.