Hurricane Katrina

[colduser]

Some light reading:

 

Published on Thursday, September 1, 2005 by Der Spiegel (Germany)

No One Can Say they Didn't See it Coming

by Sidney Blumenthal

 

In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.

 

Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, Hurricane Katrina has left millions of Americans to scavenge for food and shelter and hundreds to thousands reportedly dead. With its main levee broken, the evacuated city of New Orleans has become part of the Gulf of Mexico. But the damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act of nature.

 

A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late.

 

The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which before the hurricane published a series on the federal funding problem, and whose presses are now underwater, reported online: "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."

 

The Bush administration's policy of turning over wetlands to developers almost certainly also contributed to the heightened level of the storm surge. In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands surrounding New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot. Bush had promised "no net loss" of wetlands, a policy launched by his father's administration and bolstered by President Clinton. But he reversed his approach in 2003, unleashing the developers. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency then announced they could no longer protect wetlands unless they were somehow related to interstate commerce.

 

In response to this potential crisis, four leading environmental groups conducted a joint expert study, concluding in 2004 that without wetlands protection New Orleans could be devastated by an ordinary, much less a Category 4 or 5, hurricane. "There's no way to describe how mindless a policy that is when it comes to wetlands protection," said one of the report's authors. The chairman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality dismissed the study as "highly questionable," and boasted, "Everybody loves what we're doing."

 

"My administration's climate change policy will be science based," President Bush declared in June 2001. But in 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency submitted a study on global warming to the United Nations reflecting its expert research, Bush derided it as "a report put out by a bureaucracy," and excised the climate change assessment from the agency's annual report. The next year, when the EPA issued its first comprehensive "Report on the Environment," stating, "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment," the White House simply demanded removal of the line and all similar conclusions. At the G-8 meeting in Scotland this year, Bush successfully stymied any common action on global warming. Scientists, meanwhile, have continued to accumulate impressive data on the rising temperature of the oceans, which has produced more severe hurricanes.

 

In February 2004, 60 of the nation's leading scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, warned in a statement, "Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policymaking": "Successful application of science has played a large part in the policies that have made the United States of America the world's most powerful nation and its citizens increasingly prosperous and healthy ... Indeed, this principle has long been adhered to by presidents and administrations of both parties in forming and implementing policies. The administration of George W. Bush has, however, disregarded this principle ... The distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease." Bush completely ignored this statement.

 

In the two weeks preceding the storm in the Gulf, the trumping of science by ideology and expertise by special interests accelerated. The Federal Drug Administration announced that it was postponing sale of the morning-after contraceptive pill, despite overwhelming scientific evidence of its safety and its approval by the FDA's scientific advisory board. The United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa accused the Bush administration of responsibility for a condom shortage in Uganda -- the result of the administration's evangelical Christian agenda of "abstinence." When the chief of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the Justice Department was ordered by the White House to delete its study that African-Americans and other minorities are subject to racial profiling in police traffic stops and he refused to buckle under, he was forced out of his job. When the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting oversight analyst objected to a $7 billion no-bid contract awarded for work in Iraq to Halliburton (the firm at which Vice President Cheney was formerly CEO), she was demoted despite her superior professional ratings. At the National Park Service, a former Cheney aide, a political appointee lacking professional background, drew up a plan to overturn past environmental practices and prohibit any mention of evolution while allowing sale of religious materials through the Park Service.

 

On the day the levees burst in New Orleans, Bush delivered a speech in Colorado comparing the Iraq war to World War II and himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt: "And he knew that the best way to bring peace and stability to the region was by bringing freedom to Japan." Bush had boarded his very own "Streetcar Named Desire."

 

Sidney Blumenthal is former assistant and senior advisor to President Clinton and the author of "The Clinton Wars".

 

© 2005 Spielgel Online

[berrywoman]

lets be honest here....

 

The city was not prepared for this type of disaster. They have already admitted that the levees would not withstand a cat.3 storm.. and we all know it was a cat.5 before it made landfall. So they (local govts included) knew that a catastrophe was bound to happen. The US govt denied LA the proper funding necessary to upgrade those levees.... again, Bush's fault. Here is the problem... WHY wasn't anything done sooner. This is where I get upset with the gov't. You can't deny that...

 

renaFORD, you stated you relocated.. where are you now??

 

 

edit: oh snap Aaron.. we comment on the same thing at the same time!! :stunned:

[lilchick629]

Aaron-------interesting article---didnt know all that------its too long though but very informative

 

:angry: Bush :angry:

[colduser]

I know Laura. Just reading it made me quite angry as well ;)

[berrywoman]

Storm Victims Steal School Buses To Flee New Orleans

 

POSTED: 12:13 pm EDT September 2, 2005

UPDATED: 12:52 pm EDT September 2, 2005

 

Several school buses were stolen from Orleans Parish, loaded with storm victims and driven out of New Orleans toward Houston in desperate acts to leave the ravaged city, according to reports.

 

Three school buses were stopped Thursday night in Port Allen, La., just west of Baton Rouge after they were stolen, according to WBRZ-TV in Baton Rouge. The evacuees were placed on other buses and transferred to shelters in Texas.

 

An 18-year-old also decided to take matters into his own hands and stole an abandoned city school bus and drove storm victims to Texas, according to a CNN report.

 

The teen driver, Jabbar Gibson, 18, said he had never driven a bus before but wanted to save people.

 

"If it wasn't for him, we'd still be in New Orleans on the Gulf," bus passenger Randy Nathan said. "He got the bus for us."

 

Authorities allowed the renegade passengers inside the Astrodome but Gibson could find himself in trouble after taking the school bus.

 

Meanwhile, Katrina refugees who had finally arrived by bus from the steamy Superdome were left in limbo for more than two hours after officials suddenly announced that the Astrodome was too full to accept them.

 

Early Friday, after waiting on board and milling about the parking lot, the passengers were redirected to an adjacent exhibit hall, said Houston press secretary Patrick Trahan.

 

The change only added to the frustration of victims like Patricia Profit, who had relatives already inside the stadium.

 

"Before we left New Orleans, they said everybody will be in the Astrodome," said Profit as she stood outside one of the buses. "'Don't panic, don't worry, you'll still be with your family.' That's what they told us. Now we can't be with our family."

 

The daylong stream of buses was halted late Thursday, when the stadium population reached 11,325, less than half the 23,000 people that authorities had expected to put there.

 

http://www.local6.com/news/4929516/detail.html

 

 

 

if the governement was doing such a fine job.. people wouldn't be taking things into their own hands. I applaude this young man.. God Bless! :thumbsup:

[colduser]

Great article Camille. I had not read about that ;)

[berrywoman]

heh.. the kid was just on FOX news... they said he was 20 though.. lol touching story though.. he just picked up people... took them to Houston..

[colduser]

Not Fox News Camille :rolleyes: :lol: :kiss: :blush:

[berrywoman]

:embarrased: I know..

 

 

I like Shepard Smith... :embarrased:

[colduser]

:lol: SHep Smith is intriguing :wink3: He is such an asshole though, to the highest order of the word ;)

[lilchick629]

:rolleyes: Camille, you should know better than that---FOX "NEWS" is crap

 

:angry: put your head in shame

[colduser]

Fox News has its own entertainment value though Laura :P

[lilchick629]

:stunned: not u too!!!!!!!!!!! :huh:

 

:angry: you put your head in shame too

 

:P there has to be something more entertaining than FOX news though--- :idea2:

[colduser]

I don't watch it regularly Laura. Just on boring weeknights. I love watching the O'Reilly factor and seeing Bill's fat droopy lizard skin neck. He is such a fucking creep :P

[berrywoman]

yeah.. it is entertaining... lol tonight I saw Geraldo Rivera crying!!! :stunned: Can't say I blame him though... :embarrased:

[lilchick629]

:confused:

 

well back to incopetent bush..........................yeah, he sucks :angry:

ohhh---- :angry: and how could the 18 year old boy be in trouble for what he did----so they are saying that private property is more important than lives of those people??? :angry: so stupid

[colduser]

yeah.. it is entertaining... lol tonight I saw Geraldo Rivera crying!!! :stunned: Can't say I blame him though... :embarrased:

 

:lol: Geraldo should get an emmy for his acting. He is a such a cheeseball bitch :lol:

[renaFORD]

Is anyone here not a liberal?

[renaFORD]

i don't think that boy should be punished either.

did you know that NO residents are shooting at choppers and buses and looting houses?

as far as that other article i can believe that as much as my house is not flooded and well it is. what difference does it make whose fault it was (mother nature maybe) no matter how much planning NO is under sealevel and surrounded by water so there is no hope. with a cat 5 there is no hope.

[lilchick629]

i dont think this is a liberal-conservative issue----i think the most important thing is to look at the facts weather u are from the right or left---and judge your government---and if necessary, demand more from your government

 

and even people from bush administration (conservatives) have agreed that there wasnt any help from the government until today

 

and yeah-----you might want to talk to nick---you two would get along just fine :P

[renaFORD]

nick okay i will

[renaFORD]

oh no i think it is. liberals are aginst bush no matter what he does it is wrong. Iraq - wrong even though ppl were being tortured to death. i'm not saying he hasn't made mistakes but lets get past the "who can we blame" and focus on the "how can we fix it". the facts: there is help now and new orleans still needs it.

[berrywoman]

you never said where you relocated to.... rena.. ??

[renaFORD]

Lafayette

[lilchick629]

i dont think it is a liberals-conservatives thing----here's why

if bush had reacted to this news earlier and would have send all help possible to help people survive as soon as possible---i dont think i would be writing all this hate towards bush on this subject-----------i would not be judging him right now

 

to tell you the truth---i am not a liberal, i tend to take each issue as it comes, and i find myself sometimes on the right and sometimes on the left----and i still think bush could have done better----he had the responsability to do so :cry: