Please consider Governor Blanco of Louisiana and Mayor Nagin of New Orleans. For a couple of RATS, their collective performance has been classical, typical, illustrative and exemplary.
Posted on 09/04/2005 1:12:00 PM PDT by Dont_Tread_On_Me_888
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Virtually everything that has happened in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck was predicted by experts and in computer models, so emergency management specialists wonder why authorities were so unprepared.
"The scenario of a major hurricane hitting New Orleans was well anticipated, predicted and drilled around," said Clare Rubin, an emergency management consultant who also teaches at the Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management at George Washington University.
Computer models developed at Louisiana State University and other institutions made detailed projections of what would happen if water flowed over the levees protecting the city or if they failed.
Thepublishing date is 9/2 but a search of FR by title failed to show this has already been posted.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Did the models predict the total breakdown in civil order--rioting, looting, arson, rape, murder....???
well, apparently the models didn't factor in incompetence.
Definition of "Expert": Former spurt, under pressure.
The toughest thing to model is the official response. Disaster manuals are usually thick and tough to read. They end up gathering dust, and sometimes become unknown to beaurocrats as personnel turns over through the years.
expert = "ex" (a has-been) plus "spurt" (a drip under pressure)
And as we all know from our global warming studies, computer models are always right.
"why authorities were so unprepared"
Incompetence.
Corruption.
Stupidity.
--on the bus tour of NO my wife and I took almost exactly two years ago, the bus driver (a voluble native) pointed out the elevation changes as we went over them and explained that NO was similar to a large bowl with no protection against a major hurricane and the disaster that it would bring---
Some won't get their respirations either.
It is the responsibility of the mayor to know his city and know the people who run the departments in the city.
For 2/3 of the police officers in New Orleans to abandon their jobs and/or join the looters in trashing the city, it is clear Nagin knew how corrupt his police force was, he knew the crime rate in the city WAS TEN TIMES the national average, and he knew that chaos would result because there is chaos every single day in New Orleans with a crime rate like that.
No sane person could honestly say that the lawlessness caught them by surprise. Even on a good day, New Orleans is America's Fallujah.
The models should have predicted that the first order of business would be to enforce STRICT security. If they had not, then this is yet another example of the RAT Cancer politically correctness where even a multimillion dollar computer model simulation fails to input the non-politically correct fact that New Orleans is a cesspool of crime and you better damn well take that into account in any honest computer model.
DUH?? It doesn't take an expert or a computer model to "predict" a disaster when you have a large part of a city below sea-level protected by levees that are designed to protect from a Cat. 3 storm when you are hit with a Cat .4.
Even James Carville knew what would happen in this situation. He said on T V that everybody in LA knew that this would happen someday. He said people have talked for years about what would happen when the "big one" came.
Fourteen hundred National Guard troops per day are arriving in New Orleans to control looting and lawlessness. It's not clear whether guardsmen will shoot looters or simply force them to swim away in the city's toxic streets.
President Bush called for zero tolerance on looting, but it wasn't clear if he meant those looting businesses in New Orleans or those looting customers at the nation's gas stations.
New Orleans sent out a distress call after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city. Everyone wants to come to their aid. Two hours after the hurricane was finished Los Angeles sent six planeloads of looters to help out in any way they can. (comedian Argus Hamilton)
Please consider Governor Blanco of Louisiana and Mayor Nagin of New Orleans. For a couple of RATS, their collective performance has been classical, typical, illustrative and exemplary.
Ten Years Of Preparation for Katrina:
Why didn't local officials use their resources to build stronger, higher levees since the last Category 5 hurricane hit New Orleans in 1969? President Clinton believed that shoring up the levees was a not a national concern; however, with the federal government in charge, local and state officials were able to shift the burden to Washington and divert their attention to more frivolous pursuits.
Instead of pumping the necessary resources into walls and levees that would withstand the worst storms, they built convention centers and sports arenas. Ie: Louisiana Superdome Cost $163 million to build in 1975, and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, a state entity, was built in 1985, and as late as August 17, which was 12 days before Katrina flattened 90 thousand miles of earth Gov. Kathleen Blanco approved an $315 million dollar expansion.
For the past 10 years congress and the president have been talking about preventing the devastation wrought by Katrina.
Dateline 1995:
Congress appropriated more than $223 million for Army Corps of Engineers projects in Louisiana, including money to relieve urban flooding in Orleans Jefferson and St. Tammany parishes. Times-Picayune 11/3/95
If Congress approves changes recommended by President Clinton, the federal government probably would soon stop all contributions to about 17 Louisiana water projects, including flood-control projects for the Comite River and for East Baton Rouge Parish. The Advocate (Baton Rouge, La.)
A hurricane project, approved and financed since 1965, to protect more than 140,000 West Bank residents east of the Harvey Canal is in jeopardy. The Clinton administration is holding back a Corps of Engineers report recommending that the $120 million project proceed. Unless that report is forwarded to the Office of Management and Budget, Congress cannot authorize money for the project, U.S. Rep. William Jefferson's office said Thursday. Without the improvements - a flood gate in the Harvey Canal and raised levees along the Intracoastal Waterway - a tidal surge produced by a hurricane "could result in the catastrophic loss of life and property damage," corps officials reported. In a worst-case-scenario storm, 82 percent of the buildings east of the Harvey Canal, from The Point in Algiers to the Algiers Lock in the Industrial Canal, would be flooded, causing $2.2 billion in damage, according to corps estimates. Jefferson wrote Clinton that Zirschky's refusal to forward the corps report "thwarts the will of the U.S. Congress, which has authorized this public safety project for three decades." He asked Clinton to help clear up any misunderstanding and to see that the report is passed on to OMB, allowing the financing process to proceed. Times-Picayune, The (New Orleans, LA)
Dateline 1997:
WASHINGTON After waiting a month for the Clinton administration's secret "hit list" of federal project cuts, Rep. Bob Livingston hoped to learn whether the White House's budget-tightening was going far enough. Instead, he was miffed to find it was coming too close to home. The list of 254 proposed cuts, released this week by the Office of Management and Budget, includes elimination of $13.3 million for Lake Pontchartrain stormwater protection Times-Picayune, The (New Orleans, LA)
President Clinton soon may make the first serious use of his new line-item veto power. Several big-ticket Louisiana water projects, There's one huge Louisiana project on everybody's watch list. It's a $47 million flood control and drainage project for Orleans and neighboring parishes, coupled with legislative language that mandates a construction start. Clinton requested only $6 million. But the Clinton administration (like others before it) says that the Feds should fund only "national interest" water projects, and most flood control isn't a national responsibility. Also possible veto-bait, on the theory it's local flood control: $900,000 for levees at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Clinton's budget had no funds for Angola levees.
Dateline 1998:
The republican controlled congress "A separate project to upgrade food control levees along the Mississippi also was funded at $4.9 million above Clinton's budget," the committee said. The Advocate (Baton Rouge, La.)
Dateline 1999
Pressing for federal help to create better hurricane evacuation plans for southeastern Louisiana, the House Thursday approved a spending bill that includes a mandate for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to study the issue and report back with recommendations. Since then, area officials have agreed on a plan that would have all I-10 lanes between Kenner and LaPlace be converted one-way to lead out of the area during a major hurricane emergency, along with other improved evacuation plans. But local officials said they could use FEMA's expertise to add additional enhancements.(but this apparently didn’t happen before Katrian hit)
Dateline 2000
The bill, which passed 93-1 late Thursday, would allocate $69 million for southeast Louisiana flood-control projects, $22 million more than proposed by President Clinton. It also would increase flood-control allocations for Lake Pontchartrain and vicinity to $10 million, about three times as much as proposed in the president's budget proposal. Times-Picayune, The (New Orleans, LA)
When government is put in charge, there is always more talk and money spent than is necessary to do the job.
Check this out--it was sent to me by a retired AF pilot friend in Florida. National Geographic dated 2004:
http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/
For those who have not read that, another great read and retort to the RATs' claim that they were not prepared.
THX
here it is again:
http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/
"Should have listened to us, y'all"
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