The Harsh Lessons of Hurricane Katrina

opinioneditorials.com ^ | September 04, 2005 | Joe Mariani

[Boston Blackie]

On 27 August 2005, two days before Hurricane Katrina hit near New Orleans, President Bush declared the state of Louisiana a major disaster area. This allowed FEMA, which coordinates state and local disaster relief efforts, to make funds and supplies available to Louisiana Governor Kathy Blanco. Medical supplies, food and water and National Guard units were deployed within a short distance of New Orleans -- short under normal conditions. The Red Cross set up headquarters in Baton Rouge, perhaps 80 miles away.

[marblehead17]

ping

[Zenith]

The Democrats NIGHTMARE is.....

TV showing Welfare Blacks and how the DEMS treated them !!
Dems keep them on the Plantation !!

[FairOpinion]

"The levees that protected the city from the Mississippi River and Lake Ponchartrain were partially redesigned and rebuilt to withstand a Force 3 hurricane. The ten-year project to build them up to that level was launched in 1965, but is still incomplete after 40 years. The portion of the levee that collapsed, however, was one that had been completed. The city and state governments took a continuing gamble since the 1960's that no stronger storm would happen to strike New Orleans. Eventually, they were bound to lose... it was only a matter of time. Some critics would like to blame the disaster on the recent reduction of federal funds to the Army Corps of Engineers, but funds have been declining for nearly a decade. According to the Chicago Tribune, "Congress in 1999 authorized the corps to conduct a $12 million study to determine how much it would cost to protect New Orleans from a Category 5 hurricane, but the study isn't scheduled to get under way until 2006."


AND from another article:

"Corps officials said the floodwaters breached at two spots: the 17th Street Canal Levee and the London Avenue Canal Levee. Connie Gillette, a Corps spokeswoman, said Saturday there never had been any plans or funds allocated to shore up those spots — another sign the government expected them to hold."


"In the case of New Orleans and flood control, another factor was at work: the reputation of the Corps of Engineers. Over the years, many in Washington had come to regard the Corps as an out-of-control agency that championed huge projects and sometimes exaggerated need and benefits.


In 2000, Corps leaders were found to have manipulated an economic study to justify a Mississippi River project that would have cost billions. The agency also launched a secret growth initiative to boost its budget by 50%. And the Pentagon found in 2000 that the Corps' cost-benefit analyses were systematically skewed to warrant large-scale construction projects.

As a result, said a senior staffer with the Senate Appropriations Committee who spoke on condition of anonymity, requests by the Corps for flood control money were especially vulnerable to budget cutting. "A lot of people just look at it as pork," said the staffer. "

http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/20050904/ts_latimes/despitewarningswashingtonfailedtofundleveeprojects

[queenkathy]

That is a well written article

[plain talk]

Right. If you are going to have a welfare state with a dependent under class the state has to take care of them. They didn't. The took a population with a heavy percentage of criminals and drug addicts and shoved them into the Superdome. Brilliant.

[Travis McGee]

I hope that sooner or later the MSM discovers that New Orleans did have a written emergency plan to cover the evacuation of the poor, but that the idiot mayor of New Orleans ignored it, and allowed the evacuation buses to be ruined by the flood, forgotten.

The city leaders had at least two full days to use these hundreds of buses to evac the poor, exactly as their own emergency management plan called for.

Here's the southeast Louisiana evac plan supplement, most recently revised in 2000. Go to page 13, read paragraph 5. It states:

5. The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating.

[FlingWingFlyer]

On 27 August 2005, two days before Hurricane Katrina hit near New Orleans, President Bush declared the state of Louisiana a major disaster area.

Proof that the maggots down at the DNC and in the Liberal MSM now consider English as their "second language" and really don't have a very good grip on understanding it.

[clearlight]

Great post. This is the kind of evidence that will be necessary to counter the MSM's campaign of lies against the Bush administration. Not to mention the race-hustlers campaign of "this could only happen because America is run by white racists".

[fso301]

At 66 persons per bus, there are enough buses in those two pictures to have transported the entire convention center crowd to safety.

[jwalsh07]

Those buses are no good for evac, they don't have toilets.

So sayeth the "leadership" in NOLA.

[combat_boots]

Well, a school bus was good enough for the 1st bus to get to Texas, driven by a young man who'd never driven one in his life, complete with 80 people, babies, old folks, and people standing in the aisles.

[jwalsh07]

A lot of rest stops and trees between NOLA and Houston, Tx.

[rollo tomasi]

'The Harsh Lessons of Hurricane Katrina'

Don't vote for pandering democrat collectivist.

The only time democrats will bring out the buses and evacuate you is on election day.

[dfwgator]

If you are a Republican President, assume the Democratic state and local governments will make a Charlie-Foxtrot out of things, unless you take over from the get go.

[eddie willers]

From that same LA Times article:

But in May 2004, then Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he had visited the levees as a guest of Landrieu and believed them adequate.

He praised the ancient water pumps for keeping the waters from cascading into the city, proclaiming them "these old, old pumps that hadn't been changed since before the turn of the century, that still keep New Orleans dry."

"It was as clean as a restaurant," he added. "These big old pumps work."

Today, eight of those 22 pumps are underwater and inoperable.

[rollo tomasi]

The new mantra from democrats:

"Bush should have known we democrats are irresponsible and only use State and local governments as a job and kick back program.

We never intended to serve the people, only take from them. So in conclusion BUSH KNEW!!!!"

[dfwgator]

"You F'd up, you trusted us."

[rollo tomasi]

"You F'd up, you trusted us."

ROTFLMAO

That phrase should be on our currency before 'In God we trust'.

[JohnBovenmyer]

Those buses are no good for evac, they don't have toilets.

They have exactly the same number of toilets as virtually every private vehicle that was driven out of NO. With the traffic jams that occurred I bet many pulled off the road to briefly use the ditch. If that was good enough for those who got themselves out, it should have been good enough for those who needed help to get out. Heck, using the ditch is even endorsed by the MSM... when the ditch is in Crawford, TX.