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White House Knew of Levee Failure on Night of Storm
The New York Times ^ | FEB 9, 2006 | ERIC LIPTON

Posted on 02/09/2006 8:34:49 PM PST by blogblogginaway

Among the findings that emerge in the mass of documents and testimony:

¶Federal officials knew long before the storm showed up on the radar that 100,000 people in New Orleans had no way to escape a major hurricane on their own and that the city had finished only 10 percent of a plan for how to evacuate its largely poor, African-American population.

¶Mr. Chertoff failed to name a principal federal official to oversee the response before the hurricane arrived, an omission a top Pentagon official acknowledged to investigators complicated the coordination of the response. His department also did not plan enough to prevent a conflict over which agency should be in charge of law enforcement support. And Mr. Chertoff was either poorly informed about the levee break or did not recognize the significance of the initial report about it, investigators said.

¶The Louisiana transportation secretary, Johnny B. Bradberry, who had legal responsibility for the evacuation of thousands of people in nursing homes and hospitals, admitted bluntly to investigators that "we put no plans in place to do any of this."

¶Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans at first directed his staff to prepare a mandatory evacuation of his city on Saturday, two days before the storm hit, but he testified that he had not done so that day while he and other city officials struggled to decide if they should exempt hospitals and hotels from the order. The mandatory evacuation occurred on Sunday, and the delay exacerbated the difficulty in moving people away from the storm.

¶The New Orleans Police Department unit assigned to the rescue effort, despite many years' worth of flood warnings and requests for money, had just three small boats and no food, water or fuel to supply its emergency workers.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events; US: Louisiana
KEYWORDS: ericlipton; katrina; leveeplot; mediamalpractice
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Headline could have read : New Orleans Officials Totally Unprepared For Levee Break .......... but noooooooo. Bush's fault.
1 posted on 02/09/2006 8:34:50 PM PST by blogblogginaway
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To: blogblogginaway

Katrina is so 2005.


2 posted on 02/09/2006 8:36:37 PM PST by frankjr
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To: blogblogginaway


But that doesn;t fit their agenda.
See how that works?


3 posted on 02/09/2006 8:37:27 PM PST by onyx
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To: onyx

Bush should have seized control of the state like his gut was telling him to.


4 posted on 02/09/2006 8:39:15 PM PST by blogblogginaway (..)
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To: blogblogginaway

"The New Orleans Police Department unit assigned to the rescue effort, despite many years' worth of flood warnings and requests for money"

Oh come on! This place was a cesspool and was due for a flushing, to the detriment of a multi-generational, public assistance addicted people. Unfortunately because of continued democratic controlled governments and their lack of action, as usual there are attempts to shift blame. They need to look in the mirror. This story is page 22.


5 posted on 02/09/2006 8:40:04 PM PST by Tulsa Ramjet ("If not now, when")
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To: blogblogginaway

why did they not use the church busses that take the "poor" to vote to get them out of town,


6 posted on 02/09/2006 8:40:45 PM PST by zipp_city
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To: blogblogginaway
Looks like Katrina and "Cheney leaked Plame" are the talking points for the Sunday shows.

Next week it will probably be back to Bush-Abramoff and NSA "domestic spying".

7 posted on 02/09/2006 8:41:31 PM PST by COEXERJ145 (Despite Popular Opinion, Tom Tancredo Does Not Support Deporting Illegal Aliens.)
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To: blogblogginaway

Those damn people had plenty of warning. I am sick to death of hearing about NOLA and their continuous whining and assigning of blame to Bush. Their incompetence is home grown, and so's their corruption.



8 posted on 02/09/2006 8:41:36 PM PST by onyx
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To: blogblogginaway
...and that the city had finished only 10 percent of a plan for how to evacuate its largely poor, African-American population...

Well now whose fault is that?? President Bush was supposed to exactly what about this...?

Oh and also from the article:

The Louisiana transportation secretary, Johnny B. Bradberry, who had legal responsibility for the evacuation of thousands of people in nursing homes and hospitals, admitted bluntly to investigators, "We put no plans in place to do any of this."

yep...Bush's fault...clearly... /s
9 posted on 02/09/2006 8:42:09 PM PST by MrBlueSky2005
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To: blogblogginaway

They are really doing a full court press this weekend. This is just recycled nonsense with another misleading lead. We should expect this manufacturing of news to be the norm from now until the elections. Lies, deceit and falsehoods will be presented as news with unnamed sources and weak facts so the left can create a reality they want, versus the actual reality.


10 posted on 02/09/2006 8:42:44 PM PST by newnhdad (All your government branches are belong to us!!)
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To: blogblogginaway

But I thought the levee didn't break until a day or so after the storm passed, in which case the headline is inaccurate.


11 posted on 02/09/2006 8:42:56 PM PST by Agog
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To: blogblogginaway
The Media is in full out attack mode today.

It is really fun to watch. They know that they couldn't win on Alito, they are losing on the NSA program, Harry Reid is going down, Hillary cant win in 08, the Patriot Act is going to pass, McCain took the shine off Obama, the Stock Market is taking off, Unemployment is down,

AND THE DEMOCRATS ARE BROKE!!!

It is a great day to be an American.

12 posted on 02/09/2006 8:43:49 PM PST by Pukin Dog (Sans Reproache)
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To: blogblogginaway
Bush should have seized control of the state like his gut was telling him to.

Haley Barbour didn't encounter all these problems in Mississippi that Nagin and Blanco have been carping about for months on end.

13 posted on 02/09/2006 8:44:27 PM PST by BigSkyFreeper (Proud to be a cotton-pickin' Republican on the GOP Plantation)
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To: Pukin Dog



And a most wonderful time to be a Republican.


14 posted on 02/09/2006 8:44:36 PM PST by onyx
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To: blogblogginaway

Thanks for gettin' me off the hook, New York Times people!

15 posted on 02/09/2006 8:45:03 PM PST by JennysCool (Do not needlessly endanger your lives until I give you the signal. - Ike)
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To: Pukin Dog

Thanks Pukin, that little ray of sunshine made my day.


16 posted on 02/09/2006 8:46:13 PM PST by newnhdad (All your government branches are belong to us!!)
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To: BigSkyFreeper

OH, but dontcha know, we didn't have levees...lol.

I recall watching a clip from CNN right before the levees broke. A pastry chef was passing out little slices of cheesecake on Bourbon Street. They were high fiving that MS got the brunt of the storm and not them.


17 posted on 02/09/2006 8:46:31 PM PST by onyx
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To: blogblogginaway

When I lived there in 1978, I was joggin on the Mississippi levee. I looked up, and saw a Danish cargo ship go by, towering ten or twelve stories above me. I looked down at my house, about ten to fifteen feet below the levee. I said to myself, "What's wrong with this picture?" I completed MY evacuation plan in 1979, and the city has known about this possibility for over 100 years. Plans to reinforce the levees were cancelled in the 70's because of lawsuits filed by the Sierra Club over the Environmental Protection Act. Beyond that though, New Orleans proves you can't give people more money than they can steal or throw away. It doesn't matter how much Federal money they get, because every dime will be stolen.


18 posted on 02/09/2006 8:46:41 PM PST by Richard Kimball
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To: blogblogginaway

Of course they did, they BLEW it up. Duh!


19 posted on 02/09/2006 8:46:46 PM PST by msnimje (SAMMY for SANDY --- THAT IS WHAT I CALL A GOOD TRADE!!!)
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To: onyx
Those damn people had plenty of warning. I am sick to death of hearing about NOLA and their continuous whining and assigning of blame to Bush. Their incompetence is home grown, and so's their corruption.

I agree. I'm sick and tired of those two a-holes pi$$ing and moaning months after the fact.

20 posted on 02/09/2006 8:48:24 PM PST by BigSkyFreeper (Proud to be a cotton-pickin' Republican on the GOP Plantation)
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