posted September 12, 2005 04:00 PM            

It is settled wisdom among journalists that the federal response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina was unconscionably slow.

"Mr. Bush's performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever during a dire national emergency," wrote New York Times columnist Bob Herbert in a somewhat more strident expression of the conventional wisdom.

But the conventional wisdom is the opposite of the truth.

Jason van Steenwyk is a Florida Army National Guardsman who has been mobilized six times for hurricane relief. He notes that:

"The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."

For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 2002. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three.

Journalists who are long on opinions and short on knowledge have no idea what is involved in moving hundreds of tons of relief supplies into an area the size of England in which power lines are down, telecommunications are out, no gasoline is available, bridges are damaged, roads and airports are covered with debris, and apparently have little interest in finding out.

So they libel as a "national disgrace" the most monumental and successful disaster relief operation in world history.

I write this column a week and a day after the main levee protecting New Orleans breached. In the course of that week:

More than 32,000 people have been rescued, many plucked from rooftops by Coast Guard helicopters.

The Army Corps of Engineers has all but repaired the breaches and begun pumping water out of New Orleans.

Shelter, food and medical care have been provided to more than 180,000 refugees.

Journalists complain that it took a whole week to do this. A former Air Force logistics officer had some words of advice for us in the Fourth Estate on his blog, Moltenthought:

"We do not yet have teleporter or replicator technology like you saw on 'Star Trek' in college between hookah hits and waiting to pick up your worthless communications degree while the grown-ups actually engaged in the recovery effort were studying engineering.

"The United States military can wipe out the Taliban and the Iraqi Republican Guard far more swiftly than they can bring 3 million Swanson dinners to an underwater city through an area the size of Great Britain which has no power, no working ports or airports, and a devastated and impassable road network.

"You cannot speed recovery and relief efforts up by prepositioning assets (in the affected areas) since the assets are endangered by the very storm which destroyed the region.

"No amount of yelling, crying and mustering of moral indignation will change any of the facts above."

"You cannot just snap your fingers and make the military appear somewhere," van Steenwyk said.

Guardsmen need to receive mobilization orders; report to their armories; draw equipment; receive orders and convoy to the disaster area. Guardsmen driving down from Pennsylvania or Navy ships sailing from Norfolk can't be on the scene immediately.

Relief efforts must be planned. Other than prepositioning supplies near the area likely to be afflicted (which was done quite efficiently), this cannot be done until the hurricane has struck and a damage assessment can be made. There must be a route reconnaissance to determine if roads are open, and bridges along the way can bear the weight of heavily laden trucks.

And federal troops and Guardsmen from other states cannot be sent to a disaster area until their presence has been requested by the governors of the afflicted states.

Exhibit A on the bill of indictment of federal sluggishness is that it took four days before most people were evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome.

The levee broke Tuesday morning. Buses had to be rounded up and driven from Houston to New Orleans across debris-strewn roads. The first ones arrived Wednesday evening. That seems pretty fast to me.

A better question -- which few journalists ask -- is why weren't the roughly 2,000 municipal and school buses in New Orleans utilized to take people out of the city before Katrina struck?

posted September 12, 2005 04:59 PM              

quote:

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A better question -- which few journalists ask -- is why weren't the roughly 2,000 municipal and school buses in New Orleans utilized to take people out of the city before Katrina struck?

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posted September 12, 2005 07:36 PM            

I also know that from a disaster point of view, we never really know how things will work until we are in that situation. In my own county, we could have a huge disaster, but we have to go to the Board of Sup to declare an emergency, then we need to go to the state (unless they declare it unilaterally) before we can qualify for any state or federal aid.

We can have the Feds standing at our doorstep, but they can't do anything until the red tape has been cut.

I can see both sides of the problem. Why did the people have to stay in the convention center / super dome for so long? Why weren't the buses used? Why didn't any citizen groups (or people in the either the dome or center) get organized to help each other?

I think all parties are to blame, with the exception of children, the elderly and sick / infirm.

Why were there snipers shooting at medical personnel? Can you blame some people for not wanting to wait it out in the hospital when their very lives are threatened as they are taking a person to the ambulance waiting outside?

What if they HAD evacuated people pre-emptively? One can only imagine the hue and cry that would have gone up had something horrible NOT happened, then there is the issue of people's rights being violated.

posted September 13, 2005 11:56 AM              

They all dropped the ball on this one... Feds, State, Local... But this FEMA piece o' doo doo doesn't deserve to live another day IMO. How can he look in the mirror? How can he live with himself?

posted September 13, 2005 12:22 PM            

His experience or lack of never bothered anyone before..not even the damn Senate when he was approved in 2002... We've had LOTS of natural disasters since then wouldn't ya say?

Nah...it's just too easy to jump on the "Hey, I hate Bush any way so lets find another thing to blame on him..."

FEMA Chief Has Become Chief Scapegoat

Thursday, September 08, 2005

WASHINGTON — He's been called an idiot, an incompetent and worse. The vilification of federal disaster chief Michael Brown (search), emerging as chief scapegoat for whatever went wrong in the government's response to Hurricane Katrina (search), has ratcheted into the stratosphere. Democratic members of Congress are taking numbers to call for his head.

"I would never have appointed such a person," said New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (search).

"Let's bring in someone who is a professional," urged Sen. Barbara Mikulski (search), D-Md.

A more visceral indictment came from closer to the calamity. Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish near New Orleans, said the bureaucracy "has murdered people in the greater New Orleans area."

"Take whatever idiot they have at the top of whatever agency and give me a better idiot," he told CBS. "Give me a caring idiot. Give me a sensitive idiot. Just don't give me the same idiot."

Republican Sen. Trent Lott (search) of Mississippi, just back from a week surveying damage in his home state, allowed that "mistakes are being made" but tried to counsel restraint Tuesday as calls for Brown's removal escalated. But even Lott displayed some of the potent emotions spawned by the horrific conditions on the Gulf Coast.

"If somebody said, 'You pick somebody to hammer,' I don't know who I'd pick," he told reporters. "I did threaten to physically beat a couple of people in the last couple of days, figuratively speaking."

It's not uncommon for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (search) — and whoever is in charge at the time — to catch blame in the messy aftermath of disaster.

It happened after Hugo hit South Carolina in 1989 and Andrew struck Florida in 1992.

After Andrew, Mikulski slammed the agency for a "pathetically sluggish" response, and on the ground, Dade County emergency director Kathleen Hale famously summed up the frustration felt throughout the stricken areas when she cried, "Where the hell is the cavalry?"

"There is nothing more powerful than the urge to blame," said Eric Dezenhall, a crisis-management consultant who helps corporate leaders and other prominent figures try to repair tattered images. "It happens every time. It is a deeply embedded archetype in the human mind."

He said the Brown episode is playing out in classic fashion.

"You can follow the steps," he said. "First, outrage. Second, the headline: 'What went wrong?' Third, the telltale memo that supposedly suggests somebody knew and did nothing. I just don't find this to be unique at all."

Brown, a 50-year-old lawyer, in some ways is an easy target.

The former head of the International Arabian Horse Association, Brown had no background in disaster relief when old friend and then-FEMA Director Joe Allbaugh hired him to serve as the agency's general counsel in 2001.

"There is a Jay Leno-esque comic undertone to his background," said Dezenhall. "It sort of conjures up a who's-on-first kind of thing."

But the dim view of Brown's qualifications by senators seems to have emerged only in hindsight. Members of both parties seemed little troubled by his background at 2002 Senate hearings that led to his confirmation as deputy FEMA chief.

Indeed, Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman (search) of Connecticut, who led those hearings, called Brown's long-ago stint as assistant city manager in Edmond, Okla., a "particularly useful experience" because he had responsibility for local emergency services.

As FEMA chief, Brown has pressed for greater attention to natural disaster planning, including strategies for a major hurricane in New Orleans, and he has had to contend with cuts to FEMA's operating budget while more attention was paid to fighting terrorism.

But as the enormity of the Gulf Coast damage gradually came into clearer focus, Brown did not help his case with a number of comments seen as insensitive or ill-advised. For example, he acknowledged last week that he didn't know there were some 20,000 evacuees enduring heinous conditions at the New Orleans convention center until a day after their difficulties had been widely reported in the news.

ABC's Ted Koppel was incredulous as he asked Brown, "Don't you guys watch television? Don't you guys listen to the radio?"

"Forgive me for beating up on you there," Koppel later told Brown, "but you are the only guy from the federal government who is coming out to take your medicine."

The doses keep getting stronger. But, for now at least, President Bush is standing by his embattled FEMA chief.

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," the president told him last week.

And Brown, for his part, is trying to shrug off the criticism.

"People want to lash out at me, lash out at FEMA," he told reporters. "I think that's fine. Just lash out, because my job is to continue to save lives."

Sure the guy has issues... but let's not forget NO ONE SAID $hit when during the last few years. Only now that the LA state government royally screwed up are the fingers pointing.

posted September 13, 2005 12:55 PM              

quote:

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where was everyone when this guy (Brown), kicked a$$ last year when Florida was hit mulitple times?

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© 2005 Jason Leopold

Michael Brown, the embattled head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, approved payments in excess of $31 million in taxpayer money to thousands of Florida residents who were unaffected by Hurricane Frances and three other hurricanes last year in an effort to help President Bush win a majority of votes in that state during his reelection campaign, according to published reports.

“Some Homeland Security sources said FEMA's efforts to distribute funds quickly after Frances and three other hurricanes that hit the key political battleground state of Florida in a six-week period last fall were undertaken with a keen awareness of the looming presidential elections,” according to a May 19 Washington Post story.

Homeland Security sources told the Post that after the hurricanes that Brown “and his allies [recommended] him to succeed Tom Ridge as Homeland Security secretary because of their claim that he helped deliver Florida to President Bush by efficiently responding to the Florida hurricanes.”

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel uncovered emails from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush that confirmed those allegations and directly implicated Brown as playing politics at the expense of hurricane victims.
“As the second hurricane in less than a month bore down on Florida last fall, a federal [FEMA] consultant predicted a "huge mess" that could reflect poorly on President Bush and suggested that his re-election staff be brought in to minimize any political liability, records show,” the Sentinel reported in a March 23 story.
“Two weeks later, a Florida official summarizing the hurricane response wrote that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was handing out housing assistance "to everyone who needs it without asking for much information of any kind."

The records the Sentinel obtained were contained in hundreds of pages of Gov. Jeb Bush's storm-related e-mails the paper received from the governor’s office under the threat of a lawsuit.

The explosive charges of mismanagement of disaster relief funds made against Brown and FEMA were confirmed earlier this year following a four-month investigation by Richard Skinner, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general. Skinner looked into media reports alleging that residents of Miami-Dade were receiving windfall payments from FEMA to cover losses from Hurricane Frances they never incurred.
Hurricane Frances hit Hutchinson Island, Fla., about 100 miles north of Dade County, on Sept. 5. Miami-Dade officials described damage there from heavy rain and winds of up to 45 mph as ''minimal,'' according to the Post.

Indeed. A May 14 story in the Sun-Sentinel <http://www.blogger.com/sfl-fema14may14,0,5926207.story.htm> said: “Miami-Dade County residents collected Hurricane Frances aid for belongings they didn't own, temporary housing they never requested and cars worth far less than the government paid, according to a federal audit that questions millions in storm payouts.

Responding to those allegations, Brown held a news conference Jan. 11 blaming the overpayments on a “computer glitch” and said the disbursements were far less than the $31 million that was cited in news reports and involved 3,500 people. Moreover, to silence his critics who said that Hurricane Frances barely touched down in Miami-Dade, Brown cited a report by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to prove that there were legitimate hurricane conditions there and as a result that a bulk of the payments was legitimate.

But according to the Sun-Sentinel, NOAA had refuted the weather maps Brown claimed to have obtained from them. That report prompted Congressman Robert Wexler, D-Fla., to send off a scathing letter to President Bush calling for Brown’s resignation.
Bush rebuffed Wexler. However, the DHS’ inspector general launched a probe to determine how widespread the problems were involving overpayments to Miami-Dade residents. In May, the inspector general released his report

<http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/OIG_05-20_SkinnerTestimony_05-18-05.pdf>. What he found was damning.

“The review found waste and poor controls in every level of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's assistance program and challenges the designation of Miami-Dade as a disaster area when the county "did not incur any hurricane force winds, tornados or other adverse weather conditions that would cause widespread damage."

In identifying one of the overpayments, the inspector general’s report said FEMA paid $10 million to replace hundreds of household items even though only a bed was reported to be damaged, the inspector general’s report said.

"Millions of individuals and households became eligible to apply for [money], straining FEMA's limited inspection resources to verify damages and making the program more susceptible to potential fraud, waste and abuse," the report states.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairwoman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee, said during a committee hearing in May that Brown “approved massive payouts to replace thousands of televisions, air conditioners, beds and other furniture, as well as a number of cars, without receipts, or proof of ownership or damage, and based solely on verbal statements by the residents, sometimes made in fleeting encounters at fast-food restaurants.”

“It was a pay first, ask questions later approach,'' Collins said. ''The inspector general's report identifies a number of significant control weaknesses that create a potential for widespread fraud, erroneous payments and wasteful practices.''
But the most interesting charge against Brown is that he helped speed up payments in Florida and purposely bypassed FEMA’s lengthy reviews process for distributing funds in order to help Bush secure votes in the state during last year’s presidential election.

Bob Hunter, director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, who was a top federal flood insurance official in the 1970s and 1980s and a Texas insurance commissioner in the 1990s, told the Post “that in the vast majority of hurricanes, other than those in Florida in 2004, complaints are rife that FEMA has vastly underpaid hurricane victims. The Frances overpayments are questionable given the timing of the election and Florida's importance as a battleground state.”

FEMA consultant Glenn Garcelon actions certainly lends credibility to questions raised by Hunter.
On Sept. 2, 2004, Garcelon, wrote a three-page memo titled "Hurricane Frances -- Thoughts and Suggestions."

“The Republican National Convention was winding down, and President Bush had only a slight lead in the polls against Democrat John Kerry,” the Sentinel reported in its March 23 story. “Winning Florida was key to the president's re-election. FEMA should pay careful attention to how it is portrayed by the public, Garcelon wrote in the memo, conveying "the team effort theme at every opportunity" alongside state and local officials, the insurance and construction industries, and relief agencies such as the Red Cross.”

Gov. Bush received the memo Sept. 30, 2004 shortly before a swell of payments made its way to residents in Miami-Dade who did not sustain damage as a result of Hurricane Frances.

A couple of weeks before Gov. Bush received the memo from Garcelon, Orlando J. Cabrera, executive director of the Florida Housing Finance Corp. and a member of the governor's Hurricane Housing Work Group, said in a different memo to Gov. Bush that FEMA was allocating short-term rental assistance to "everyone who needs it, without asking for much information of any kind," the Sentinel reported.

In addition, "standard housing assistance," of up to $25,600, Cabrera wrote, is "liberally provided without significant scrutiny of the request made during the initial months; scrutiny increases remarkably and the package is far more stringent after an unspecified time."
The DHS audit report found that, under Brown, FEMA erroneously distributed to Miami-Dade residents:

$8.2 million in rental assistance to 4,308 applicants in the county who "did not indicate a need for shelter" when they registered for help. In 60 cases reviewed by auditors, inspectors deemed homes unsafe without explanation, and applicants never moved out.

$720,403 to 228 people for belongings based on their word alone.

$192,592 for generators, air purifiers, wet/dry vacuum cleaners, chainsaws and other items without proof that they were needed to deal with the hurricane. Three applicants got generators for their homes, plus rental assistance from FEMA to live somewhere else.

$15,743 for three funerals without sufficient documentation that the deaths were due to the hurricane.

$46,464 to 64 residents for temporary housing even though they had homeowners insurance. FEMA funds cannot be used when costs are covered by insurance.

$17,424 in rental assistance to 24 people who reported that their homes were not damaged.

$97,500 for 15 automobiles with a "blue book" value of $56,140. In general, the report states that FEMA approved claims for damaged vehicles without properly verifying that the losses were caused by the storm.
Jason Leopold is the author of the explosive memoir, News Junkie, to be released in the spring of 2006 by Process/Feral House Books. Visit Leopold's website at www.jasonleopold.com <http://www.jasonleopold.com/> for updates.

posted September 13, 2005 12:58 PM              

How do you explain away the fact that EVERYONE in the area knew they couldn't stand up to a catagory 4+ hurricane... or even a slow moving 3?

Bush and Co. KNEW this could have turned out badly... but he didn't care. He cut their funding anyhow. Not to mention that NONE of them could be bothered to end their vacation to DO THEIR JOBS. Bush didn't even go to the disaster once he "ended his vacation early". He went to Arizona, then San Diego... THE OTHER EFFING DIRECTION!

Sure, the local governemnt dropped the ball too. I'm not denying that fact.

posted September 13, 2005 02:34 PM            

How do you explain their own Senator stumbling over his words in a 20/20 interview when asked "WHY IS IT YOU RECEIVED THE MOST AID FOR THIS TYPE OF REPAIR WORK AND YOU DECIDED TO SPEND IT ON SOMETHING ELSE?"

His answer "well, I resent that question".

So go ahead and blame Bush.. in the end the facts will come out like always... and when they do all the Bush haters will ONCE AGAIN.. ignore it and find something else to blame on Bush.. like cholera.

give me a break.. oh yeah.. that is what the segment was called...

Here it is incase you'd like to see where the money REALLY WENT:

The Real Price of Pork Barrel Spending
If Congress Can Fund a 'Bridge to Nowhere,' Why Can't It Pay for Hurricane Protection?
By JOHN STOSSEL, GLENN RUPPEL and ANN VARNEY
Sep. 12, 2005 - So much has gone wrong in the days since Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast. The long wait until help came, the looting, the miscommunications, etc. If you have a column called "Give Me a Break," it's hard to know where to start. But for right now, there is one group to whom I can say Give Me a Break without hesitating: Congress.

This disaster -- including the breaking of the levees -- wasn't unexpected. Regional newspapers, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency itself warned that a strong hurricane could have cataclysmic consequences on New Orleans and the surrounding areas.

It's been reported that just before 9/11, FEMA warned that the three biggest threats to America were a terrorist attack on New York City -- a massive earthquake in San Francisco and flooding in New Orleans -- if a big hurricane hit.

The Army Corps of Engineers asked for $27 million to strengthen New Orleans' levees, so they might not break, but Congress gave it just a fraction of that. The wise politicians had other priorities they thought were more deserving of our tax dollars. Like what? Like pork.

What some consider waste others may consider worthy, but it's hard to imagine that anyone would consider some of the pet projects that Congress funds more worthy than keeping people safe.

"In past years, money has gone to various halls of fame. Rock and Roll and Baseball Hall of Fame and the International Paper Hall of Fame in Wisconsin," said Tom Shatz of Citizens Against Government Waste.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, got $50 million for an indoor rainforest in his state.

New Jersey received $18,000 for a smoking booth at its Teterboro airport, the nation's biggest private airport -- in other words, an airport for rich people.

When the next Katrina emergency relief bill hits Congress, watch out for the pork.

In the tsunami relief bill, Congress added $25 million for a fish hatchery in Montana. That's helping tsunami victims?

"It's a thinly veiled attempt to bribe constituents to vote for them," said Shatz.

All week we've heard reports bemoaning Congress' failure to give the Corps of Engineers the $27 million it requested.

But surprise, Thursday's edition of The Washington Post revealed that Congress has given the Corps far more than that. In fact, Louisiana got hundreds of millions more than any other state. Congress just didn't spend much of it on flood control.

When I confronted former Sen. John Breaux, D-La., reminding him of that fact, he said, "But we should have gotten more in terms of flood control and navigation, because we have more problems than any other state."

But everyone in Congress says their state is special. Alaska must be very special, because it gets so much pork. The town of Ketchikan has just one main road, but now it's getting more than $200 million of your tax dollars because Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, wants to replace a ferry with a bridge to the next island. And he doesn't want to build a simple bridge. He wants to build one higher than the Brooklyn Bridge and almost as long as the Golden Gate.

Even some Ketchikan residents can't believe it. One woman told us, "I think it's a colossal waste of taxpayers' money."

Another man said, "The short view is, I don't see a need for it. The long view is, I still don't see a need for it."

People are calling it the "Bridge to Nowhere," because it links to an island where there is an airport but not much else. The island has no roads and is home mostly to trees.

Is a $200 million bridge to an isolated island really a necessity that deserves our tax dollars?

Alaska's hardly alone in wanting to spend your money on frivolous pork. Alabama got $200,000 for a peanut festival.

Rep. Terry Everett, R-Ala., brought that money home to his constituents and they were happy to take it. "I think it's a waste of money," one man said. "But if they're going to waste money, I guess it's better to waste it here than anywhere else," he added.

Louisiana has wasted plenty of money, too. It spent $300,000 to house Breaux's papers in a college.

I asked him about the money he squandered on pork and handouts, like subsidies that went to the sugar industry and shipbuilders in his state.

He was irritated by my question. "I object to you using words like 'squandering pork.' These projects all have to meet a benefit/cost ratio study. What is pork in one part of the country is an essential project in another part," he said.

Please. Spending money on critical infrastructure -- like levees that could have withstood storm surges in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and protected New Orleans -- is an essential project. Spending money on halls of fame, bridges to nowhere and industry subsidies is pork. The founders argued that we should have limited government. They were on to something. If the government didn't try to do so many things, it wouldn't do so many things badly. Our money should be spent to keep us safe.

Give Me a Break.

Copyright © 2005 ABC News Internet Ventures

PAY very close attention to the quote:

But surprise, Thursday's edition of The Washington Post revealed that Congress has given the Corps far more than that. In fact, Louisiana got hundreds of millions more than any other state. Congress just didn't spend much of it on flood control.

When I confronted former Sen. John Breaux, D-La., reminding him of that fact, he said, "But we should have gotten more in terms of flood control and navigation, because we have more problems than any other state."

or this quote:

"Louisiana has wasted plenty of money, too. It spent $300,000 to house Breaux's papers in a college.

I asked him about the money he squandered on pork and handouts, like subsidies that went to the sugar industry and shipbuilders in his state.

He was irritated by my question. "I object to you using words like 'squandering pork.' These projects all have to meet a benefit/cost ratio study. What is pork in one part of the country is an essential project in another part," he said.

Please.
Spending money on critical infrastructure -- like levees that could have withstood storm surges in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and protected New Orleans -- is an essential project. Spending money on halls of fame, bridges to nowhere and industry subsidies is pork. The founders argued that we should have limited government. They were on to something. If the government didn't try to do so many things, it wouldn't do so many things badly. Our money should be spent to keep us safe.

__________________________________________

Is this Bush's fault? How about laying the blame on congress and the state politicians as well..

posted September 13, 2005 10:08 PM              

"They all dropped the ball on this one... Feds, State, Local..."

"Sure, the local government dropped the ball too. I'm not denying that fact.

That DOES NOT absolve Bush of screwing up yet again."

Nowhere have I said this was entirely Bush's fault. What I am saying is that it was on his watch that a HUGE amount of people died from lack of medical care, food, and water. On Bush's watch, people died from a lack of basic human needs.

Blame can be placed all over the place. I have never denied that fact. The problem I see in this conversation is your inability to accept that Prince Georgy can actually held accountable for something.

I am most furious with Bush for appointing this moron. WTF was he thinking?! HOW DARE HE put his effin' BUDDY above the people of this country. That is unconscionable.

I'm PO'd at Bush for having our National Guard tied up with a BS war that's been over for... how long?! I'm beyond ****** that he ordered people to be SHOT at for trying to break into kitchens and grocery stores to feed themselves.

He's such a coward. He couldn't even face the people of New Orleans... couldn't even touch the damn ground.

Further... following your school of thought, Pid, (and with all due respect... really ) my opinion is somehow discredited because I hate Bush.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Therefore, your thoughts (following your thought process) on the subject are equally discredited. Your love for Bush is quite equal and opposite to my hate for him.

By that way of thinking, the only people with credible thoughts on the matter are those who have a neutral opinion of Bush.

posted September 13, 2005 10:47 PM              

------------------
Gemini sun, Cancer rising, mercury in Gemini, moon in Taurus *29, venus in Taurus, mars in Libra

"You must live in the infinite blackness that exists when I close my eyes. I see you when I fall asleep, I see you when I dream."

posted September 14, 2005 11:19 AM              

He did slash funding for levee projects. But the Army Corps of Engineers says Katrina was just too strong.

September 2, 2005
Modified:September 2, 2005
Summary

Some critics are suggesting President Bush was as least partly responsible for the flooding in New Orleans. In a widely quoted opinion piece, former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal says that "the damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act of nature," and cites years of reduced funding for federal flood-control projects around New Orleans.

Our fact-checking confirms that Bush indeed cut funding for projects specifically designed to strengthen levees. Indeed, local officials had been complaining about that for years.

It is not so clear whether the money Bush cut from levee projects would have made any difference, however, and we're not in a position to judge that. The Army Corps of Engineers – which is under the President's command and has its own reputation to defend – insists that Katrina was just too strong, and that even if the levee project had been completed it was only designed to withstand a category 3 hurricane.

Analysis

We suspect this subject will get much more attention in Congress and elsewhere in the coming months. Without blaming or absolving Bush, here are the key facts we've been able to establish so far:

Bush Cut Funding

Blumenthal's much-quoted article in salon.com carried the headline: "No one can say they didn't see it coming." And it said the Bush administration cut flood-control funding "to pay for the Iraq war."

He continues:

Blumenthal: 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.

…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…forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze.

We can confirm that funding was cut. The project most closely associated with preventing flooding in New Orleans was the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Hurricane Protection Project, which was “designed to protect residents between Lake Pontchartrain and the Missisippi River levee from surges in Lake Pontchartrain,” according to a fact sheet from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. (The fact sheet is dated May 23, long before Katrina). The multi-decade project involved building new levees, enlarging existing levees, and updating other protections like floodwalls. It was scheduled to be completed in 2015.

Over at least the past several budget cycles, the Corps has received substantially less money than it requested for the Lake Pontchartrain project, even though Congress restored much of the money the President cut from the amount the Corps requested.

In fiscal year 2004, the Corps requested $11 million for the project. The President’s budget allocated $3 million, and Congress furnished $5.5 million. Similarly, in fiscal 2005 the Corps requested $22.5 million, which the President cut to $3.9 million in his budget. Congress increased that to $5.5 million. “This was insufficient to fund new construction contracts,” according to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ project fact sheet. The Corps reported that “seven new contracts are being delayed due to lack funds” [sic].

The President proposed $3 million for the project in the budget for fiscal 2006, which begins Oct. 1. “This will be insufficient to fund new construction projects,” the fact sheet stated. It says the Corps “could spend $20 million if funds were provided.” The Corps of Engineers goes on to say:

Army Corps of Engineers, May 23: In Orleans Parish, two major pump stations are threatened by hurricane storm surges. Major contracts need to be awarded to provide fronting protection for them. Also, several levees have settled and need to be raised to provide the design protection. The current funding shortfalls in fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year 2006 will prevent the Corps from addressing these pressing needs.

The Corps has seen cutbacks beyond those affecting just the Lake Pontchartrain project. The Corps oversees SELA, or the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control project, which Congress authorized after six people died from flooding in May 1995. The Times-Picayune newspaper of New Orleans reported that, overall, the Corps had spent $430 million on flood control and hurricane prevention, with local governments offering more than $50 million toward the project. Nonetheless, "at least $250 million in crucial projects remained," the newspaper said.

In the past five years, the amount of money spent on all Corps construction projects in the New Orleans district has declined by 44 percent, according to the New Orleans CityBusiness newspaper, from $147 million in 2001 to $82 million in the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

A long history of complaints

Local officials had long complained that funding for hurricane protection projects was inadequate:

October 13, 2001: The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that “federal officials are postponing new projects of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Program, or SELA, fearing that federal budget constraints and the cost of the war on terrorism may create a financial pinch for the program.” The paper went on to report that “President Bush’s budget proposed $52 million” for SELA in the 2002 fiscal year. The House approved $57 million and the Senate approved $62 million. Still, “the $62 million would be well below the $80 million that corps officials estimate is needed to pay for the next 12 months of construction, as well as design expenses for future projects.”
April 24, 2004: The Times-Picayune reported that “less money is available to the Army Corps of Engineers to build levees and water projects in the Missisippi River valley this year and next year.” Meanwhile, an engineer who had direct the Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration Study – a study of how to restore coastal wetlands areas in order to provide a bugger from hurricane storm surges – was sent to Iraq "to oversee the restoration of the ‘Garden of Eden’ wetlands at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers,” for which President Bush’s 2005 gave $100 million.
June 8, 2004: Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, told the Times-Picayune:
Walter Maestri: 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.

September 22, 2004: The Times-Picayune reported that a pilot study on raising the height of the levees surrounding New Orleans had been completed and generated enough information for a second study necessary to estimate the cost of doing so. The Bush administration “ordered the New Orleans district office” of the Army Corps of Engineers “not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money.”
June 6, 2005: The New Orleans CityBusiness newspaper reported that the New Orleans district of the Corps was preparing for a $71.2 million reduction in overall funding for the fiscal year beginning in October. That would have been the largest single-year funding loss ever. They noted that money “was so tight" that "the New Orleans district, which employs 1,300 people, instituted a hiring freeze last month on all positions,” which was “the first of its kind in about 10 years.”
Would Increased Funding Have Prevented Flooding?

Blumenthal implies that increased funding might have helped to prevent the catastrophic flooding that New Orleans now faces. The White House denies that, and the Corps of Engineers says that even the levee project they were working to complete was not designed to withstand a storm of Katrina's force.

White House Press Secretary Scot McClellan, at a press briefing on September 1, dismissed the idea that the President inadequately funded flood control projects in New Orleans :

McClellan: Flood control has been a priority of this administration from day one. We have dedicated an additional $300 million over the last few years for flood control in New Orleans and the surrounding area. And if you look at the overall funding levels for the Army Corps of Engineers, they have been slightly above $4.5 billion that has been signed by the President.

Q: Local people were asking for more money over the last couple of years. They were quoted in local papers in 2003 and 2004, are saying that they were told by federal officials there wasn't enough money because it was going to Iraq expenditures.

McClellan: You might want to talk to General Strock, who is the commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, because I think he's talked to some reporters already and talked about some of these issues. I think some people maybe have tried to make a suggestion or imply that certain funding would have prevented the flooding from happening, and he has essentially said there's been nothing to suggest that whatsoever, and it's been more of a design issue with the levees.

We asked the Corps about that “design issue.” David Hewitt, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, said McClellan was referring to the fact that “the levees were designed for a category 3 hurricane.” He told us that, consequently, “when it became apparent that this was a category 5 hurricane, an evacuation of the city was ordered.” (A category 3 storm has sustained winds of no more than 130 miles per hour, while a category 5 storm has winds exceeding 155 miles per hour. Katrina had winds of 160 mph as it approached shore, but later weakened to winds of 140 mph as it made landfall, making it a strong category 4 storm, according to the National Hurricane Center.)

The levee upgrade project around Lake Pontchartrain was only 60 to 90 percent complete across most areas of New Orleans as of the end of May, according to the Corps' May 23 fact sheet. Still, even if it had been completed, the project's goal was protecting New Orleans from storm surges up to "a fast-moving Category 3 hurricane,” according to the fact sheet.

We don't know whether the levees would have done better had the work been completed. But the Corps says that even a completed levee project wasn't designed for the storm that actually occurred.

Nobody anticipated breach of the levees?

In an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on September 1, President Bush said:

Bush: I don’t think anyone anticipated breach of the levees …Now we’re having to deal with it, and will.

Bush is technically correct that a "breach" wasn't anticipated by the Corps, but that's doesn't mean the flooding wasn't forseen. It was. But the Corps thought it would happen differently, from water washing over the levees, rather than cutting wide breaks in them.

Greg Breerword, a deputy district engineer for project management with the Army Corps of Engineers, told the New York Times:

Breerword: We knew if it was going to be a Category 5, some levees and some flood walls would be overtopped. We never did think they would actually be breached.

And while Bush is also technically correct that the Corps did not "anticipate" a breach – in the sense that they believed it was a likely event – but at least some in the Corps thought a breach was a possibility worth examining.

According to the Times-Picayune, early in Bush's first term FEMA director Joe Allbaugh ordered a sophisticated computer simulation of what would happen if a category 5 storm hit New Orleans. Joseph Suhayda, an engineer at Louisana State University who worked on the project, described to the newspaper in 2002 what the simulation showed could happen:

Subhayda: Another scenario is that some part of the levee would fail. It's not something that's expected. But erosion occurs, and as levees broke, the break will get wider and wider. The water will flow through the city and stop only when it reaches the next higher thing. The most continuous barrier is the south levee, along the river. That's 25 feet high, so you'll see the water pile up on the river levee.

Whether or not a "breach" was "anticipated," the fact is that many individuals have been warning for decades about the threat of flooding that a hurricane could pose to a set below sea level and sandwiched between major waterways. A Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) report from before September 11, 2001 detailed the three most likely catastrophic disasters that could happen in the United States: a terrorist attack in New York, a strong earthquake in San Francisco, and a hurricane strike in New Orleans. In 2002, New Orleans officials held the simulation of what would happen in a category 5 storm. Walter Maestri, the emergency coordinator of Jefferson Parish in New Orleans , recounted the outcome to PBS’ NOW With Bill Moyers:

Maestri, September 2002: Well, when the exercise was completed it was evidence that we were going to lose a lot of people. We changed the name of the [simulated] storm from Delaney to K-Y-A-G-B... kiss your ass goodbye... because anybody who was here as that category five storm came across... was gone.

--by Matthew Barge