Killing New Orleans Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Katrina's wicked aftermath in Louisiana and Mississippi is heart-wrenching for Americans.  But some of our tears should be shed in fury. The shocked, looting-obsessed blatherers on TV obviously finds it distasteful to bring up politics as we watch our nation's most unique city sink into a deadly brew, yet we need to face the fact that our leadership's track record on keeping Americans safe at home  is clearly not a priority. 

Water destroying New Orleans has always been a matter of national defense. Despite this, and  aided and abetted by conservatives, President Bush has gutted the Federal Emergency and Management Agency (FEMA) exiled the National Guard to purgatory in Iraq, and stripped flood control and mitigation programs --just to mention three relevant items.  Though these actions did not cause the hurricane, they left New Orleans vulnerable and now bereft. Conservative politics and the safety of American citizens  have come full circle on the Gulf Coast and collided in spectacular horror with the citizens taking the hit.  Natural disasters are in the hands of God.  Incompetence and ideology are ours to claim, however, and today they reign supreme.

A broken levee wall is what caused the city to drown. For years the walls have been sinking.  Starting in the 1960's, the federal government began working with regional state and local officials on major hurricane and flood relief efforts.  Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA in 1995. Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. As blogger Attytood  notes,  the Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures  of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which remained about 20% incomplete due to lack of funds. That project consists of building up levees and protection for pumping stations on the east bank of the Mississippi River. In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain.

FEMA enfeebled: FEMA's Project Impact, a model mitigation program created by the Clinton administration, was  canceled outright under Bush and conservative congressional leadership. Federal funding of post-disaster mitigation efforts designed to protect people and property from the next disaster was cut in half.. In Louisiana, requests for flood mitigation funds were rejected by FEMA this summer.

The tradeoffs are appalling. In Fiscal Year 2006, Louisianan's will spend 78.4 million dollars on Cold War boondoggle missile defense.  They will spend 1.7 billion for the war in Iraq.  Mississippi will spend 42.9 million on missile defense and 918.7 for the war in Iraq. This would have paid for the levee repair with change.

Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans would have translated into 930 million dollars for Louisiana and 707.1 million for Mississippi.  Louisiana spent 1.6 million dollars on abstinence only education programs last year.

Like a macabre parody of Thomas Frank's economic thesis, Louisiana's congressional delegation became majority conservative in the last election.  Senator David Vitter was designated the most conservative of the freshman class by the National Journal this year. He has voted for every tax cut as well as for the invasion of Iraq . A cursory check on a vote rating website showed similar results for the mostly Republican Louisiana delegation.

Although it is not linear, there is a relationship between budget priorities and people dying right now.  These terrible tradeoffs are what happens when your political leadership relies on an extreme ideological base --many of whom attack reasoned debate as treasonous and any questioning of our national priorities as communism redux. Maybe it will now be obvious.  Our leadership is a bunch of towel-snapping fraternity boys who are not interested in government.  Likewise, their mean spirited power base--instead of governing--would rather stand on the last radioactive pile of rubble with a megaphone yelling "I told you so!"  Maybe this will be more clear to middle Americans as they watch our precious New Orleans drown.

Comments

[rosignol]

Likewise, their mean spirited power base--instead of governing--would rather stand on the last radioactive pile of rubble with a megaphone yelling "I told you so!"

Gee, I wonder who I've seen doing that lately... oh, right... it was you.

[Alex]

Lorelei,

Life is about tradeoffs and it is quite silly to suggest that if only there is no war in Iraq and if only there was no missle defense system and if only George Bush were not President, then New Orleans would be safe and sound and everyone would be sleeping happy thoughts and the world would be a wonderful place. Of course, in order to be properly disdainful of the President, we would also have to ignore for the momment that the wonderfully inept and corrupt local governments in New Orleans and Louisianna seemed to be incapable of even the weakest type of response. Its leaders seemingly incapable of doing anything other than crying on television.

Using your reasoning, the right can use the same logic by picking those government spending programs they don't like (money they say is wasted on teacher's unions or the arts, etc.) and saying, well if only the government didn't spend money on X or Y, then New Orleans would be ok. It would be an equally disingenuous statement and equally hysterical.

Becuase of this, your comments do come across as nothing other than a politically motivated attack and thus I personally find some distaste in them coming at this time.

Come on - you want Progressives to be taken seriously but it is this type of hysterical screed that makes people like myself unfortunately turn to the right when we have to make our decisions in November.

[alkali]

Alex writes:

Life is about tradeoffs and it is quite silly to suggest that if only there is no war in Iraq and if only there was no missle defense system and if only George Bush were not President, then New Orleans would be safe and sound and everyone would be sleeping happy thoughts and the world would be a wonderful place.

That is certainly an excellent defense of the notion of never holding anyone accountable.

Consider this:

The Bush administration really did cut spending on levee programs that protect New Orleans. That really happened. They really made that choice.

The Bush administration really did substantially dismantle and defund FEMA once they took office. That really happened. They really made that choice.

Were those choices good ones? No, they weren't.

Come on -- you want the right to be taken seriously but it is this type of wishful thinking that makes people like myself unfortunately turn to the left when we have to make our make our decisions in November.

[Spiker]

Anyone who fails to acknowledge that this Administration's policies have contributed to the problems underscored in the hurricane's aftermath (not to mention global warming) should be considered an ignorant criminal. Bush, Cheney, and indeed, every single appointed member of this Administration and its supporters in Congress, who should face charges for "crimes against humanity" for conducting the war in Iraq, should also now face additional charges for their policies contributing to the horrors on the Gulf Coast. Better yet, they should be summarily executed so money saved on legal costs could go to the poor survivors who toiled to make New Orleans the "Big Easy". Oh yeah, and just who is benefitting from price gouging at the gas pumps?

[fat sam]

wow, Rosignol commenting at 1:52 AM, a whole 26 minutes after LK posted-- and he always seems to be first. just lurking n' lurking...sounds like somebody's got a cruuu--ush.

[fat sam]

one other thing. Know what I find "distasteful" Alex? (it's rhetorical, bear with me) People drowning like rats in a cage, cornered into death by rising waters. THAT'S what I find distasteful. and your faux disappoinment; well actually, I just find it crass.

[Bo]

The New Orleans disaster reflects unpardonable leadership failure at all levels; city, state and federal. The city's precarious situation has been known for decades and nothing was done. Compare that with the Netherlands, where massive systems of dikes, pumps and locks safeguard that country's coastal regions. Bush deserves a portion of the blame as he could not have been ignorant of the potential for this disaster but many others are equally responsible, on both sides of the political divide.

[J Thomas]

Suppose it had been terrorist bombs breaking the levees. This is our first test of Homeland Security.

So why are we so much worse prepared than we were for Hurricane Andrew which hit Florida? For Andrew they had the aid system prepared ahead of time, ready to move in when the storm passed. They had it thought out what was likely to be needed.

This time they basicly threw up their hands and said "Nobody could have predicted it" and now we're patching together a plan ad hoc.

You can say that there are many others responsible, but there are no democrats responsible at the national level, and Bush has primary responsibility at the national level. If there are Louisiana state or local democrats who share responsibility the people of Louisiana can deal with them.

It looks like restoring NO is important to getting our oil production and imports back. I don't care that NO was a democratic stronghold, Bush should have taken care of the oil. He shouldn't have let narrow political concerns delay the restoration of our oil supply. That was bad for the whole economy, not just blue states. It was dead wrong.

[Angryman]

And Alex, do you know what I find distasteful?

You.

[David]

I agree with Lorelei, life is about trade-offs, and our nation spends 1.1 billion dollars per day on the military (the defense budget). Our nation is unique in this astronomical level of military spending. That is what we traded. What we thus don't get is help for the poor in normal times, no health care (Our nation is unique among industrialized nations for this too.), and no help for those now struck by tragedy.

It's not a dreamy 'if only there was no war' lament. It's the clear headed truth that these people drove our nation into an unnecessary war, at enormous cost in lives, money, and moral credibility. War was chosen, not thrust upon us. Like one choses which car to buy. Tax cuts for the rich were chosen. Free trade agreements were chosen and jobs went south. Big business leaders benefitted from each of these choices. Normal work-a-day Americans did not.

We have an office of Homeland Security, we have FEMA... where were they? No plan? No preparations made as the storm lumbered towards New Orleans? Why not?

This administration has just shown itself again for all who choose to see: It cares not one jot for normal American people.

It's not new for them. It's not just this incident. It is a chronic condition of theirs, channeling power and money unto themselves and their rich associates. Unaccountable for their words, secretive, acting as they please, all the while feigning morality. And as team members tend to emulate the actions of the leaders, the morality of America is following suite. Life is becoming a cut-throat pursuit of money. The rich are good, the poor are bad. The rich drive away, the poor wade through flood waters.

The world is truly shocked at the lack of American response to the distress of their own people.

If you supported Bush and the Iraq war and the defense budget, then shed no crocodile tears for New Orleans. This is the trade-off you chose. This is the America you seem to want.

[libertarian soldier]

Was this cross-posted from dKos?

[Tim]

>by the same logic...
The logical arguments used aren't specified in enough detail to generalise like that.

[J Thomas]

Hey, most of the posts on this thread have disappeared. What happened?

[J Thomas]

They're back now. I don't see how to delete my comment.

[Tom Hanna]

re: my trackback above. I should not have called Ms. Kelly the name I did - I've stricken it on my blog and I apologize. I also appreciate the sense of humor she showed in her comment on it. I was frustrated when I saw this article trying to make political hay out of a horrendous "act of God" and used words I shouldn't have. Anyway, sorry for the "moonbat" comment, though I still disagree with the substance of the piece.

[Clint]

Is anyone here seriously suggesting that had the proposed levee upgrading projects been fully funded, that the levees would not have failed?

Three facts to consider:
1) The Army Corps of Engineers disagrees.
2) The proposal was to prepare them all for a Category 3 storm, Katrina was a Category 4 or 5.
3) The part of the levee that actually broke had been completely upgraded to these standards.

[J Thomas]

Clint, the CoE estimate was that the upgraded levees would have had water spilling over them, but they probably wouldn't have breached. The probable result would be a whole lot less water. With a whole lot less water a lot less of the city would be flooded and what was flooded wouldn't be flooded as deep. It would take much less time to pump it out. As it is, they have to repair the levees before they can start pumping.

Note that the original estimates were about a 1% chance a year of more than a Cat3 storm, but a much higher chance for Cat3. Bush didn't fund them to prepare for a Cat3 storm, so even if this hurricane had been much weaker we would have had an unnecessary disaster. It turns out that the chance of a worse hurricane are bigger than predicted because the gulf is a couple degrees warmer than usual, for unknown resons.

The part of the levee that broke was not completely upgraded to the new standards, and I want to challenge you to support that lie.

[Clint]

J Thomas-

My source is www.usace.army.mil/PA-09-01.pdf (warning: PDF) -- A press release from the Army Corps of Engineers three days ago.

The first paragraph reads:
"The breaches that have occurred on the levees surrounding New Orleans are located on the 17th Street Canal Levee and London Avenue Canal Levee. The 17th Street Canal Levees and London Avenue Canal Levees are completed segments of the Lake Ponchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project. Although other portions of the Lake Ponchartrain project are pending, these two segments were complete, and no modifications or improvements to these segments were pending, proposed, or remain unfunded."

The way I read that is that though there were proposed, but underfunded, upgrades and improvements to other sections of levee, the places that suffered actual breaches were in exactly the state they would be in 2008 at the scheduled completion of the pending, but not-fully-funded, upgrades and improvements.

This assessment is further supported by quotes from an interview by Lt. General Carl Strock, Commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in an interview quoted on the second and third pages of the document cited. Among other things, in response to exactly this question. he says: "In fact, the levee failures we saw were in areas of the projects that were at their full project design."

Also... from the same document, the 1% number you cite is incorrect. This project was rated to protect the city from hurricanes that occur with a frequency of 0.5% per year, which has been cited as "Category 3" in more recent terminology.

The document is worth reading in its entirety -- it is three short pages in length. It has some very relevant discussion of the difference between a "project capability figure" and a "budget request".

I hope you will withdraw your accusation of dishonesty.

[J Thomas]

Clint, I can see that you are a trusting sort and not so much a liar yourself.

Strock here is sacrificing himself for Bush, which is the sort of noble action expected of army generals. Consider the red herring that says the parts of the levee that failed (the two parts that are getting attention out of the 3 or 4 that failed) were considered complete. While the parts that were supposed to get extra funding actually held. See, if he'd been on the ball he'd have known which sections were particularly endangered and would have dealt with those first. The idea that he was repairing other places while the weak spots were left weak, is just more self-sacrifice. He's hoping that people won't notice what he's actually saying, that they'll just figure that somehow the hurricane was stronger than expected so it wasn't Bush's fault that the funding was cut.

And he weasels about the funding cut also.

Don't worry about it, the truth will come out if you wait for it, and if you look for it. Just now the spinmasters are busy at work trying to deny responsibility. I can't blame you for being taken in, the majority of the country has been getting taken in for 5 years.

Still, try to do some critical thinking. "Fool me once...." It isn't my place to blame you but it is your responsibility to stop getting fooled.

[Clint]

The truth will indeed come out.

I would hope most readers will recognize the difference between expert primary sources and unsupported paranoid rantings.

[J Thomas]

Clint, where do you get your primary sources?

You are marvelously good at getting them. Who provides them to you? Do you get paid for this?

[Demosophist]

Clint:

So basically the accusations that the Bush Administration's policies are responsible for the loss of life resulting from the levee break are... groundless? How dare you sir! Do you not know that Bush and the Neocon Cabal are, by definition, the source of every evil Americans suffer?

Anyway, nice going.

WaPo also has a nice rundown of the fact that Blanco refused to make a request allowing the deployment of the National Guard by the Feds. So the delay in deployment of the Guard wasn't due to a shortage of people (there were plenty) or to any oversight by the Bush Administration, assuming the "Friday" in the article was immediately preceding the storm, rather than a week later. If the latter Bush may be faulted for not asking Blanco to make the request earlier, but Blanco still has to be given the major blame for refusing to request the deployment.

So, that leaves what?

Since there's little if anything to blaming Bush perhaps these critics will start concentrating on some real world issues... in the grey zone as it were.

Too much to ask, I suppose.

[Clint]

J-

I got them using a wonderful resource called "google". The release is available from the front page of the Army Corps of Engineers web site. which I found by searching "Army Corps of Engineers" on Google.

I don't consider it to have required "marvelous" skill to find this -- but I thank you for the compliment.

Even if I were a paid agent of Karl Rove distributing the evidence at his bequest -- the strength of an argument has to be judged on its own merits, not on the character or credentials of those making the argument.

I could, of course, have countered your "intuition" that the levees that broke must have been the ones that were least upgrade with my intuition that the levees that were subject to the most stress would be the ones they'd have upgraded first... but that would be giving far too much weight to your uninformed speculation -- and to mine.

[J Thomas]

Clint, people paid by Karl Rove will be told which evidence to present. They'll be given whatever information they need.

Strength of logic is judged on the merits of the argument. Presentation of biased "evidence" is a problem that can only be solved by collecting more evidence. But then, look how long it took for th Downing Street Memos to surface ... we went years with people believing that the Bush administration actually believed its claims about iraqi WMDs.

My claim was that they *should* have tried to fix the weak links first, the ones that appeared most likely to fail. If they misjudged that, it's a technical failure on their part. They spent millions of dollars this year refurbishing things that didn't actually fail, and they had things on their list they didn't get to that didn't fail, but these things they claim didn't need any more attention were the ones that failed.

So the claim that they didn't think these needed any improvement serves as self-sacrifice. They claim that they were incompetent, that it wasn't a problem that Bush cut the funding because if he'd increased the funding the spots that failed wouldn't have gotten fixed anyway because they thought those were perfect.

I saw a claim that these were on the list to be fixed back in 2001, but they were taken off the list when the funding was cut. But your link appears to deny that. I don't have leisure to look for it. It was something the COE did years ago, and it might no longer be available. I might take the time regardless, and I might find it.

If I was an unbiased third party I'd give more weight to the cover-up document you referenced than to somebody's claim that they remember a document they can't give me a link to. That's completely reasonable and I find it frustrating.

[Clint]

Oh, dear.

Not interested in rehashing the Downing Street memos, but I believe you're way off base on them. Among other things, they show the administration worrying about our troops getting hit with chemical and biological weapons -- so it's wierd to use them to conclude that the administration didn't believe those weapons existed. I suppose you also believe the TANG documents CBS found last year were genuine?

Your guesswork about the levees is just silly. If one cop gets shot in the shoulder, does that prove that bullet proof vests should have been tossed out and replaced with bullet proof shoulder guards? (particularly apropos if rumors of a grain barge causing the major breach turn out to be right...)

However, you are right that we shouldn't take one ACOE press release as final --- and I would be shocked if there aren't at least three groups of investigative reporters poring through the details right now (or having their interns do this). If the conclusions from the ACOE release are misleading, as you clearly believe, we'll see major stories in TIME and Newsweek about a month from now. It's not like the data on any of this isn't easily available (for example, in back issues of the Times-Picayune, I'd assume) -- it's just going to take a little time for some interns to do the research.