Why we couldn't save the people of New Orleans
The New York Daily News, Sept. 4, 2005
(Excerpted)
In the late 1990s, the state's school systems ranked dead last in the nation in the number of computers per student (1 per 88), and Louisiana has the nation's second-highest percentage of adults who never finished high school. By the state's own measure, 47% of the public schools in New Orleans rank as "academically unacceptable."
These government failures are not merely a matter of incompetence. Louisiana and New Orleans have a long, well-known reputation for corruption: as former congressman Billy Tauzin once put it, "half of Louisiana is under water and the other half is under indictment."
That's putting it mildly. Adjusted for population size, the state ranks third in the number of elected officials convicted of crimes (Mississippi is No. 1). Recent scandals include the conviction of 14 state
judges and an FBI raid on the business and personal files of a Louisiana congressman.
In 1991, a notoriously corrupt Democrat named Edwin Edwards ran for governor against Republican David Duke, a former head of the Ku Klux Klan. Edwards, whose winning campaign included bumper stickers saying "Elect the Crook," is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for taking bribes from casino owners. Duke recently completed his own prison term for tax fraud.
The rot included the New Orleans Police Department, which in the 1990s had the dubious distinction of being the nation's most corrupt police force and the least effective: the city had the highest murder rate in America. More than 50 officers were eventually convicted of crimes including murder, rape and robbery; two are currently on Death Row.
Ten billion dollars are about to pass into the sticky hands of politicians in the No. 1 and No. 3 most corrupt states in America. Worried about looting? You ain't seen nothing yet.
"New Orleans has a Democrat Mayor, a Democrat City Council, and a Democrat Chief of Police. Louisiana has a Democrat Governor, a Democrat Lt. Governor, a Democrat Attorney General; 24 of 39 Louisiana State Senators are Democrat, 67 of 105 Louisiana State House Representatives are Democrat, there's a Democrat Representative in the House from New Orleans, and one of two U. S. Senators is a Democrat."
So, as anybody can plainly see, the mess in Nawlines is obviously Bush's fault!
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- Well, *obviously* New Orleans in Bush's fault!
Well, *obviously* New Orleans in Bush's fault!Follow
Thanks my dusky friend.
So that explains why FEMA denied voluntary agencies the right to supply relief to folks in the superdome for several days.
Nice to have it all cleared up.
So that explains why FEMA denied voluntary agencies the right to supply relief to folks in the superdome for several days.
Nice to have it all cleared up.
"I started out with nothin' and I still got most of it left" - Seasick Steve
It was too dangerous to go inside the Dome what with all the raping and pillaging going on. It was worse than the heart of darkness, I'm tellin' ya! The Belgian Congo has nothing on Nawlines!
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PottyMouth wrote:
So that explains why FEMA denied voluntary agencies the right to supply relief to folks in the superdome for several days.
Hence why Brown was removed from that position.
Jophiel wrote:
I managed to be both retarded and entertaining.
If only David Duke had been in charge. [:wistful:]
I thought you were sick of hearing about death and destruction in NOLA?
publiusvarus wrote:
we all know liberals are well adjusted american citizens who only want what's best for society. While conservatives are evil money grubbing scum who only want to sh*t on the little man and rob the world of its resources.
Toatem? i'm doan wit' im bredren. Rrrras-tafari!
I an' I have de ansa. Put aaall dem problem an ting in dem 'ands of Ziggy Marley. Irie!
I an' I have de ansa. Put aaall dem problem an ting in dem 'ands of Ziggy Marley. Irie!
"I started out with nothin' and I still got most of it left" - Seasick Steve
Said it once, I'll say it again.
Bush is at fault to the extent that he pulled money meant for infrastructure into chasing boogeymen and financing questionable wars.
Also the complete failure of Dept of Homeland Sec and FEMA. Despite Bush's repeated claims over the years that he had streamlined them and made them more than capable of protecting and helping americans in the face of a disaster, either terrorist or natural they fu[b][/b]cked up in an almost monumental way.
It showed that despite all his talk that he had accomplished nothing and wasnt the "straight shooter" that he tries to pass himself off as.
In the end a lot of the blame can lay at the municipal and state level but Bush cant hide and point fingers because in the end he is the Boss (Commander in Chief not Springsteen) and his people and his changes were shown to be faulty.
Edited, Tue Sep 20 15:33:37 2005 by bhodisattva
Bush is at fault to the extent that he pulled money meant for infrastructure into chasing boogeymen and financing questionable wars.
Also the complete failure of Dept of Homeland Sec and FEMA. Despite Bush's repeated claims over the years that he had streamlined them and made them more than capable of protecting and helping americans in the face of a disaster, either terrorist or natural they fu[b][/b]cked up in an almost monumental way.
It showed that despite all his talk that he had accomplished nothing and wasnt the "straight shooter" that he tries to pass himself off as.
In the end a lot of the blame can lay at the municipal and state level but Bush cant hide and point fingers because in the end he is the Boss (Commander in Chief not Springsteen) and his people and his changes were shown to be faulty.
Edited, Tue Sep 20 15:33:37 2005 by bhodisattva
Bode - 100 Holy Paladin - Lightbringer
Anyone want to see it from a different point of view?
The guy in the Straghthate shirt was in Manhattan on 9/11 too
The guy in the Straghthate shirt was in Manhattan on 9/11 too
Quote:
Bush is at fault to the extent that he pulled money meant for infrastructure into chasing boogeymen and financing questionable wars.
I had heard it said that the $$ you're refering to had been sitting there untouched for years, which is a small part of the reason is was ganked.
To my understanding, the reason the $$ wasn't used during that time was that voters/taxpayers decided that they didn't want a tax increase to pay for maintenance to the levees all these years, prolly believing that it's the government's job to fix it w/o charge to the common man. Then Bush started up his idiot wars, and said "Ok, well, you're not using the $$ we've set aside for that, so I'll just use it."
That's what I've heard on the radio, if I find a link to that info I'll throw it up. Or you can scream at me for a)rebutting something you're accepting as fact and b)being a newb.
Edit: Googling it just gives me Dem-spam about how it's all Bush's fault. Which, I agree, after he pulled the money, suddenly there were unheeded cries of "we need the $$." And that was wrong to just go "eh, whatever."
But I don't like the fact that people on the board in NOLA responsible for levee and pump issues are under investigation for fraud and misuse of funds etc.
This whole thing is just FUBAR on every lvl :(
Edited, Tue Sep 20 16:40:31 2005 by Althrun
Althrun wrote:
That's what I've heard on the radio
You should have put that at the top of your post.
Althrun wrote:
I had heard it said that the $$ you're refering to had been sitting there untouched for years, which is a small part of the reason is was ganked.
To my understanding, the reason the $$ wasn't used during that time was that voters/taxpayers decided that they didn't want a tax increase to pay for maintenance to the levees all these years, prolly believing that it's the government's job to fix it w/o charge to the common man.
To my understanding, the reason the $$ wasn't used during that time was that voters/taxpayers decided that they didn't want a tax increase to pay for maintenance to the levees all these years, prolly believing that it's the government's job to fix it w/o charge to the common man.
I don't know the details to what you're saying so I won't refute it since I don't even know what I'm refuting but, as you've stated it, it makes no sense.
I had previously quoted law which stated the ACoE had jurisdiction over the levees and obviously the ACoE felt they did or else they wouldn't have requested the money to do the work in the first place. That's not to say they have sole jursidiction but I haven't seen anything saying they were held up by a lack of local permission and I'm not convinced it would make much difference either way.
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
Jophiel wrote:
I had previously quoted law which stated the ACoE had jurisdiction over the levees and obviously the ACoE felt they did or else they wouldn't have requested the money to do the work in the first place. That's not to say they have sole jursidiction but I haven't seen anything saying they were held up by a lack of local permission and I'm not convinced it would make much difference either way.
Neither am I. I did find this article.
It's got some interesting numbers and info on the issue. It certainly does appear as though the ACoE doesn't get to pick and choose its projects though. If it meets their cost analysis, and some congressman pushed through an appropriation for it, they do it.
Probably the most telling bit:
Quote:
But overall, the Bush administration's funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton administration's for its past five years. Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the chief of the Corps, has said that in any event, more money would not have prevented the drowning of the city, since its levees were designed to protect against a Category 3 storm, and the levees that failed were already completed projects. Strock has also said that the marsh-restoration project would not have done much to diminish Katrina's storm surge, which passed east of the coastal wetlands.
So basically, the arguments that Bush "cut funding" are false (assuming, of course, that the article is correct). Or at the very least misleading (the old "they reduced the amount of the increase, so it's a cut" fallacy). Additionally, *nothing* that was proposed in terms of spending, whether cut or not, would have prevented the flooding since no proposed fixes were aimed at making the levees and floodwalls resistant to higher catagory hurricanes.
Lot of smoke. Not much fire here IMO. The simple fact is that no-one, from the local government, to the state government, to the representatives in congress, to the Bush administration put any plan forward to make NO resistant to a cat 4 or higher hurricane. We can go around and around as to why that is the case, but that seems counter productive. I'm still of the opinion, however, that local officials, knowing their city could not withstand a cat 4 or higher hurricane, and knowing a cat 4 hurricane was headed directy towards their city, did practically nothing to evacuate or prepare for the hurricane at all.
It's all well and good to lament the fact that we didn't spend the money to upgrade the levees 20 years ago. However, when the hurricane is coming right at you, that's not the time to worry about that. That's the time to stock your evacuation centers, and get your EM folks positioned, and make sure you've got good communications, and maybe even organize an evacuation instead of just going on the radio and telling people to leave if they can.
This is why I still place the majority of the blame on that local government. They failed miserably at every single aspect of their jobs in the days immediately before the hurricane. Yeah. FEMA could have been more on the ball, but the lack of any real organization from the local folks changed their job from "routine rescue and relief" to "we have to perform a miracle here". Heck. The fact that FEMA was finding out where people had been evacuated to from CNN instead of the local EM people who *should* have given them that information on day one tells volumes about the lack of organization and communcation from the local level.
Edited, Tue Sep 20 23:47:14 2005 by gbaji
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
I don't think its the Republican's fault, I think the US government is corrupt in general.
Nabraben wrote:
I don't think its the Republican's fault, I think the US government is corrupt in general.
That's pretty much a given at this point.
publiusvarus wrote:
we all know liberals are well adjusted american citizens who only want what's best for society. While conservatives are evil money grubbing scum who only want to sh*t on the little man and rob the world of its resources.
Quote:
New Orleans "is" Bush's fault!
No it wasn't. But the lack of federal response was, just ask Bush.
Now, I watched his "rebuilding" speach and found nothing wrong with it at all. It's exactly what I wanted to hear and probobly what the people of New Orleans wanted to hear. Is it too late for it though? History will decide I suppose.
"The Rich are there to take all of the money & pay none of the taxes, the middle class is there to do all the work and pay all the taxes, and the poor are there to scare the crap out of the middle class." -George Carlin
I just finished a pretty decent article in Newsweek about this (go read something printed on paper, you heathens, no link for you!). It looked a bit deeper, into the attitudes of both the citizens and the government, and it posed a couple of questions that I am still grappling with myself.
First, it quoted Barack Obama's speech at Harvard:
And second, it talked about Bush's management style, and how hwe takes pride in not listening to media buzz, in being insulated and making his decisions in relative isolation. Anyone who was watching the news could see how bad it was, but the President didn't see a DVD of edited newscasts until about four days after the storm had hit.
Pretty much, it pointed to both issues as being pervasive attitudes that hampered action when it came time to do so.
Edited, Wed Sep 21 12:51:35 2005 by Atomicflea
First, it quoted Barack Obama's speech at Harvard:
Quote:
'I do not ascribe to the White House . . . any active malice," Obama said. ''But rather what was revealed was a passive indifference that is common in our culture, common in our society -- the sense that of course once the evacuation order was issued that you will hop in your SUV with $100 worth of gasoline and load up your truck with sparkling water and take your credit card and check into the nearest hotel until the storm passed. And the notion that folks couldn't do that simply did not register in the minds of those in charge."
And second, it talked about Bush's management style, and how hwe takes pride in not listening to media buzz, in being insulated and making his decisions in relative isolation. Anyone who was watching the news could see how bad it was, but the President didn't see a DVD of edited newscasts until about four days after the storm had hit.
Pretty much, it pointed to both issues as being pervasive attitudes that hampered action when it came time to do so.
Edited, Wed Sep 21 12:51:35 2005 by Atomicflea
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=%5CNation%5Carchive%5C200509%5CNAT20050907a.html
Here’s what I was referring to-
And this:
The following year, the state legislature did appropriate $49.5 million for levee improvements, but the proposed spending had to be allocated by the State Bond Commission before the projects could receive financing. The commission placed the levee improvements in the "Priority 5" category, among the projects least likely to receive full or immediate funding.
The Orleans Levee Board was also forced to defer $3.7 million in capital improvement projects in its 2001 budget after residents of the area rejected a proposed tax increase to fund its expanding operations. Long term deferments to nearly 60 projects, based on the revenue shortfall, totaled $47 million worth of work, including projects to shore up the floodwalls.
No new state money had been allocated to the area's hurricane protection projects as of October of 2002, leaving the available 65 percent federal matching funds for such construction untouched.
The funds that were pulled were Matching funds- i.e. the government would pay half, the state would pay half. (or whatever figure they had worked out). But if the state doesn’t use them, the dollars stay unused.
But when the local side isn’t using it, and hasn’t been for years, then the $$ should go elsewhere. Mind you, I think it should have gone into other improvement type funds, or restoration or schools or anything other then the war machine. But $$ just sitting there unused is a waste. Especially when we’ve paid for it already.
In the end though, everybody along the way ****** up.
Here’s what I was referring to-
Quote:
Blocked from financing the local portion of the flood fighting efforts, the levee board was unable to spend the federal matching funds that had been designated for the project.
And this:
Quote:
The following year, the state legislature did appropriate $49.5 million for levee improvements, but the proposed spending had to be allocated by the State Bond Commission before the projects could receive financing. The commission placed the levee improvements in the "Priority 5" category, among the projects least likely to receive full or immediate funding.
The Orleans Levee Board was also forced to defer $3.7 million in capital improvement projects in its 2001 budget after residents of the area rejected a proposed tax increase to fund its expanding operations. Long term deferments to nearly 60 projects, based on the revenue shortfall, totaled $47 million worth of work, including projects to shore up the floodwalls.
No new state money had been allocated to the area's hurricane protection projects as of October of 2002, leaving the available 65 percent federal matching funds for such construction untouched.
The funds that were pulled were Matching funds- i.e. the government would pay half, the state would pay half. (or whatever figure they had worked out). But if the state doesn’t use them, the dollars stay unused.
But when the local side isn’t using it, and hasn’t been for years, then the $$ should go elsewhere. Mind you, I think it should have gone into other improvement type funds, or restoration or schools or anything other then the war machine. But $$ just sitting there unused is a waste. Especially when we’ve paid for it already.
In the end though, everybody along the way ****** up.
Just for more fun from the Washington Post:
The Post wrote:
Louisiana's top hurricane experts have rejected the official explanations for the floodwall collapses that inundated much of New Orleans, concluding that Hurricane Katrina's storm surges were much smaller than authorities have suggested and that the city's flood- protection system should have kept most of the city dry.
The Army Corps of Engineers has said that Katrina was just too massive for a system that was not intended to protect the city from a storm greater than a Category 3 hurricane, and that the floodwall failures near Lake Pontchartrain were caused by extraordinary surges that overtopped the walls.
But with the help of complex computer models and stark visual evidence, scientists and engineers at Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center have concluded that Katrina's surges did not come close to overtopping those barriers. That would make faulty design, inadequate construction or some combination of the two the likely cause of the breaching of the floodwalls along the 17th Street and London Avenue canals -- and the flooding of most of New Orleans.
[...]
The center's researchers agree that Katrina's initial surge from the southeast overwhelmed floodwalls along the New Orleans Industrial Canal, flooding the city's Lower Ninth Ward as well as St. Bernard Parish. They believe that a little-used Army Corps navigation canal known as the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet helped amplify that surge, although they acknowledge that this surge was larger than the system was designed to control.
But the researchers have strong evidence that Katrina's subsequent surge from the north was several feet shy of the height that would have been necessary to overtop the 17th Street and London Avenue floodwalls. It was the failures of those floodwalls that emptied the lake into the rest of the city, filling most of New Orleans like a soup bowl.
The Army Corps of Engineers has said that Katrina was just too massive for a system that was not intended to protect the city from a storm greater than a Category 3 hurricane, and that the floodwall failures near Lake Pontchartrain were caused by extraordinary surges that overtopped the walls.
But with the help of complex computer models and stark visual evidence, scientists and engineers at Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center have concluded that Katrina's surges did not come close to overtopping those barriers. That would make faulty design, inadequate construction or some combination of the two the likely cause of the breaching of the floodwalls along the 17th Street and London Avenue canals -- and the flooding of most of New Orleans.
[...]
The center's researchers agree that Katrina's initial surge from the southeast overwhelmed floodwalls along the New Orleans Industrial Canal, flooding the city's Lower Ninth Ward as well as St. Bernard Parish. They believe that a little-used Army Corps navigation canal known as the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet helped amplify that surge, although they acknowledge that this surge was larger than the system was designed to control.
But the researchers have strong evidence that Katrina's subsequent surge from the north was several feet shy of the height that would have been necessary to overtop the 17th Street and London Avenue floodwalls. It was the failures of those floodwalls that emptied the lake into the rest of the city, filling most of New Orleans like a soup bowl.
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
Althrun wrote:
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=%5CNation%5Carchive%5C200509%5CNAT20050907a.html
Media Research Center, parent company of CNS News, described itself when it wrote:
The Leader in Documenting, Exposing and Neutralizing Liberal Media Bias
OMG Pubbie media!!!
I kid. Granted, I'd like to see the story picked up by someone a bit more credible to see if it has legs, but that doesn't make it false. In fact, if it's true (as presented, i.e. not manipulated) I'd like to see it picked up just because it's news worth sharing.
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
Um.. exactly what was president Bush supposed to do with the hurricane. You do know that the president cannot send in the national guard without consent from the state government right? Why is Bush the whipping boy for everything that goes wrong in the country? I don't agree with some of the things he does, or his style, but come on, how can you blame what went wrong on him?
The whole point is no one expected the levee to break. That is the entire reason everything got as bad as it did. How was Bush supposed to prevent that? No one knew the city better than the governor and mayor. It is not the job of the federal government to hold the hands of incompetent state and local authorities. The federal government is an all or nothing solution, either we send in the massive force of the military or we don't. And all that resides on the permission of the state government. The mayor and governor had a few days before the hurricane hit to ask for federal help and to evacuate the people, yet they didn't.
If you think that it was all Bush's fault then you have no concept of where authority ends and where it begins with state and federal government. It is not Bush's job to set aside federal tax dollars to act as a safety net for stupid leadership in local governments.
Edited, Wed Sep 21 15:10:52 2005 by PraetorianX
The whole point is no one expected the levee to break. That is the entire reason everything got as bad as it did. How was Bush supposed to prevent that? No one knew the city better than the governor and mayor. It is not the job of the federal government to hold the hands of incompetent state and local authorities. The federal government is an all or nothing solution, either we send in the massive force of the military or we don't. And all that resides on the permission of the state government. The mayor and governor had a few days before the hurricane hit to ask for federal help and to evacuate the people, yet they didn't.
If you think that it was all Bush's fault then you have no concept of where authority ends and where it begins with state and federal government. It is not Bush's job to set aside federal tax dollars to act as a safety net for stupid leadership in local governments.
Edited, Wed Sep 21 15:10:52 2005 by PraetorianX
PraetorianX wrote:
The whole point is no one expected the levee to break.
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
PraetorianX wrote:
Um.. exactly what was president Bush supposed to do with the hurricane.
Ever heard the phrase "The buck stops here"?
Quote:
You do know that the president cannot send in the national guard without consent from the state government right?
Quote:
Why is Bush the whipping boy for everything that goes wrong in the country?
See #1.
Quote:
The whole point is no one expected the levee to break. That is the entire reason everything got as bad as it did. How was Bush supposed to prevent that? blah blah
The order to evacuate was given, granted much later than it should have been, by the state. Not everyone had the time or the means to do so. The same state officials were also aware of when the levee broke. What is amazing is that no one turned on a TV so the leader of the free world could find out what my relative in Peru knew about that very day: New Orleans was fu[i][/i]cked.
Quote:
If you think that it was all Bush's fault then you have no concept of where authority ends and where it begins with state and federal government.
No one is saying it was all his fault, but let's face it, if you don't want to take responsibility for the mishaps of the executive branch, don't be its boss. Responsibility begins and ends at his desk.
Quote:
It is not Bush's job to set aside federal tax dollars to act as a safety net for stupid leadership in local governments.
Eh, I just looked around (googled) and avoided as many (and gods there are many) "Bush is the devil" sites as I could, since they are by nature biased.
I'd like the above info to be inspected by a more credible news source as well, but is there one out there that you'd believe is not biased either way? At least the overall tone in the link provided was not "Bush is innocent, orz!" just more of how past history with the NOLA officials didn't promote a better situation for NOLA when they very well had the chance.
It still brings up the point that while ultimately, it was Bush who fu[i][/i]cked up when it came to FEMA and such, the local side of it is just as, if not arguably more so, guilty of leaving NOLA to the mercy of disaster. IMHO.
I'd like the above info to be inspected by a more credible news source as well, but is there one out there that you'd believe is not biased either way? At least the overall tone in the link provided was not "Bush is innocent, orz!" just more of how past history with the NOLA officials didn't promote a better situation for NOLA when they very well had the chance.
It still brings up the point that while ultimately, it was Bush who fu[i][/i]cked up when it came to FEMA and such, the local side of it is just as, if not arguably more so, guilty of leaving NOLA to the mercy of disaster. IMHO.
Flea, in your opinion, exactly what should have Bush done to prevent any blame being left at the white house door?
Althrun wrote:
I'd like the above info to be inspected by a more credible news source as well, but is there one out there that you'd believe is not biased either way?
Like I said, the story may well be true but it'd be nice to see it vetted by a news organization, even a right leaning one, with something to lose.
Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
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