God Spare New Orleans

[Griff]

I was listening to the nuts on progressive radio today. Someone needs to let them know that the Governor of Louisiana is a Democrat. The ball was in her court initially and she failed to get the poor and infirm out of that city. We can pile on Bush all we want but let's spread the blame to all responsible parties.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

My God, it's a quagmire.

Hee hee... It's funny 'cause it's literal.

[warch]

I heard at one point about evacuating masses to naval hospital and cruise ships...wonder if that got scrapped.

[xoxoxoBruce]

No, they are still working on ships for housing.

If those people are hungry and thirsty, why don't they just tell their secret service detail to get something for them? Works for W.

[Nothing But Net]

Note on the snipers:

Get a few Predators in the area, with a couple of Blackhawk follow-ups.

It will only take one or two of these actions before word hits the street.. er, canal and that shit stops.

Mission Accomplished!

[Elspode]

Snipers should be killed on sight and strung up from lamposts with a big sign that says "I was a sniper".

I'm guessing there'd be many less snipers.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by Brianna

Wolf-the disaster isn't Bush's fault. His INADEQUATE response is his fault. He simply is not prepared to handle these things. It never came up while he was at Yale, skipping class and partyin' hardy! He is, however, very prepared should someone need a fourth at bridge.

I was being cleverly satiric based on something I'd heard on the radio.

I know a lot more about disaster management than most people, and frankly, the response is not "inadequate" at this point. A Federally Declared Disaster was put in place BEFORE Katrina made landfall, and that declaration is what starts the wheels in motion, literally, for the response.

There are protocols in place for this, none of which are the President's job to determine. That's what FEMA and the equivalent state agencies are for. That doesn't mean that things aren't going to get worse before they get better, of course.

Originally Posted by wolf

There are protocols in place for this, none of which are the President's job to determine. That's what FEMA and the equivalent state agencies are for. That doesn't mean that things aren't going to get worse before they get better, of course.

OH?

The House of Representatives wants to cut the New Orleans district budget 21 percent to $272.4 million in 2006, down from $343.5 million in 2005. The House figure is about $20 million lower than the president's suggested $290.7 million budget.

It's now up to the Senate. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-New Orleans, is making no promises.

It's going to be very tough, Landrieu said. The House was not able to add back this money ... but hopefully we can rally in the Senate and get some of this money back.

Landrieu said the Bush administration is not making Corps of Engineers funding a priority.

I think it's extremely shortsighted, Landrieu said. When the Corps of Engineers' budget is cut, Louisiana bleeds. These projects are literally life-and-death projects to the people of south Louisiana and they are (of) vital economic interest to the entire nation.

New Orleans City Business

[OnyxCougar]

Has anyone heard from Busterb or the other Cellarites in the area?

[Kitsune]

Onyx, did he ever say what Mississippi city he lives in? I couldn't find any reference to it in his profile...

[Undertoad]

Engineering News-Record:

Leaders of the Army Corps of Engineers say the city's flood walls were in excellent shape before the storm but weren't designed to handle a hurricane of Katrina's magnitude.

In a phone briefing Sept. 1, the Army's Chief of Engineers, Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, addressed some of the issues that have surfaced about Corps-built structures around New Orleans. Strock said that the project that resulted in the levees along Lake Pontchartrain was designed to protect against a 200-to-300-year storm, which equates to about a Category 3 hurricane, but Katrina was more severe.

Al Naomi, senior project manager in the Corps' New Orleans District, says, "The [project's] design was not adequate for a storm of this nature." He adds that to cover a Category 5 storm, work on storm protection improvements would have had to start 20 or 25 years ago.

The levee breaches occurred in areas that were "in excellent condition" before the storm and were inspected, said Naomi. He said there was nothing the Corps could have done involving the completed floodwalls that could have prevented the breaches.

Another question concerned the allocation of national resources during a war. The war in Iraq has not had an impact on the Corps budget, said Strock. According to his analysis, Corps funding "has been fairly stable" since the early 1990s and the Corps has spent more than $300 million since 2002 on storm protection in the New Orleans area. "We were just caught by a storm of an intensity which exceeded the design of the [flood protection] project we have in place," he said.

Some Corps contracts in the area had been delayed, but Naomi says those contracts were not in the sections of the levees that failed.

[Kitsune]

According to his analysis, Corps funding "has been fairly stable" since the early 1990s and the Corps has spent more than $300 million since 2002 on storm protection in the New Orleans area.

Wow. Completely the opposite from what I heard on the news this morning. Their report said the Army Corps had been "pleading for money for decades" to do work on the levees and had seen nothing but massive budget cuts since the 1970s.

Let the spin begin!

[Undertoad]

Belmont Club points to this 2003 Civil Engineering Magazine article from 2003

Any concerted effort to protect the city from a storm of category 4 or 5 will probably take 30 years to complete. And the feasibility study alone for such an effort will cost as much as $8 million. Even though Congress has authorized the feasibility study, funding has not yet been appropriated. When funds are made available, the study will take about six years to complete. “That’s a lot of time to get the study before Congress,” Naomi admits. “Hopefully we won’t have a major storm before then."

Oops

For the most part, New Orleans does not have places for people to go. The American Red Cross no longer provides emergency shelters in the city because its officials cannot guarantee the structural integrity of the locations ... that could withstand the forces of a category 4 or 5 storm. ...

Most people would not wish to remain in the city if a category 4 or 5 storm were in prospect, but evacuating could be difficult. Experts say close to 400,000 people could be stranded in the city. There are an estimated 100,000 people without easy access to automobiles, and those who can drive may not be able to do so. ... Complicating the difficulty in New Orleans is the fact that each of the city’s three major evacuation routes is over or near water.

As Belmont Club says "they got that one right".

[Griff]

Originally Posted by OnyxCougar

Has anyone heard from Busterb or the other Cellarites in the area?

We're trying to track them here. Scopulus checked in we haven't heard from busterb as far as I know. Can you think of anyone else?

[bigw00dy]

Here is yet another slideshow of the devastation