Ms Carolyn

I found this article on the web -- apparently the flooding that is currently causing such loss of life and devastation in the city of New Orleans could have been avoided, if President Bush hadn't decided it was more important to go to war with Iraq.


Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen? 'Times-Picayune' Had Repeatedly Raised Federal Spending Issues

By Will Bunch

Published: August 31, 2005 9:00 PM ET

PHILADELPHIA Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city, the waters may still keep rising in New Orleans. That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal. With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until it's level with the massive lake.

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. 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. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

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, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "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."

Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:

"That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount. But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said."

The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late.

One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer: a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on Monday.

The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. ... In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."

Local officials are now saying, the article reported, that had Washington heeded their warnings about the dire need for hurricane protection, including building up levees and repairing barrier islands, "the damage might not have been nearly as bad as it turned out to be."

Will Bunch (letters@editorandpublisher.com) is senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 when he reported for Newsday. Much of this article also appears on his blog, Attytood, at the Daily News.

This article can be found on the web at http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/..._id=1001051313 I found the link at http://www.therandirhodesshow.com

LiteratiFan0624

I agree. The Bush Administration is supposed to be taking care of its own people. The government refuses to bring home troops from Iraq to help with the relief efforts in the South. We could really use the money and troops completely wasted in Iraq about now, honestly.

Paceysgal

Well, from what I understand, we DO have people out there trying to help diffuse the situation.

LiteratiFan0624

Yes, but not nearly enough to make a huge difference. While they're trying to clean up the mess we made in Iraq, we have a mess here in the U.S. that needs more attention.

sick little jag

What is going on right now is like trying to put a band aid over a severed limb! I do think that the levee's need to be repaired by any means necessary right now, but they shouldn't have been weak to begin with. There needs to be so much more police and guard presence so as to control the looting and secure the area for evacuations to take place.

Most of the patients in hospitals that are in dire need of evacuation haven't been able to be air lifted out because of the looters shooting at the helicopters. Something needs to be done about the looters. There aren't enough resources available in the country because they're all over in freaking Iraq.

singergirl

This is ludicrous.

The body count is up to 6 at the superdome, deaths not of drowning but of starvation and lack of hydration!

I'm from Florida. I went though the triple hit last year and although I was not in one of the more harder hit areas(im in Tampa), FEMA, Red Cross, and National Guard moved in with in HOURS. HOURS! Actully taking some kind of action to help people who needed it.

From what I've seen on the news Local Authorities arent even stopping to give citizens information on whats going on. Misinformation is causing panic to those staying at the superdome and city convention center as rumors are flying around about officials raising flood gates, which would flood the few areas of safety. Again these are just rumours that reporters have reported.

What isnt rumor are the blatent lies that bus caravans are making their way back and forth between New Orleans and Houston. Feild reporters and Camera Men are sending out shots of at least 10,000 people and one school bus at the super dome! 1!
Officals are also saying that there are othe sites around the city where supply drops have already happened. A statement that also conflicts with field journalists reports and images!

The only decent effort I've seen is the coast gaurd recuing people from being trapped and stranded. To them I think I speak for many when I say Thank You for the wonderful and heroic job.

Where is all the help!? Why is it taking days?

This is not is not remote Thailand!
This is the United States.....in the year 2005!

Lexis

I can't believe that the respons has been so...unimpressive.

When you read about old people laying dead in wheelchairs, babies crying out for water, people literally sitting in excrement...

This is just terrible and to make it worse, when offered aid by Canada, the Dept. Homeland Security wouldn't let them in!

*Natalie*

But if the only current resources available to many people are "band aids," IMO, it's better than nothing. Sure, there are many lacks of many different things, such as water, food, electricity, gasoline, etc. But like I said, what they have--or, in other words, the current resources--now is better than nothing. And I do know there are a lot of the refugees who have nothing, but those who are still living, well, being alive definitely is something.

So many people who were and still are affected by this calamity are so incredibly lucky. Hey, if some people think they aren't, then that's fine with me. And I'm sure many don't think that they're that lucky. But if you're still living, then you're lucky in my book.

singergirl

Thats the thing though. People arent living..people are dying! Because of a lack of basic food and water!

Lexis

When your baby is screaming, when your kids are hungry and you are an American citizen in America, you would feel lucky? When your government leaves you sitting in sewage, petrol, bugs, rats and garbage, when old people are lying dead in the street and you feel lost and confused, I'm sure you would feel lucky then too.

I'm glad you feel so at ease in saying that people living like that are lucky.

LiteratiFan0624

Remember the tsunami in Asia, and how many countries wanted to help them? Let's see the world help the U.S. Very few countries are going to offer aid, because most of the world hates us.

And the fact that they won't let aid from Canada come in shows how ridiculously haughty our government is. The South really needs that aid.

ceilirose

People have nothing. If they can't at least get water they will die. People with chronic diseases, the elderly, the very young can't survive for long without the basics. They're sitting in feces for goodness sakes.

It's like it's some third world country and not a major American city.

sick little jag

They may be lucky to have survied it intially, but at the rate they are going just as many people are going to die from dehydration, heat stroke, and starvation that died from the flooding and storm surge, if not more. They aren't lucky to be alive, they're unfortunate enough to have to suffer a much slower death.

Lexis

I think its a little different from the tsunami. America is the world's only superpower. America is a wealthy country with huge resources (that for some strange reasons can't seem to get organised).

The tsunami killed hundreds of thousands of people, lots of those who were desperatly poor in countries without the huge capacity of America. I don't think America needs the outpouring of financial and equipment aid that those countries needed.

Its got nothing to do with hatred.

*Natalie*

Yes, I know that there have been many people who have perished, who are perishing, who will perish because of this. And I know that so many people lack basic food and water. God, my heart goes out to them. But if you're still BREATHING, if you are ABLE to live another day, then you are still very fortunate. For without life, where is the need for basic food and water?


Yes, I'm aware that many people are suffering. So many people need food, water, medicine, etc. And like I said, my heart goes out to them. God, I have family missing myself. I have no clue where they are at this moment. If I could reverse the situation, I would, but I can't.

And I'm not telling these people how to feel. I can't control how they feel. Actually, I have no idea how they feel. Like I have no idea how they feel, I have no idea how I would react, how I would feel if I was in this situation.

And I'm not at ease; my heart is pounding as I type this.

But the point of my message was that so many people are fortunate. (Which can be also said for being so unfortunate at the same time, especially when you have people who are dying horrific deathes, such as this one woman who didn't have her heart medicine. ) This situation could have been a lot worse, and that's saying something. We could have had a natural disaster that killed more people and brought more destruction than this one. And that so many people have survived, at least for now, is a miracle in itself.

Yes, I know that so many people have nothing, nowhere to go, no money. I saw a woman on the news with two young babies, and they were crying. She had nowhere to go. She didn't know what to do. And God, it breaks my heart. And yes, I know that if they can't get clean water, if many people who are dependent upon medicine can't get the necessary medication soon enough, et cetera, there's a high chance that they will die, which also breaks my heart. But while those who are still alive and have no food, no water, no shelter, et cetera, being alive definitely IS something. Like I said, for without life, where is the need for water, for food, for shelter, for medicine, et cetera? And without life, how are somethings such as a lot of our food suppose to be made and come about? Therefore, my dear, life definitely IS something.

Third-world country, indeed. *sighs*