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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
 Posted - 09/05/2005 : 12:51:00
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www.factcheck.org (a totally nonpartisan project) does a proper analysis and basically comes up with the answer: Yes - however...
Here's the whole report: http://www.factcheck.org/article344.html
Some interesting highlights:
Regarding Bush's statement from the ABC interview, where he said, " I don't think anyone anticipated breach of the levees."
Factcheck says:
"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."
and
"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.'"
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Edited by - marfknox on 09/05/2005 12:52:09
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2005 : 08:30:44 [Permalink]
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The Feds aren't entirely to blame, but they do shoulder quite a bit of responsibility.
1) The levees were only rated to a Cat 3. I'll grant that a force 5 hasn't hit the US since 1935, and only three times in recorded history where strengths of storms could be judged. However, there was a Army Corps of Engineers planned project to upgrade the levees to withstand a stronger surge. The $7 million to do this was axed out of the budget by the President and Congress.
2) Hurricanes only kill those in it's path. If they weren't there, they couldn't be killed. So their local governments failed them by failing to commandeer buses (of which I have seen several pictures of hundreds of buses inundated with water) and evacuate those who could not escape it's path. Those people who insisted on staying commit natural selection in action.
3) Failure of the federal and local governments to activate in a reasonable period of time to provide aid and support for those in the area made a bad situation worse.
4) This is probably the worst hurricane to strike the US in recorded history in the number of dead, displaced, economic damage, and physical damage. The city of New Orleans is now estimating 10,000 people killed which surpases the Galveston Hurricane of 1900.
5) Changes to FEMA which severely hampered their ability to respond to the disaster in a timely manner were championed by the President. He's got to pay the piper for this one.
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Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2005 : 13:57:43 [Permalink]
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| I'm not sure, but I do recall someone saying on Swedish news that the hurricane was downgraded to category 4 before it hit the shore, and down to category 3 quicker than, at least, Swedish meteorologists predicted. What's about that, any substance to it? |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2005 : 14:06:56 [Permalink]
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Yeah, it was a cat4 at landfall.
And it didn't directly hit New Orleans.
The side of the storm that hit the city also is the weaker side, and carries less of a storm surge. Would be interesting to see just what level of storm surge actually hit the lake and the levees. Doubt there is any way to say with certainty though.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Stargirl
Skeptic Friend
USA
94 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2005 : 15:51:06 [Permalink]
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I too heard that it was category 4 when it made landfall.
I also heard someone say, (with all the coverage it's hard to remember where you hear things) but anyway this guy said that because Katrina went east of NO it pushed the waters of the lake away from the levees to the opposite side of the lake. And that the main break through occurred when the lake water slammed against the levee on the waters return. In addition he speculated that one of the other breaks may have been caused by a barge hitting the seawall during the return surge. I guess two of the brakes were along concrete seawalls not actual levees.
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If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him - Voltaire |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2005 : 18:32:46 [Permalink]
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Don't forget that "landfall" indicates the point in time that the center of the hurricane's eye goes ashore. That means that hurricane-force winds were being felt some 100 miles inland already.
And every map I've seen has the lake to the north of New Orleans, and at least one canal heading almost directly south out of the lake through the city. Since the eye passed to the east of N.O., and hurricanes spin counter-clockwise, the winds (though weaker than they would have been) were, as the eye got to the same latitiude as the city, driving water to the south, out of the lake and down into the canal. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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tw101356
Skeptic Friend
USA
333 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2005 : 18:39:02 [Permalink]
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The major breaks were actually in canals that cut into the city from the lake. These canals are normally used for drainage - the city streets drain into the canals then into the lake via pumps. The canals are flanked by levees, and the levees are topped by floodwalls. These are thick concrete walls with deep foundations in the levee which add several feet (like 6-8) to the height of the levee.
The flood walls are made up of separate slabs. The pressure of the rising water in the canals pushed some slabs over, breaching the floodwall. Erosion weakened the foundations of the adjacent slabs until they toppled, etc. for 700 yards along the 17th Street Canal. Erosion also cut into the levee, making the cut deeper. So, the water didn't overtop the levee, and it didn't breach the levee intially, it toppled the floodwall first.
Studies had shown that the floodwalls were vulnerable. The 17th Street Canal was the place where a previous flood had started. I believe it was due to be raised - adding more dirt and rock to counteract the perpetual sinkage - as well as having the floodwall reinforced.
Back to the original topic. There may be fine grained parsing involved here. The factcheck.org article discusses both breaching of levees and overtopping of levees but does not mention toppling of floodwalls, despite that being the original problem on at least two of the canals. I don't think either the river levees or the lake levees had such significant problems. It was the canal levees that had the major failures.
But anyway, I really think this is a sidetrack. Bush definitely did pack FEMA with incompetent political hacks like Brown, Bush definitely did ignore what was happening in New Orleans and continute his vacation for a couple of days, Bush did fail utterly to exhibit any leadership whatsoever in this crisis, and Bush is continuing to operatate as if political gain were far more important than peoples' lives. He's a loser and people are suffering for it.
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- TW
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Dry_vby
Skeptic Friend
Australia
249 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2005 : 19:05:52 [Permalink]
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I don't think we can blame Adolph Bush for the floods per se.
Wouldn't he just love that.
The latter day Noah calling down the floods to punish the wicked and the unholy.
It's what he did (or didn't do) before and after that he should be horsewhipped for.
"I only beleive in God, I don't tell him what to do."
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"I'll go along with the charade
Until I can think my way out.
I know it was all a big joke
Whatever it was about."
Bob Dylan
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2005 : 00:50:19 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by tw101356
...Bush definitely did pack FEMA with incompetent political hacks like Brown, Bush definitely did ignore what was happening in New Orleans and continute his vacation for a couple of days, Bush did fail utterly to exhibit any leadership whatsoever in this crisis, and Bush is continuing to operatate as if political gain were far more important than peoples' lives. He's a loser and people are suffering for it.
Yes. Just as he and his cronies did after 9/11. Their approach is always as if asking: "What can we do to use this for political gain?..."
The (Republican) Elephant in the room, which some reporters and commentators have inadvertently danced around but are unwilling to really see (at this time), is that the origin of the lack of federal disaster relief is the result not only of massive cut backs in funding, but ultimately the result of the basic conservative attitude of indifference to the poor.
Associated Press reported that on a tour of the Astrodome in Houston, Barbara Bush said the relocation of New Orleans low-income refugees was "working very well". She then added during a radio interview: "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality, and so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."
Shades of Marie Antoinette's statement: "Let then eat cake." Does she really believe that these folks are happy to live in the Astrodome rather than their pre-storm ravaged, pre-flooded homes?
On hearing this, my girlfriend Mindy, (who though not a fundie, is certainly well read) said: "Here Barbara, try this one on...I think it will fit just right":
"He who mocks the poor shows contempt for their Maker; whoever gloats over disaster will not go unpunished." - Proverbs 17:5
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Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2005 : 01:09:16 [Permalink]
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>> calling down the floods to punish the wicked and the unholy.
See, one thing that I love about this natural disaster is that the fundies who cry "God's wrath on the sinners" most especially look like morons because the French Quarter of New Orleans (arguably the most "sinful" district) was left dry. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Dry_vby
Skeptic Friend
Australia
249 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2005 : 01:45:04 [Permalink]
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Of course it's Bushs fault.
He hasn't killed enough Iraqis yet.
There were too many still left, praying to Alah for Katrina to happen.
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"I'll go along with the charade
Until I can think my way out.
I know it was all a big joke
Whatever it was about."
Bob Dylan
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CourseKnot
Skeptic Friend
USA
82 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2005 : 09:32:52 [Permalink]
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Sheesh... how can you blame ANYONE for a hurricane that causes a flooding disaster.
What really bothers me is the loss of life. People stay behind instead of evacuating for every hurricane that has ever hit the US, some because they don't think they'll be harmed, some because they want to expierience natures fury, some because they want to loot.... etc. For those who could have left but didn't... here's your Darwin award.
I feel very badly for the families of those who died and I feel terribly bad for those who could not leave and are now dead.
Maybe the good that will come out of this is people heeding the warnings from now on.
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Just flying through space with the rest of you... |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2005 : 10:15:17 [Permalink]
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| I say the hurricane was a punishment of Allah for Bush killing of Iraqis. Let's burn him to please Allah's Wrath(tm). |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2005 : 10:31:13 [Permalink]
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quote:
What really bothers me is the loss of life. People stay behind instead of evacuating for every hurricane that has ever hit the US, some because they don't think they'll be harmed, some because they want to expierience natures fury, some because they want to loot.... etc. For those who could have left but didn't... here's your Darwin award.
You left out the 100K people who live in New Orleans that make less than $8K a year. Don't own a car, couldn't afford gas for a 200+ mile trip, had no place they could evacuate to even if they could afford some gas. Seriously, with incomes that low you don't think they have credit cards, or even debit cards, do you? You can't get a hotel room with cash these days. And I'm not even touching on the number of elderly and infirm that PHYSICALLY couldn't get out on their own. Reality check! So many people just simply couldn't evac.
There is plenty of blame to go around for this, with regards to the planning and preparedness for the disaster. It is a dismal failure from FEMA all the way down to the local officials.
And Bush gets a portion of that blame. His admin is the one that turned FEMA into a joke by folding them in with homeland security, removing the discretionary powers they had in an emergency, and then putting a lawyer who used to run an Arabian horse show in charge. WTF?
The hundreds of busses sitting under water in New Orleans is also a crime. Those busses should have been going around the city, block by block, people knocking on doors, to get people out of homes and into shelters.
The slow response by FEMA after the storm passed, the total failure of any federal agency to even comprehend the scope of the disaster once those levees gave out...
It's pathetic. Makes me ashamed to live in this country.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2005 : 14:55:45 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Siberia
I say the hurricane was a punishment of Allah for Bush killing of Iraqis. Let's burn him to please Allah's Wrath(tm).
With the risk of ending up on the American List of Evil Terrorists (and possibly kidnapped to Guantanamo Base), I second Siberia's suggestion. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Dry_vby
Skeptic Friend
Australia
249 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2005 : 15:08:01 [Permalink]
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Then we'll end up with a burning Bush.
I wonder what it will say?
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"I'll go along with the charade
Until I can think my way out.
I know it was all a big joke
Whatever it was about."
Bob Dylan
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