PeterDavid.net

Hey PAD, did the same cab driver point out to you the "coke machine?" My girlfriend went to NO a few years back and had a fun cab driver. He was a large black fellow who loves Montreal jazz. It'd be ironic if you got the same guy.

Yes, the Saints play there.

Also, being hit by a 18 wheeler may be surviable. Not so with a freight train. The analogy should be the other way around.

The Saints are "affectionately" known in NOLA as the "Aint's" cause they ain't gonna win.

The nickname started when I was an undergrad at Tulane and attendees started wearing paper bags with eye and mouth cutouts over their heads because they were too ashamed to be caught at a Saints game.

However, in NOLA, going to a game is more of an eating and drinking social experience than a football experience. Sort of like the Cubs for baseball.

I also went to undergrad (and grad school) at Tulane. A lot of us alums are wondering what's going to happen to the school and city where we had all our memories. I took my wife there for her first time about six months ago. I'm glad I did while I still had the chance.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) reports that it's down to a category 2, which I suppose is like being hit by an SUV.

I did like the one sign I saw.
"We don't run from Hurricanes, we drink them."
I pray that's not too literal and everyone is safe as possible. I visited NOrleans once and it is a great town.

It looks like New Orleans will be spared the worst of it. I hadn't realized how vulnerable the city is.

This may end up being the most expensive hurrican ever, though thankfully not the most deadly.

Somebody needs to learn how to use HTML. :)

Anyways, this is an incredible storm, and the fact that it went from Cat 3 to Cat 5 overnight. Simply amazing.

I'm sorry, my tag didn't close there. Hopefully this helps.

I've never been to NO, but I've always wanted to go there. It looks like they're getting hit hard.

What will really be interesting is what'll happen as Katrina moves up the Mississippi delta. Last time a major hurricane hit that region, it was very sparsely populated. There has been tons of development in and around Biloxi, for example, over the past 35 years. We'll see how the hurricane will impact that very soon.

its category 2 now
i hope everybody in new orleans is OK
but yesterday the coverage on this was driving me crazy
fox news had a analyst who said we could be looking at the second coming of atlantis
and their anchors were saying toxic fumes
could leak into the sewers
along with CROCODILES!
report the news
what IS happening!
not what MAY happen
in the case of a natural disaster
that could lead to panic
and its just irresponsible

Gary, you made the mistake of watching Fox News and expecting them to stick to what is known to have happened?

"Fox News" is a brand name, not a description of what they do.

To be fair, CNN was also saying how bad things could get, with all the chemical and processing facilities that could have flooded.

Still, I wouldn't look at a news show predicting what might happen as bad. We expect that from the weather all the time, and just like today's predictions, there are some elements that were accurate, and others that were not.

Saying Nawlens got spared the worst is accurate, but only in the original "I didn't get hit by a speeding locamotive, just a pretty fast tractor-trailer semi." And while I'm glad it doesn't seem to be the devastation it could have been, it seems other areas did get hit very, very hard. My prayers are with all those affected, and for the weeks and months of rebuilding to come.

True, other stations did do some speculation, but no one does outrageous hype more than Murdoch's shop.

Claiming the second coming of Atlantis (what does that even mean?) might...MIGHT....be taking things a smidge too far.

Hmmm....someone made the speculation that urban development contributed to the strength of the storm....by getting rid of wetlands that would have sucked some of the strength out of the storm. Wonder if that's true and wonder if the economics would work out right....

"True, other stations did do some speculation, but no one does outrageous hype more than Murdoch's shop."

Gotta love the "fair and balanced" outrageous hype...

I'm still waiting to find out what happened to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi. I spent almost seven months there in 1978-79 for technical training. I lived on base for about the first five months, and in the town of Ocean Springs the rest of the time. I remember mentioning to a friend that the beaches in the area seemed dirty, and I was told that it had once been much nicer, but the beaches still hadn't recovered from when Hurricane Camille hit the area 10 years earlier, circa 1969. I guess the more things change, the more they remain the same.

I just hope the loss of life in the area is minimal.

Draining wetlands won't increase the storm's strength, but wetlands can act as a natural buffer against storm activity, slowing it down as it moves inland. So the loss of wetlands may result in the storm retaining more of its strength than it might otherwise have lost.

Huricanes loose a lot of power once they make landfall.

As for the "second coming of Atlantis"--well in the worst case scenario, it's not far off...
The worst case, which looks like isn't happening yet again, a hurricane goes up the Misssissippi, puddle jumps into Lake Ponchetrain, lifts it up, and drops it into the city. As someone who grew up on the shore of said lake, it's a scenario I'm a bit familiar with.

Another former Tulane Undergrad here (and grad grad as well). We got a taste of this my junior year, when Mayor Marc enacted a voluntary evacuation for Hurricane Georges. (Of course, we only got lane out of the city on the 10, rather than all 6). I know the people who were stuck on campus and in the city were pretty miserable during the near miss then, so I hope everybody who didn't make it out is fairing well (as possible anyway) today.

Wetlands also deflect flood impacts. Nawlens might have escaped the worst of the flooding, but if the rain falls just right, it might yet suffer a lot of flood damage.

When the damage pattern from last December's tsunami was studied, areas that had retained native plants were spared the worst of the dectruction. I'd like to think that we'll walk away from all these disastrous events with some lessons learned, but seeing how people that were flooded out a few years ago simply rebuilt in the same place, I doubt it.

As one man said this morning, the perception is that man, and his creations (cities and such) have been here "forever," and we can always pick up or rebuild what nature destroys. With that attitude, we can expect these kinds of events to continue, and become more damaging as development increases.

"As for the "second coming of Atlantis"--well in the worst case scenario, it's not far off...
The worst case, which looks like isn't happening yet again, a hurricane goes up the Misssissippi, puddle jumps into Lake Ponchetrain, lifts it up, and drops it into the city. As someone who grew up on the shore of said lake, it's a scenario I'm a bit familiar with."

I think I understand what Foxnews was trying to say...but wouldn't that be better put as the second GOING of Atlantis, since the second coming, strictly speaking, would be the re-emergence of the fabled Lost Land?

True, other stations did do some speculation, but no one does outrageous hype more than Murdoch's shop.

yeah, compare them to the calm non-hysterical approach of AP:

Hurricane Could Leave 1 Million Homeless
By MATT CRENSON, AP National Writer

When Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans on Monday, it could turn one of
America's most charming cities into a vast cesspool tainted with toxic
chemicals, human waste and even coffins released by floodwaters from
the city's legendary cemeteries.

...With top
winds of 165 mph and the power to lift sea level by as much as 28 feet
above normal, the storm threatened an environmental disaster of
biblical proportions, one that could leave more than 1 million people
homeless.

...Estimates predict that 60 percent to 80 percent of the city's houses
will be destroyed by wind. With the flood damage, most of the people
who live in and around New Orleans could be homeless.

"We're talking about in essence having - in the continental United
States - having a refugee camp of a million people," van Heerden
said....

I hope people don't let the hype make them less likely to leave next time a big storm approaches (which my be next week, for all we know).

The Atlantis scenario is very possible IF certain conditions are met. They have never been met to date and they weren't met this morning.

Basically, you'd need a stationery Category 5 hurricane with 175+ wind gusts sitting immediately on top of New Orleans. Not to the east, or west and not something moving in and out of the area fairly quickly. Katrina hit 30 miles to the east, moving at 10-12 miles an hour to the north and pressure was gradually dropping, reducing her strength.

Really, you'd have to put several very common hurricane conditions together into one uncommon mega-storm before FEMA's "soup bowl" theory could occur.

Atlantis itself wouldn't be the issue, it'd be clean-up that presented the most problems. They'd rebuild but the immediate realization is that landmarks would be gone. You can't rebuild history. Sewage would present a problem, the cemeteries and such could cause environmental hazards. Even the pumps removing water from the city would be excruciatingly slow because they'd be overloaded. You'd need electricity to begin rebuilding, and with roads washed out it wouldn't be easy to get where you need to go. I imagine it would be a nightmare. You need to fix A but you can't fix A until you fix B but you really need C fixed before you can fix A and D depends on B which directly influences how easily C can be fixed.

So, see New Orleans wouldn't be forever gone, it'd just be an extremely hard clean-up.

Btw, we're ok in Central Louisiana. Reports as close to New Orleans as Baton Rouge has said they've weathered it fairly well. Mississippi and Alabama honestly seem to be getting it worse from my impression.

I don't have any close personal connection to New Orleans, but having lived in LA during the Northridge quake I understand the type of feelings people must have had.

Glad it turned out to be something other than a worst-case scenario; best wishes to everyone down there.

TWL

Not sure how accurate it is, but a friend from Baton Rouge is saying inital reports are that there have been bodies seen floating by in certain areas and it could be up to a month before power is returned to a few areas. Personally I've heard that before, and as far as I know it's never taken a full month, my guess is 2 weeks and some few days before power is restored to the worst but habitable neighborhoods.

Cnn reports there have been unspecified "total structural failure" in New Orleans Metro area

"I hope people don't let the hype make them less likely to leave next time a big storm approaches"

Depends on whether they make the mistake of following certain medias' advice.

A chap in my class in D.C. last week is in the Coast Guard. He's quite familiar with these things. He called up his family - they live in Florida - and warned them to batten down, it was going to get rough.

Called them the next day to find out a couple of windows had been smashed in and lots of water in the house.

Why hadn't they put up the shutters as he'd instructed? They'd listened to the media who downplayed it enough they figured it wouldn't be as bad as he'd said.

Can't win ...

Peter & everyone asking: my husband and I got out of New Orleans before the hit, and we're in Illinois for the time being. The city is locked down for at least 48 hours.

Anyone who wants the most up-to-date info, check http://www.wwltv.com - looks like our neighborhood is mostly just downed trees, but still, everyone please keep your fingers crossed for us. Thank you to everyone who sent their well-wishes, and I'll post in when I can.

Another Tulane grad here as well. I was on the only "good" side of this storm as I was in Florida when it was still a Cat 1. While I have more of a connection with NOLA, I feel for all the areas affected by the full strength of Katrina.

The fact is that even though New Orleans didn't have a direct hit, there was very little good side to be on for this storm. New Orleans is a victim of bad logistics -- barely being able to manage the water with a heavy thunderstorm. Katrina was big and it was extremely powerful. New Orleans, Mississippi, and Alabama were all slammed -- there's no two ways about it.

The amazing thing is that as many people were actually able to evacuate from New Orleans as did. The problem is that many of the people who didn't evacuate were those who couldn't evacuate due to either not having a car or not having enough money to afford gas or a hotel to evacuate. The Ninth Ward, was one of the areas most affected by flooding when the levee broke and it is also one of the more poverty stricken areas of NOLA.

This catastrophe is compounded by the fact that most areas that aren't Florida don't have the housing codes in place that Florida enacted following Andrew.

Hmmm....someone made the speculation that urban development contributed to the strength of the storm...

Well, others already refuted this, but some of those dastardly scientists mentioned global warming as a potential factor in the strength of this hurricane. :)

But, no, this wasn't worst case scenario for New Orleans - but it sure was a wake up call to the problems they're likely to face in the future.

1PAD,

I have had contact with a good portion of the convention community. They are all safe as far as I am aware. I will keep you posted as soon as I get more info.

ugh, after the worst appeared to be over and things had begun to calm down, people in the French Quarter are waking up to massive flooding in the streets due to the levy giving away. Looks to be a huge mess. As overwhelming as this must be for those people, they are thankful, no doubt, that it wasn't worse and more people weren't lost.

Fred

"Hmmm....someone made the speculation that urban development contributed to the strength of the storm..."

It may not have added strength, but it may have helped prevent a direct hit, which would have taken the damage from catastrophic to apocolyptic. Here in Chicago, we rarely get bad thunderstorms, and meteorologists are starting to think that the large amount of pavement and lack of vegetation absorbs and retains the sun's heat long into the night. They think that residual heat acts as a sort of shield against storm fronts, deflecting them or literally vaporizing them before they can form. Nawlens may have had a similar effect, accounting for what seemed like a last minute shift away from a direct hit.

Which is all good speculation, but I'm sure won't comfort those that now find their homes under 20' or more of water. Despite missing the absolute worst, things went from terrible to nightmarish overnight.

And that's not even accounting for the places that did actually suffer a direct hit. The damage from this storm is really unimaginable.

I spent six years at Kadena Air Base on the Japanese island of Okinawa, right in the heart of Typhoon Alley. Every typhoon season, we got hit directly or indirectly by a number of typhoons, and at least a few, as I recall, were of the super-typhoon variety. Typhoon response and preparation was done so frequently that it was literally a routine part of living on Okinawa.

Since Okinawa is relatively small island, there is no place to evacuate to when a typhoon comes a-calling. Thus, every one of the tens of thousands of buildings on Okinawa is made of reinforced concrete, including the roofs -- many of which are flat. Windows are smallish, and most roofs have a three- to four-foot concrete overhang above them to help shield the windows from flying objects. Housing on base had steel doors and sealed windows, which not only kept out the rain, but the palmetto bugs (and other critters) as well. Power lines were often underground.

Thus, when the average typhoon rolled by, things were pretty much back to normal within a few hours. In the case of the super typhoons, damage was greater and recovery took a little longer, but things seemed to be back to normal within days. However, unlike in the Gulf Coast region and parts of Florida, storm surges in the area where I lived and worked had minimal impact because there just weren't all that many people living that close to the water on lowlands, or as in the case of New Orleans, sub-sea level areas.

Still, it's clear that there is a lot U.S. builders can do to make houses hurricane resistant, or even hurricane proof, but it boils down where the building emphasis lies. Cost is often cited by some, but it is not a good excuse. Why? Simple. Even the dirt-poorest Okinawan homeowners have sturdier housing than people with million-dollar homes in Gulfport, Mississippi. So the real problem is there just is no emphasis in the U.S. to build homes that can withstand hurricanes.

And that is the real tragedy here.

Ugh, the news from New Orleans seems to keep getting worse...if this is how bad things are from a "better than it could have been" scenario, I shudder to think of the worst case scenario...maybe the newsfolks weren't as over the top as some of us assumed.

My heart goes out to them.

No food, no power, no school, no jobs, no tourism, no sewage, no clean water, no homes, 8 feet of water. Basically, new orleans is no more for a long time.

it looks like according to the mayor & govenor, it will be months b4 services are restored and it will take a long time for the water to recede.

millions of people now that are jobless & homeless.

i truly wish them all the best & i will keep them in my prayers. i encourage everyone who can spare some cash & donate to the red cross to do so. i forfitted buying my comics this month to give a little bit.

Joe V.

I am praying for all those who have and are still suffering from this horrible disaster.

As calloused as it may sound, whatever happened to shooting the looters? The excuse one gave that they have been repressed and this is their chance to get back at society is a telling commentary on where some are coming from. Such actions are just inexcusable. I hope they save the video footage and work hard on prosecuting every one of them.

Iowa Jim

The devastation is literally breathtaking. I couldn't help but gasp at some of the scenes I've seen so far.

But sadly, I can't help but wonder how soon the (political) vultures will show up . . .

[Even money says that within a fortnight, some holier-than-thou type declares this to be God's razing of a modern Gommorah.]

I know the first instinct is to rebuild it just the way it was...but given this disaster and the potential of more to come, is this wise? It's probably impossible to contemplate raising the city above sea level but something must be done...dikes? Drain the lake nearby that threatens to overwhelm it? Or is it just a given that New Orleans will be wiped out every few years and theer's nothing we can do about it?

There were many great sites and efforts by places like Amazon.com that provided a way for people to contribute to the Tsunami relief--I hope we start seeing the same for the victims of Kimberly.

Okay - who is this "Kimberly", and what did she do to you, Bill? ;) (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

In seriousness, all hope and good wishes to the people of New Orleans, and the other affected areas of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. Hopefully today's dark outlook will turn out to be as inaccurate as yesterday's "whew", and recovery will be more quickly achieved than feared at the moment.

Once again, I'm thankful to live in an area (Central New York state) free of most of nature's most devestating disasters - earthquakes, tornados, wild fires, and hurricanes (and flooding, for most of us, as well).

Bill,

"I know the first instinct is to rebuild it just the way it was...but given this disaster and the potential of more to come, is this wise?"

Very good question. Because if you cut thriugh the emotion of it all, the answer is no.

"It's probably impossible to contemplate raising the city above sea level"

Yes, it is.

"but something must be done....dikes? Drain the lake nearby that threatens to overwhelm it?"

Both suggestions sound sensible to me. Given the tecnology and improvements in engineering and the like, there is no way, if as a country we have the will, we can make some changes that can at least minimize the impact of storms like these and other natural phenomena.

"Or is it just a given that New Orleans will be wiped out every few years and there's (sic) nothing we can do about it."

I think we should refuse to accept that kind of thinking here in the 21st century.

Sasha,
"Even money that within a fortnight, some holier-than-thou type declares this to be God's razing of a modern Gomorrah."

Really? Because I'll give you better-than-even odds that some greener-than-thou type will declare that the reason we've been getting such numerous and powerful hurricanes lately is global warming (which is responsible for all that ails the world in their greener-than-thou eyes) and will use that as an excuse to take "environmental friendly" steps that will have devastating effects on our economy and quality of life.
And I bet we not only hear this but we hear it within a week, and not from some Ted Kaczynski wannabe, but a high profile elected official.

"

I was listening to "Talk of the Nation" on NPR Tuesday, and they were interviewing a report who lives in the French Quarter. After the storm had passed and he stepped outside to look at the damage, he reported other people who were doing the same thing -- but with cocktails in their hands. It seems several of the area bars just boarded up the windows but otherwise conducted business as usual. The reporter mentioned that many people in the city would probably not be surprised at this.

Posted by Gracecat at August 29, 2005 06:18 PM

The Atlantis scenario is very possible IF certain conditions are met. They have never been met to date and they weren't met this morning.

Basically, you'd need a stationery Category 5 hurricane with 175+ wind gusts sitting immediately on top of New Orleans. Not to the east, or west and not something moving in and out of the area fairly quickly.

Not true, actually.

With a storm that big, the two worst scenarios are moving slowly in more or less due northward either just to the east or to the west.

With the storm moving northward, if the storm hits to the west, you get the highest winds and the biggest storm surge. The winds are highest because, due to the anti-clockwise spin of the storm the wind in the northeast quadrant hits you with the "true" windspeed -- 154mph+ for a Cat5 -- PLUS the storm's speed of advance.

I'm fairly familiar with New Orleans' geographical situation and the levee system -- about as familiar as you can be without actually living there -- and 170mph+ winds pushing a 28 to 30 foot storm surge ahead of them (particularly if they his at high tide) would shove a hell of a lot of water into the city, which would have no way to get out.

Bang -- fifteen to thirty foot deep water in virtually thw whole NOLa area.

And don't say it can't happen -- i've seen several feet of water in the streets in the Quarter after an unusually heavy rainstorm.

Also, 170mph+ winds would, if sustained for any particular length of time, wipe out the sort of percentages of the structures currently extant in NOLa -- take a look at Biloxi, with one of the gambling barges carried *across* Highway 90, and, destroying a Holiday Inn in the process, dropped on land parallel to the water's edge hundreds of feet away.

Consider Beauvoir, which has stood and withstood every strom since Civil War Days -- gone.

As to a possible hit on the east, just a little closer to NOLa, that's almost worse in long-term effects; a hit ten or so miles further west than what we actually got would have basically pshed its surge ahead o fit into Lake Ponchartrain -- and the levees on Lake Ponch are significantly lower than those on the river and toward the Gulf.

As a matter of fact, that's what almost did happen this time -- most of the floding has come from Lake Ponch, and levees collapsed further after the strom had passed, with the result that, last i heard, the water had been rising since the storm hit and was still rising -- streets in the Quarter that were dry immediately after the pass aree under water.

As to structural damage, consider the Hyatt and the SuperDome -- and remember that NOLa got the *easy* side of the winds due to the storm passing to the east.

Katrina hit 30 miles to the east, moving at 10-12 miles an hour to the north and pressure was gradually dropping, reducing her strength.

Umm, her strength was slowly dropping (which is irrelevant on the time scale we're talking here to the storn surge; it takes a while to get that much water moving, and it takes time to stop it, too...), but the pressure would be *rising*, not dropping, since what drives a hurricane is an area of *low* pressure over warm water that moiture laden winds spiral into. (Hence the term "tropical depression".)

I'm hearing the "west feed" of the news as I write this.

Having seen the devastation earlier this evening I'm reminded of the 1997 natural disaster where the winter's snowfall had been so great that in spring the Red River became so swollen that it jumped its banks and literally destroyed Grand Forks, ND., as well as turning the rest of the northern valley in ND and all of southern Manitoba from Winnipeg to the border into one giant lake. That's 147 miles long by about 100 miles wide of w.a.t.e.r! It was surreal if nothing else.

I have been to NOLA several times and greatly enjoyed the wonders of the city and the friendly people. I can only hope that somehow they find the will and the strength to rise from this devastation even greater than before.

Just went to CNN.com

Good Lord - surviving the actual hurricane seems like a piece of cake compared to what these poor folks have to struggle through now. What a nightmare, what a nightmare...

Jerome, Sasha ... with all due respect, I don't know that this thread is a good choice for political rants (of either stripe). Time enough for that later.

TWL

[Even money says that within a fortnight, some holier-than-thou type declares this to be God's razing of a modern Gommorah.]

Really? Because I'll give you better-than-even odds that some greener-than-thou type will declare that the reason we've been getting such numerous and powerful hurricanes lately is global warming (which is responsible for all that ails the world in their greener-than-thou eyes) and will use that as an excuse to take "environmental friendly" steps that will have devastating effects on our economy and quality of life.
And I bet we not only hear this but we hear it within a week, and not from some Ted Kaczynski wannabe, but a high profile elected official.

Give the man a kewpie doll. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/afor-they-that-sow-the-_b_6396.html

Robert Kennedy Jr is sure no Robert Kennedy. Sometimes the apple DOES fall far from the tree.

"As calloused as it may sound, whatever happened to shooting the looters?"

I hope it doesn't come to this. It would be to add tragedy on top of tragedy. Certainly, use the news footage if you want to try and go back and prosecute the people taking appliances and electronics, jewelry, and other luxury items that can't possibly be of any use to anyone there now. But for those people out trying to get drinkables, food, diapers, infant formula, I have a hard time putting myself in any position to judge them. It's been 2 days since the storm hit, and the best anyone's been able to do for the people trapped there is....move them to the Superdome? Where conditions are little better than they are anywhere else in the area. I know that this is an event of unprecedented destruction in the history of our country, but I'm really shocked at the lack of preperation on behalf of the agencies we entrust our civil care to. I read that it will take the navy a few days to even launch rescue ships. And we're reading how the city and the Army Corps of Engineers are at a loss as to how to repair the levees. Why was there no call to prapre the navy ships as soon as this storm hit Cat 5, before the devasation occurred. Why does the city not have repair contingencies ready to go, if the failure of the levees is such a well-known danger?

This is a terrible situation that grows worse every day, and while the immediate rescue efforts showed us the heroic spirit we can muster, the delay caused by a simple lack of foresight is making the situation that much worse.

Jerome, Sasha ... with all due respect, I don't know that this thread is a good choice for political rants (of either stripe). Time enough for that later.

Tim,I wasn't trying to rant. I was venting my frustration at the inevitability of this national tragedy become someone's self-serving talking point.

But, yeah, I agree. There'll be time enough for cynicism later.

Tim,
"Jerome, Sasha...with all due respect I don't know that this thread is a good choice for political rants (of either stripe). Time enough for that later."

I wasn't trying to rant either, but you are correct.

One other note. People never cease surprisingly. Some, who I expected to be indifferent to this because, well, they seem indifferent to everything seem to have been genuinely touched and even moved to act. Others, who I would expect respond in a compassionate way, are only whining about how they may not be able to go to Mardi Gras next year and higher gas prices.
Unbelievable. On both counts.

Just in case some of you don't hear it from other sources, but many national chains are going to be accepting donations to help with rescue/salvage/and refugee assistance. If'n you want to help, there should be plenty of reliable avenues nearby everyone that will accept cash donations, check, etc.

Ugh, the news from New Orleans seems to keep getting worse...if this is how bad things are from a "better than it could have been" scenario, I shudder to think of the worst case scenario...maybe the newsfolks weren't as over the top as some of us assumed.

Well, I think this comes down to the fact that New Orleans DID dodge a bullet in the fact that they didn't take the brunt of the hurricane in the face (since they were hit by the western side, and not northeast quadrant).

But then the levees started giving way, and it became a total "oh f*ck" scenario.

If the levees had held, this wouldn't have been as bad as they were saying once the hurricane passed.

Unfortunately, I've heard reports from 2 to 4 different levees giving way, with like 80% of the city underwater.

Yeah, that's basically as bad as taking the storm head on.

Below is an excerpt of a U.S. Air Force weather service story about Typhoon Jelawat, which hit Okinawa in August 2001, packing winds of 100 knots with gusts to 125 knots. And it clearly illustrates why hardened construction of buildings in high hurricane- or typhoon-risk areas are crucial for preventing death and damage of the magnitude we are seeing along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina:

"We had tree limbs fall and a couple of trees toppled," he said. Only one U.S. military housing area reported a power outage, as opposed to more than 19,000 homes without power off base. There were no other reports of damage on Kadena thanks to ample warning time given for the high winds.

"It just amazes me how well this base is built to withstand typhoon force winds," remarked Master Sgt. Ronald Keene, Chief of 18th Weather Station Operations. "We had typhoon force winds for more than 12 hours with not so much as a power fluctuation or loss of phone lines in most areas, and when we got into the recovery stages, the Wing spent only a few hours cleaning the base. Operations were back to normal very quickly."

Keene also remembered that, "after Super Typhoon Bart, which gave us 126-knot winds, I was convinced of the strength of Kadena's 'typhoon proof' buildings. It gives us a comforting feeling knowing that as long as our families, friends and coworkers stay inside their homes, they will be safe.”

For the full story, see: https://afweather.afwa.af.mil/observer/JUL_AUG_2001/Just_another_typhoon_season_in_Japan.html

And Sasha is proven correct with the bleatings from Michael Marcavage of REPENT AMERICA; "Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city. From 'Girls Gone Wild' to 'Southern Decadence', New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. May it never be the same."

Idiot. I'll send an extra dollar to the charity of my choice just for him.

Well,

My name's Leo and my girlfriend and I live(d) in Mid-City, near the major levee break that flooded the city on Tuesday.

We got out late Saturday night and fled to Houston, where a friend I made only through an event I organized in N.O., the Alternative Media Expo. He's putting us up for the time being, but tomorrow morning we head for St. Louis where we meet up with my parents and other family members. We're lucky enough that some friends of the family have plenty of space and are going to put us, my immediate family, and some aunts, uncles and their families up for the longterm, until we can get back into New Orleans. Unfortunately it doesn't look that will be for a few months at least.

Look, New Orleans is bad off, trust me. I've come to accept that all of my belongings are gone. All of the thousands of comics and books and other mementos that I've gotten since I started reading comics 20 years ago are gone, flooded away I'm sure. My story is only one of many. BUT. New Orleanians are a resilient bunch, and many of us will be back in the city as soon as humanly possible to rebuild and make the city into an image as close to what it used to be as possible.

I publish a music and culture magazine called AntiGravity. I and other small business owners will be back to rebuild. It'll be slow going, but I have 100% confidence that it'll be back to where it was. Not tomorrow, not next month, maybe not next year. But it will be, because I can't imagine living anywhere else.

-Leo McGovern

For those wondering how knots convert to miles per hour, I've done a little bit of the math. 100 knots is about 115 mph, 125 knots would be 144 mph, close to what Katrina was packing.

Some of you may have heard reports of the Red Cross saying this may be the worst catastrophe to hit the United States.

I hope not. That dubious record is currently held by the hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas, in 1900. Galveston was largely built on some sand bars, and had resisted spending the money to put a seawall up between the city and the Gulf of Mexico. Furthermore, the US Weather Bureau refused to believe a hurricane, already experienced and reported on by Cuba, would go on into the Gulf, instead fo going up the Atlantic along the East Coast as many of them do. As a result, Galveston got hit without warning about September 8, 1900. Besides wiping the city almost completely off the map, it claimed an estimated 6,000 - 8,000 lives. Katrina's damage looks bad, but I pray that it isn't that bad.

If you're interested in learning more about the Galveston hurricane, I recommend the book ISAAC'S STORM by Erik Larson. (No, not THAT one! His last name is spelled "Larsen.")

I made the following comment elsewhere, but I'd like to make it here as well:

My harsh thought is to start taking truckloads of dirt down there, and bury the existing city until the place is at least sea level, and don't rebuilt until that happens.

This cannot be allowed to happen again.

Yes, people are going to live in places that are prone to diaster (most of North America is prone to some major disaster or another), but New Orleans set themselves up for this, as horrible as it is to say this.

When you live in a city below sea level, surrounded on 3 sides by water, you're asking for it.

No they don't deserve it, but everybody knew it was a matter of time, whether they wanted to admit it or not.

Craig,

I wondered about that, the whole idea of piling on dirt until the area was high enough. I got a derisive snort from the engineers I know so I guess it's a bout as good as the ones proposed by 4 of my students that we "drop an atomic bomb" on hurricanes as they form. (Yeah! Make it radioactive! THAT'LL do it!).

Hey let's face it--we may have this conversation again about San Francisco. Should we begin the evacuation and abandonment of SF now, before it has to take place in rubble?

I can see the need for a New Orleans and reading Leo's account above makes me want to see it brought back brick by brick. (My condolences on you losses, Leo). But you have a point--is the geographic reality of New Orleans such that catastrophe is inevitable? Should there be limits on how many people are allowed to live in the area and what kind of housing they are allowed to live in?

Right now, of course, it's time to save the trapped and needy and get the looting under control.

You can rebuild NO...but if you don't take the time and design a system that can handle this level of event, you're just going to end up rebuilding it all over again, sooner or later. What might be Marlene is just now forming along the same track that Katrina took, so that area might have to deal with yet more storms just in this year alone.

I suppose you could add fill until the area was above sea level, but from this flood, that would need to be an elevation of over 20' in some areas. I don't think you could take the excess dirt from every construction project in the country from this past year and do that. Not to mention that you'd have to wait about another year to make sure that the new land is stable. And you'd have trouble building anything bigger than a 2 story house on such a landfill.

It really might be easier to use the funds from insurance to relocate everything except the warhouse and industrial sectors.

But if they're going to replace anything, they need to start with the system that keeps the water out. This crisis really wasn't caused by the hurricane. In some ways, having this large a hurricane actually helped in getting more people out of the way of the flood. If Katrina had stayed a Cat 3, more people might have opted to stay, and instead of having 100,000 people to rescue, we might have 500,000. Granted, we'd also have most of the police force there to keep order.

The levee and pump system needs to be totally replaced with a moderns system, with independant emergency generators. And there needs to basically be an emeregency pump and drain system, some place that they can just essentially dump out the water.

I was thinking about California this morning, facing a similar dire circumstance. The difference being, the kinds of earthquakes that would cause total destruction happen once every 500, 1000 years. Every time Nawlens gets hit with a major thunderstorm, there's a risk that this level of flooding could occur.

All,

Thanks for the kind words from people above, first of all.

About rebuilding New Orleans:

We've already had some local officials get into arguments about who didn't do what and when. Washington officials blame La. officials for not having enough rescue boats the the ready and generally not being ready for this catastrophe (which, I don't think anyone would have thought it feasible to prepare for this), and a representative from La., Bobby Jindal, blames Washington for not heeding their pleas for help in rebuilding our wetlands, which would have absorbed most of the tidal surge that is now in our cities. I've heard stories about LSU people not being able to finish a $250 million dollar levee project because the money was pulled to fund the war in Iraq. Mayor Nagin is complaining that there are too many chiefs and not enough indians, with a major incident happening Wednesday when the plugging of the biggest hole in the levee system didn't happen, even though he called it "the highest priority" for that day.

Had New Orleans been completely flattened, maybe this idea of making it sea level could be feasible, but they're not going to raze what is left now. There would be no way to make it level, if only because it would just sink that much further anyway. New Orleans is below sea level and it always will be. We knew it was a possibility this could happen. No one thought it would happen to us, of course, and that it would be something a future generation would deal with. Everyone knows all too well the "bowl effect" that's beginning to take place.

When you've got 12 feet of water in one part of the city it's only going to level off, which is why water from the 9th ward is finally finding its way Uptown and in the CBD. Luckily the water seems to have stopped rising, and minus any other major rainstorms (or, goodness forbids, another hurricane) the water should begin to naturally recede in the next few days and weeks.

National Guard is in to help with rescue operations and hopefully get more people evacuated, NOPD has been instructed to give up rescue ops to control the looting. In the time being everyone is just trying to make plans for two to three months.

I finally saw a familiar face from N.O. yesterday, a fellow small business owner I'm familiar with through my magazine. We talked for a few minutes, and she said "you know, two or three months isn't that long to wait." In the long run, it isn't, really, if you have the means to get by. If you're stuck in poverty or a tent city, two or three months can be forever. We parted company saying that all we could hope for is that this time next year we're sitting on Magazine St. remembering these days as having passed.

I'm pretty lucky compared to many, many other people. My parents live on the West Bank, which only incurred about three feet of water. They're saying that people in Jefferson Parish, where their house is, can perhaps go back next week, but only to grab what they can. They'll be asked not to go back for at least one month. If that time frame shapes up, my girlfriend and I will go back to live with them until New Orleans is back up and running enough that we can find a place.

Anyway, enough about me. I'll post back here when I can with any specifics I can give, but until then send hope to all those other people who've lost everything. I can replace my comics and get new mementos, but there are too many people out there with nothing left but the pajamas they have on. Compared to them, I'm flying high.

All,

Thanks for the kind words from people above, first of all.

About rebuilding New Orleans:

We've already had some local officials get into arguments about who didn't do what and when. Washington officials blame La. officials for not having enough rescue boats the the ready and generally not being ready for this catastrophe (which, I don't think anyone would have thought it feasible to prepare for this), and a representative from La., Bobby Jindal, blames Washington for not heeding their pleas for help in rebuilding our wetlands, which would have absorbed most of the tidal surge that is now in our cities. I've heard stories about LSU people not being able to finish a $250 million dollar levee project because the money was pulled to fund the war in Iraq. Mayor Nagin is complaining that there are too many chiefs and not enough indians, with a major incident happening Wednesday when the plugging of the biggest hole in the levee system didn't happen, even though he called it "the highest priority" for that day.

Had New Orleans been completely flattened, maybe this idea of making it sea level could be feasible, but they're not going to raze what is left now. There would be no way to make it level, if only because it would just sink that much further anyway. New Orleans is below sea level and it always will be. We knew it was a possibility this could happen. No one thought it would happen to us, of course, and that it would be something a future generation would deal with. Everyone knows all too well the "bowl effect" that's beginning to take place.

When you've got 12 feet of water in one part of the city it's only going to level off, which is why water from the 9th ward is finally finding its way Uptown and in the CBD. Luckily the water seems to have stopped rising, and minus any other major rainstorms (or, goodness forbids, another hurricane) the water should begin to naturally recede in the next few days and weeks.

National Guard is in to help with rescue operations and hopefully get more people evacuated, NOPD has been instructed to give up rescue ops to control the looting. In the time being everyone is just trying to make plans for two to three months.

I finally saw a familiar face from N.O. yesterday, a fellow small business owner I'm familiar with through my magazine. We talked for a few minutes, and she said "you know, two or three months isn't that long to wait." In the long run, it isn't, really, if you have the means to get by. If you're stuck in poverty or a tent city, two or three months can be forever. We parted company saying that all we could hope for is that this time next year we're sitting on Magazine St. remembering these days as having passed.

I'm pretty lucky compared to many, many other people. My parents live on the West Bank, which only incurred about three feet of water. They're saying that people in Jefferson Parish, where their house is, can perhaps go back next week, but only to grab what they can. They'll be asked not to go back for at least one month. If that time frame shapes up, my girlfriend and I will go back to live with them until New Orleans is back up and running enough that we can find a place.

Anyway, enough about me. I'll post back here when I can with any specifics I can give, but until then send hope to all those other people who've lost everything. I can replace my comics and get new mementos, but there are too many people out there with nothing left but the pajamas they have on. Compared to them, I'm flying high.

All,

Thanks for the kind words from people above, first of all.

About rebuilding New Orleans:

We've already had some local officials get into arguments about who didn't do what and when. Washington officials blame La. officials for not having enough rescue boats the the ready and generally not being ready for this catastrophe (which, I don't think anyone would have thought it feasible to prepare for this), and a representative from La., Bobby Jindal, blames Washington for not heeding their pleas for help in rebuilding our wetlands, which would have absorbed most of the tidal surge that is now in our cities. I've heard stories about LSU people not being able to finish a $250 million dollar levee project because the money was pulled to fund the war in Iraq. Mayor Nagin is complaining that there are too many chiefs and not enough indians, with a major incident happening Wednesday when the plugging of the biggest hole in the levee system didn't happen, even though he called it "the highest priority" for that day.

Had New Orleans been completely flattened, maybe this idea of making it sea level could be feasible, but they're not going to raze what is left now. There would be no way to make it level, if only because it would just sink that much further anyway. New Orleans is below sea level and it always will be. We knew it was a possibility this could happen. No one thought it would happen to us, of course, and that it would be something a future generation would deal with. Everyone knows all too well the "bowl effect" that's beginning to take place.

When you've got 12 feet of water in one part of the city it's only going to level off, which is why water from the 9th ward is finally finding its way Uptown and in the CBD. Luckily the water seems to have stopped rising, and minus any other major rainstorms (or, goodness forbids, another hurricane) the water should begin to naturally recede in the next few days and weeks.

National Guard is in to help with rescue operations and hopefully get more people evacuated, NOPD has been instructed to give up rescue ops to control the looting. In the time being everyone is just trying to make plans for two to three months.

I finally saw a familiar face from N.O. yesterday, a fellow small business owner I'm familiar with through my magazine. We talked for a few minutes, and she said "you know, two or three months isn't that long to wait." In the long run, it isn't, really, if you have the means to get by. If you're stuck in poverty or a tent city, two or three months can be forever. We parted company saying that all we could hope for is that this time next year we're sitting on Magazine St. remembering these days as having passed.

I'm pretty lucky compared to many, many other people. My parents live on the West Bank, which only incurred about three feet of water. They're saying that people in Jefferson Parish, where their house is, can perhaps go back next week, but only to grab what they can. They'll be asked not to go back for at least one month. If that time frame shapes up, my girlfriend and I will go back to live with them until New Orleans is back up and running enough that we can find a place.

Anyway, enough about me. I'll post back here when I can with any specifics I can give, but until then send hope to all those other people who've lost everything. I can replace my comics and get new mementos, but there are too many people out there with nothing left but the pajamas they have on. Compared to them, I'm flying high.

All,

Thanks for the kind words from people above, first of all.

About rebuilding New Orleans:

We've already had some local officials get into arguments about who didn't do what and when. Washington officials blame La. officials for not having enough rescue boats the the ready and generally not being ready for this catastrophe (which, I don't think anyone would have thought it feasible to prepare for this), and a representative from La., Bobby Jindal, blames Washington for not heeding their pleas for help in rebuilding our wetlands, which would have absorbed most of the tidal surge that is now in our cities. I've heard stories about LSU people not being able to finish a $250 million dollar levee project because the money was pulled to fund the war in Iraq. Mayor Nagin is complaining that there are too many chiefs and not enough indians, with a major incident happening Wednesday when the plugging of the biggest hole in the levee system didn't happen, even though he called it "the highest priority" for that day.

Had New Orleans been completely flattened, maybe this idea of making it sea level could be feasible, but they're not going to raze what is left now. There would be no way to make it level, if only because it would just sink that much further anyway. New Orleans is below sea level and it always will be. We knew it was a possibility this could happen. No one thought it would happen to us, of course, and that it would be something a future generation would deal with. Everyone knows all too well the "bowl effect" that's beginning to take place.

When you've got 12 feet of water in one part of the city it's only going to level off, which is why water from the 9th ward is finally finding its way Uptown and in the CBD. Luckily the water seems to have stopped rising, and minus any other major rainstorms (or, goodness forbids, another hurricane) the water should begin to naturally recede in the next few days and weeks.

National Guard is in to help with rescue operations and hopefully get more people evacuated, NOPD has been instructed to give up rescue ops to control the looting. In the time being everyone is just trying to make plans for two to three months.

I finally saw a familiar face from N.O. yesterday, a fellow small business owner I'm familiar with through my magazine. We talked for a few minutes, and she said "you know, two or three months isn't that long to wait." In the long run, it isn't, really, if you have the means to get by. If you're stuck in poverty or a tent city, two or three months can be forever. We parted company saying that all we could hope for is that this time next year we're sitting on Magazine St. remembering these days as having passed.

I'm pretty lucky compared to many, many other people. My parents live on the West Bank, which only incurred about three feet of water. They're saying that people in Jefferson Parish, where their house is, can perhaps go back next week, but only to grab what they can. They'll be asked not to go back for at least one month. If that time frame shapes up, my girlfriend and I will go back to live with them until New Orleans is back up and running enough that we can find a place.

Anyway, enough about me. I'll post back here when I can with any specifics I can give, but until then send hope to all those other people who've lost everything. I can replace my comics and get new mementos, but there are too many people out there with nothing left but the pajamas they have on. Compared to them, I'm flying high.

if you go to wlbt.com and click on news, you can watch twenty minutes of the destruction on the mississippi gulf coast as narrated by the stations helicopter pilot. i hope people remember that while new orleans is flooded, there are several cities in mississippi that don't exist any more.

"i hope people remember that while new orleans is flooded, there are several cities in mississippi that don't exist any more."

In a big way, new orleans doesn't exist either. and even after it's rebuilt, it will be a shadow of it's former self. for all intents & purpose the city is destroyed. it just happens that most of the structures still stand.

Joe V.

Four days later, people dying from starvation, looting just to get the food to survive. Does Bush not want thousands of refugee blacks in Texas, is he hoping they'll all die off before he has to deal with the problem?

Why the hell hasn't someone from his administration come forward with a viable mobilization plan?

Xero, the military and national guard are mobilized, the charity organizations are moving in as fast as they can with food/essentials, and the buses are moving people out as quickly as they can fill up. What more do you think the Bush administration can do?

These things take time. It's called a disaster for a reason.

Does Bush not want thousands of refugee blacks in Texas, is he hoping they'll all die off before he has to deal with the problem?

Yep. You got it. I thought he would get away with it but, you clever fellow, you saw right through him. He wants them all to die. Damn, you're smart.

What more do you think the Bush administration can do?

At this point, it's about what the government (not just the administration) isn't doing.

It is about lost opportunities, about not being more aggressive, and about a complete fucking failure of our government.

There is no question that the conditions are beyond horrible. And in hindsight, there are always things that could have been done better. But that cuts both ways. People who live there could have gotten out sooner, taken this more seriously, been more prepared. The government began major mobilization before the hurricane ever even hit land.

Some of the arm chair quarterbacking is mind boggling. Have you ever been stuck in traffic after a major event such as a concert? You sit there for hours. Now compound that by thousands, with roads out, no power, etc. We are not a police state, and this was not a school that had rehearsed a fire drill. This is a major city with a side range of people. It is impossible to have a complete disaster plan for a catastrophe of this magnitude. There will always be holes and problems because people don't do what they are told or what you expect.

Saying there was a failure of government is just plain wrong and an insult to the hard work that is going on. In terms of the area of destruction, I don't know of anything in history that even comes close. To not have the problems we are currently having would be nothing short of a biblical miracle.

You want to blame someone? Fine. It does little good. Give if you can. Do something to help other than complain about the people who are working hard to do something about it. Get some perspective and realize we are talking about an event that dwarfs 9/11 in terms of the scope of its impact. We are dealing with a situation that is bringing out both the best and worst in people.

Bottom line, this is not the time or place to be criticizing the government. It is the time to sorrow over the loss of life. It is the time to come up with ways to help those who have lost everything. That is not the government's job. That is OUR job.

Iowa Jim

"In a big way, new orleans doesn't exist either. and even after it's rebuilt, it will be a shadow of it's former self. for all intents & purpose the city is destroyed. it just happens that most of the structures still stand."

I really don't want to argue semantics. What has happened in New Orleans is a epic tragedy. One of the oldest cities in the USA has had up to 80% of it submerged. At the same time, as countless people are pointing out, we knew it was just a matter of time until it happened. New Orleans is sinking at a rate of about an inch per 100 years. Every 33 minutes, Louisiana loses an acre to the Gulf of Mexico. The army corp of engineers asked for 105 million bucks to modernize the levee system, but the current administration slashed their request to 40 million and Congress gave them 42 million. It's a tragedy, but one we were tipped off to.

Mississippi, on the other hand, is pretty much the poorest state in the country. All the casinos are wiped out on the coast and those provide millions of dollars a day in tax revenue that is the lifeblood of the state's economy. Reports are that 90% of Gulf Coast structures no longer exist. The town of Waveland no longer exists. In Durant (probably a four hour drive north from the coast), my grandmother who is into her 80s is dealing with no electricity, mid 90 degree temps (and a similar level of humidity) by opening her windows. If there were any gas available to be bought, perhaps my parents could go get her and take her to their home where there is also no power, nor is there any expected for two to three weeks. Except that there is no gas to be bought. A large number of gas stations don't have electricity and the few that do have an average two hour wait to get to a pump to fill up. Power company vehicles are dead on the side of the road, unable to get anywhere to fix the lines because they had no where to fill up with gas. This weekend, my parents generator will run out of gas. All the food my father grew the last several years will go bad due to the freezers having no electricity.

This is a just what a few people are going through in Mississippi currently. The water in New Orleans will go down. The levees will be rebuilt. The city will be pumped dry. In a year, with luck, things will be back the way they were before. In Mississippi, in a year the Gulf Coast casinos will hopefully be about ready to reopen. In a year, Mississippi will regain one of its main revenue streams. In the meantime, the state will have to figure out a way to fund state run institutions like schools with a fraction of its normal revenue.

I am not a fan of governor Haley Barbor, but I hope I am wrong about his abilities.

as reported this morning by icv2.com

"Peter David, who was on the conference call from Dragon-Con, spontaneously pledged his royalties from Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #1 to hurricane relief on the spot."

Damn PAD seeing that left me speechless.
Massive Kudos

JAC

as reported this morning by icv2.com

"Peter David, who was on the conference call from Dragon-Con, spontaneously pledged his royalties from Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #1 to hurricane relief on the spot."

Damn PAD seeing that left me speechless.
Massive Kudos

JAC

as reported this morning by icv2.com

"Peter David, who was on the conference call from Dragon-Con, spontaneously pledged his royalties from Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #1 to hurricane relief on the spot."

Damn PAD seeing that left me speechless.
Massive Kudos

JAC

as reported this morning by icv2.com:

"Peter David, who was on the conference call from Dragon-Con, spontaneously pledged his royalties from Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #1 to hurricane relief on the spot.

Damn PAD seeing that left me speechless.
Massive Kudos

JAC

opps, sorry about the multiple posts. Kinda lessens the impact of the speechless comment. So I'll amend it

Damn PAD seeing that, well I just couldn't shut up about it apperently.

JAC

"The water in New Orleans will go down."

No, the water may be pumped out, but it can't go down. New Orleans sits in a bowl...there's no "down" for the water to go. And it's built on a marsh, meaning the water table is so high, that surface water doesn't drain off. So, no, the water will not go down on it's own, not so long as the levies remain breached, and lake Ponchetrain has free access to keep flowing.

"The levees will be rebuilt."

With luck, they won't, but instead will be replaced with a better, long term solution. The levies are 40 years old, and were a bad idea back then. If you're going to rebuild, then you'll need to disconnect the New Orleans bowl from free-flowing water coming from the lake, and that means repairing the levies. But if all you do is replace the old system with the same thing, we're going to have a repeat of this tragedy sometime in the next 50 years.

"The city will be pumped dry."

No, the water will be pumped out, but old New Orleans will never be dry. Any structure that lacks a steel frame is worthless. And those with steel frames will need to be inspected for any strucutural twisting that could have resulted, either from wind, or the great constant pressure of flowing water. Everything else cannot be repaired. Once wood becomes water damaged in this way, it's worthless as a building material. It'd be different if this were extremely cold water. It's not. It's water at 70 degrees, in sweltering heat and humidity.

"In a year, with luck, things will be back the way they were before."

You mean with a miracle? Back the way they were before? After thousands, maybe tens of thousands, have died, it's all going to be OK in a year? After 80% of the city has to be bulldozed, all that's going to just rebuilt, in a year?

You talk of the loss of casinos, of income. Whatever happened to the priceless value of a single human life?

Jim, have you heard the Mayor's radio interview from yesterday? Have you heard him describe the situation, and the appalling lack of response? You talk about not assigning blame, yet here's what you said

"People who live there could have gotten out sooner, taken this more seriously, been more prepared."

I've disagreed with you in the past, but here I'm just plain going to call you wrong. Don't start defending the various failures at all levels of our elected leaders to respond to this crisis, while at the same time blaming the very people we should all be praying for. This is worse than saying the elected officials are at fault. You're basically saying these people deserve to die because they didn't get out. Does it really matter how they got there? Fine, if we're not going to look at people's failures, then let's do that. Ignore the reasons why things are happening, and just focus on saving lives. We can disect eveything later. But if we're not going to "armchair QB" the goverment, then we sure as hell are not going to second guess the people in need, either.

It seems to me that if you want to blame someone for the hurricane you should blame the local and state politicians in Louisiana before you blame anyone else. It is them, and only them, that knew the extent to which the city wasn't prepared for something like this.

Obviously, no one is to blame for the actual hurricane. Stronger hurricanes occurred well before the industrial revolution so I can't take any of this global warming argument.

If any blame is to be put on the Bush Administration it should be that they failed to recognize soon enough that the local and state governments were so inept to organize the relief effort. Once they realized this they should have pushed them aside and started their own relief organization effort.

Where is the Mayor? Where is the Governor? Leadership is surely lacking in this part of the country.

That's not what IJ said. His words are *not* "basically saying these people deserve to die because they didn't get out."

To say that some people made a bad choice is not anywhere NEAR saying they deserve to suffer or die. You are putting words in his mouth. I can look at all the different things EVERYBODY did and not think they deserve to die. Well, looters and people who jack up prices to take advantage of the situation are pretty scummy...but even they do not deserve to die. I saw nothing where Jim suggested we should not have compassion and concern for the people who stayed.

And the situation in NO keeps deteriorating. A big chemical depot exploded, and hundreds of Nat'l Guardsmen are landing; and the Gov. says

"They have M-16s and they're locked and loaded,These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will."

Not to mention the people who are desperate to get out NO and are fighting the Nat'l Guard to get out.

And they have run out of room in the superdome. They can't even land choppers outside the convention center.

all I can say is Holy F*ckin' God.

Everybody, even if you already sent money, like most of you did, send even more if you can. Nobody needs it like they do.

The whole story is here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050902/ap_on_re_us/hurricane_katrina_76.

I work for a state agency and I can tell you from first hand experience that, the year after 9/11, everything was about emergency planning. Every state and local agency was involved in reassessing their priorities to determine what resources they could bring to the table in the event of a natural or man-made disaster.

However, in the years that followed, something changed. People developed a collective case of amnesia and emergency planning began to slide done the list of priorities. Funds that were earmarked for emergency planning suddenly became diverted to other areas.

In the coming weeks, there will be a lot of finger pointing and the sad thing is, there will be plenty of blame to go around. The facts are that federal, state, and local officials did dither around for years knowing that a levy breach was all but inevitable. It is also a fact that once a plan to improve the levies was in place, the federal government slashed the funding in 2003. It is also a fact that the Department of Homeland Security has failed to demonstrate that it is any more capable in mobilizing resources than FEMA and the other federal agencies of before.

We should have learned these lessons before, not only the lessons of 9/11, but also from the floods of 1993. It's been known that the old strategy of the Army Corps of Engineers of dredging and levying the river only made flooding worse in the long term.

We didn't.

We can blame Bush. We can blame the governor of Lousiania or the mayor of New Orleans. But what we cannot afford to do is to ignore these lessons another time. Because another disaster will come again, whether it's a dirty bomb in Times Square, an earthquake in San Francisco or another major Gulf hurricane.

It will happen again.

They are called "natural disasters" and "acts of God" for a reason. Stop trying to assign blame! Not every disaster can be forseen, not every contingency can be prepared for. Neither the people in New Orleans, nor the leaders (at any level) are omniscient.

It is an unfortunate, disastrous mess. Rather than trying to blame, we should be trying to figure out more ways to help.

Could this mess have been prevented? Maybe. The important issue now is figuring out how to help these people now. I've can't even imagine what these people are going through, but were I in the situation and listening to a portalbe radio, hearing the director of FEMA refer to my mindset as "frustration", I'd be triggered. A more accurate word is devestation. Refering to these people's response to the lack thereof thus far as frustration is like calling a war a conflict. It is either a total lack of understanding or a conscious attempt to stay away from words that they feel may further escalate these people's response.

Fred

The problem is, this is something that the people HAD foreseen. Before 9/11, FEMA listed three scenarios as the most serious catatrophies that could hit the country: a terrorist attack in NYC, an earthquake in San Francisco, and a major flood in New Orleans.

It is not assigning blame to recognize what should have been done to prepare for it and to use that to try and prevent or at least mitigate the impact the impact of such a disaster in the future.

Agreed Den, though I do believe that it may be more productive to wait until the crisis has passed until the focus is placed on examination of should-haves. It only distracts from what should be the immediate focus to do so now.

Iowa Jim -
People who live there could have gotten out sooner, taken this more seriously, been more prepared.

You know, this shows you're just as ignorant as Rush Limbaugh and that guy from FEMA who said the same thing.

You're talking about one of the poorest cities in the nation. About tens of thousands who had no way out of the city.

How the hell do you, as an individual, prepare for this when your house is under 20 feet of water, you had no way out, and help is actually ignoring you?

Greg Young -
It seems to me that if you want to blame someone for the hurricane you should blame the local and state politicians in Louisiana before you blame anyone else.

And now there are reports that they attempted to get money from the federal government to improve the levees, but the government dumped that money into Iraq instead.

Yeah, we should blame the local and state policians for, you know, going to the federal level to try and get our pathetic government to do its job.

Mark L -
Not every disaster can be forseen, not every contingency can be prepared for.

Oh give me a farking break.

They knew the levees were at risk to give way or not prevent flood waters from storm surge and such.

This isn't a case of not forseeing disaster, it's a case of completely ignoring the potential, preferring to be blind and running on the fumes of luck.

NO's luck ran out and many are now paying for that ineptitude.

"To say that some people made a bad choice is not anywhere NEAR saying they deserve to suffer or die."

When that "bad choice" is to stay in an area after a mandatory evacuation order has been given, what else does it mean? That they deserve to suffer? Or feel mild discomfort? What else can it be but an attempt to apportion blame and responsibility. It says that some people brought this level of suffering on themselves.

Craig J. Ries said
And now there are reports that they attempted to get money from the federal government to improve the levees, but the government dumped that money into Iraq instead.

Yeah, we should blame the local and state policians for, you know, going to the federal level to try and get our pathetic government to do its job.

Money is requested from the federal level every day. It is the local and state politicians responsibility for persuading people that something is important enough to fund. It is their shortcoming in this regard, not an administrations for cutting it out of the budget.

In the recovery effort it also falls to local leadership to lead and in what I have seen of the coverage so far I don't see great leaders rising up to the occasion in Louisiana.

Could we have done more? Yes. Could we be doing more? Yes. If there was a mandatory evacuation why weren't measures taken to help those that could not help themselves? Now people are beginning to place the blame on the survivors? "Why didn't they leave when they had the chance?" "Are they so used to having people do things for them that they can't do anything for themselves?" "Why didn't they walk out?" Seeing the amount of overweight, elderly and toddler age people, I wonder just how far they would have been capable of walking.

This morning I heard someone quoting from the Book of Matthew..."When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. When I had no home, you gave me a place to stay. When I was naked, you clothed me." Whether 'they brought it upon themselves' or not (and I believe they most certainly DID NOT bring it upon themselves, this whole thing could have been easily avoided) it is our duty to help them - and we haven't been. The only thing I have seen happening is the same old buck passing...it is always someone else's fault. When things go bad all the 'personal accountability' talk just goes out the window and the finger pointing begins. We are all to blame for thinking that it couldn't happen here, that we are somehow immune because of our technology, our beliefs, our lifestyle, our toys, etc. None of that is true.

One thing is certain - what little faith I had that my government was in any way shape or form able or prepared to defend or assist the American people in the event of a natural disaster or a terrorist attack is every bit as destroyed as New Orleans and the Twin Towers. It cannot serve or protect. It can only take our money and go on vacation after an intern gives it a BJ in the oval office and whine about how difficult we make things when things do go its way.

how difficult we make things when things do go its way

Typo there - it should say DON'T go its way.

Money is requested from the federal level every day. It is the local and state politicians responsibility for persuading people that something is important enough to fund. It is their shortcoming in this regard, not an administrations for cutting it out of the budget.

Maybe you should actually look for some news articles to find out just how far the Bush Administration slashed the budget that was to go to New Orleans for levee improvements before you type anything again.

This is a complete and total failure of the federal government. This country has learned NOTHING from 9/11 and Hurricane Andrew.

Odds are we're too damn stupid to learn anything from this one, too.

Money is requested from the federal level every day. It is the local and state politicians responsibility for persuading people that something is important enough to fund. It is their shortcoming in this regard, not an administrations for cutting it out of the budget.

Except that Bush then fired the deputy for the Army Corps of Engineers for the offense of telling Congress that Bush's budget cuts would cause numerous contracts already initiated to be cancelled, including the levee project.

Here are the facts: Fact one is that, in the 90s, the Army Corps of Engineers began work on reparing and strengthening the levees. Fact two is that in 2003, Bush slashed the money going that project, among others, to pay for the Iraq invasion (you know, the one that Rummy and Wolfie said would pay for itself). This brought the project to a complete halt.

Now, would the levees have held if the project had managed to continue for two more years? That's a question we'll probably never get an answer to.

Here's our wonderful director of FEMA, Michael Brown, on the situation in New Orleans:

"Michael Brown also agreed with other public officials that the death toll in the city could reach into the thousands.

"Unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the advance warnings," Brown told CNN.

"I don't make judgments about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans," he said."

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm ready to run this guy out of the country.

Den wrote: "Here are the facts: Fact one is that, in the 90s, the Army Corps of Engineers began work on reparing and strengthening the levees. Fact two is that in 2003, Bush slashed the money going that project, among others, to pay for the Iraq invasion (you know, the one that Rummy and Wolfie said would pay for itself). This brought the project to a complete halt."

Left unsaid, however, is the fact that the first levee area to fail was an area that HAD been upgraded. It was a wall of concrete several feet thick.

I've lived around flood zones enough to know that whenever you have such an extensive levee system, if the water reaches the top, the system can fail anywhere. New Orleans was an accident waiting to happen, and no matter how much money had been spent, it was just a matter of time before something like this happened.

Politicizing the argument is a waste of time, in my opinion.

Politicizing it is certainly not going to solve the problems, R, but it will also raise some very valid points. Primary among them: The Bush Administration has, in their prosecution of the war in Iraq, taken money away that could have strengthened domestic disaster prevention and response and put it into the war. Could this disaster have been prevented? Absolutely not. Should the federal government be better equipped to respond? Absolutely. And once again, the Bush Administration has failed in a crisis.

"When that "bad choice" is to stay in an area after a mandatory evacuation order has been given, what else does it mean? That they deserve to suffer? Or feel mild discomfort? What else can it be but an attempt to apportion blame and responsibility. It says that some people brought this level of suffering on themselves."

That's the problem with both assigning blame and trying to second guess what COULD have been done. Neither do any good for the people dealing with the issue (and the blame game is pointless-there is enough "blame" to go around and cover everyone). Frankly, it's an pointless debate.

The situation is bad, and fingerpointing (whether you point it at the people who stayed/were stuck back or George Bush) is wasting valuable time anyways.

"The situation is bad, and fingerpointing (whether you point it at the people who stayed/were stuck back or George Bush) is wasting valuable time anyways."

Thom, I have to disagree. When the people involved in the relief and rescue efforts, or the people that need to be organizing those efforts, sit around and discuss this stuff, while people are suffering and dieing, yes, that's a waste of valuable time.

But for the rest of us, what else are we supposed to do? If we're not involved on site, or connected to the chain of command, it's not like our discussion these kinds of issues takes away anything from the relief efforts. I can only give so much blood, and only donate so much money, before I've exhausted everything I can do to help.

Just read on ICV2 that PAD has offered to donate his royalties from Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #1 to the New Orleens relief effort-
True?

I've lived around flood zones enough to know that whenever you have such an extensive levee system, if the water reaches the top, the system can fail anywhere. New Orleans was an accident waiting to happen, and no matter how much money had been spent, it was just a matter of time before something like this happened.

This is true. We should have learned the lesson from the 1993 floods that levees only make floodings worse when they do occur. Again, I can't say whether further work would have prevented the levee from failing or not. However, none of that changes the fact that resources that should have gone to emergency preparedness and flood prevention were taken away to spend on Operation Fix Daddy's Mistake.

Politicizing the argument is a waste of time, in my opinion.

But it is inevitable. Already, Bush's supporters are out on the blogs making sure that the weak response form DHS is everyone's fault but his.

Bobb, certainly...but if we are going to discuss how things could be done differently, then one of the questions that comes up is "people were told to get the hell out of dodge and not everyone did." It's a valid question, unlike the tsunami which came completely out of the blue for the tourists and citizens.

And yet, when I look at the suffering and devestation, I don't really care. I could step back and analyze that, and it's not wrong to ask the question. What's wrong is to use it as a reason to not extend help and relief. Compassion should not have limits in these times.

Michael Brown also agreed with other public officials that the death toll in the city could reach into the thousands.
"Unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the advance warnings," Brown told CNN.
"I don't make judgments about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans," he said."

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm ready to run this guy out of the country."

Why? I would go with firing the guy for the absolute failure on all levels of the last week's operation but, his excuse making aside, he's right. He's 100% right. Don't try and blow it off or dismiss as though he were telling a complete lie to cover his butt.

In the 24 hours leading up to Katrina hitting the city they had bits on the networks and the 24/7 news outlets with people talking about how they weren't going to leave. Hell, CNN and MSNBC had two different groups on talking about the rocking parties they would be having while riding the storm out.

my wife's Aunt was ending a two week vacation down there as this started and my wife was worried as hell. She got out of there in time because she chose to leave. But she was telling us how shocked she was at the number of people around her who were staying because they wouldn't, not couldn't, leave because all the doom sayers and such didn't know what they were talking about and how they had seen worse then this before. I had listened to a few net feeds from local radio stations before the storm hit and heard the same thing from callers then.

I'm not the only one who was seeing this stuff. From this thread above:
Posted by: Eric! at August 29, 2005 03:04 PM
I did like the one sign I saw.
"We don't run from Hurricanes, we drink them."

Yeah, there are people there who COULD NOT get out. For them I feel the most sorry and get the most pi$$ed off when watching the news and seeing the relief efforts run like a Three Stooges act while the people in charge and the pols get in front of news cameras and pat each other on the back for the fine job they're doing. But there are lots of people there who were told to get out and said no. They chose to stay.

What he said mixed with the timing of it was dumb as hell. What he said is almost as dumb as all those saying that the people there are being left to die based on their skin color. The fact that he said it in order to excuse the pi$$ poor job he and other have been doing the last few days is a great reason to fire him. But the sad thing is that he told the truth. The number of deaths will be greater in the end because many stupid people decided to stay that could have gotten out of the area.

This doesn't make their deaths less of a horror. This doesn't make their lives less. This doesn't mean that anybody there (other then the snipers shooting at cops and rescue units to protect looters) deserved/deserves to die. But it is the truth. Don't attack people who are saying that now and don't try and completely write it off as cruel. Don't whitewash it so that you can feel better about the fact that you believe no victim "deserved" it (again, they didn't.) Use it to smack some sense into people the next time (where or when ever the next time is) and maybe reduce the number of deaths then.

Now, if you're just pointing to his poor timing and less then thoughtful way of saying it then I'm with you there. But I still think we should fire him first.

"And yet, when I look at the suffering and devestation, I don't really care. I could step back and analyze that, and it's not wrong to ask the question. What's wrong is to use it as a reason to not extend help and relief. Compassion should not have limits in these times."

I absolutely agree. I don't care why or how those people are there, all I care about is getting them out.

Which isn't to say that, when Bush says something like "no one could have predicted that the levees would fail" at a press conference, and we can go back to last year when, in fact, FEMA did predict exactly that, and as recent as last week when new channels up and down the dial were predicting that such a failure could indeed occur, I have to ask why is our President so out of touch with what seems to be common knowledge? And what misfortune stems from having such poor leadership at the top? I don't think asking such questions detracts from the efforts to provide relief, and if anything, maybe it will spur the people at the top to act just a little more swiftly.

From a friend of a friend...

From: Gregory S. Henderson MD, PhD
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 20:21:55 -0500
To:
Subject: Re: thoughts and prayers

Thanks to all of you who have sent your notes of concern and your prayers. I am writing this note on Tuesday at 2PM . I wanted to update all of you as to the situation here. I don't know how much information you are getting but I am certain it is more than we are getting. Be advised that almost everything I am telling you is from direct observation or rumor from reasonable sources. They are allowing limited internet access, so I hope to send this dispatch today.

Personally, my family and I are fine. My family is safe in Jackson, MS, and I am now a temporary resident of the Ritz Carleton Hotel in New Orleans. I figured if it was my time to go, I wanted to go in a place with a good wine list. In addition, this hotel is in a very old building on Canal Street that could and did sustain little damage. Many of the other hotels sustained significant loss of windows, and we expect that many of the guests may be evacuated here.

Things were obviously bad yesterday, but they are much worse today. Overnight the water arrived. Now Canal Street (true to its origins) is indeed a canal. The first floor of all downtown buildings is underwater. I have heard that Charity Hospital and Tulane are limited in their ability to care for patients because of water. Ochsner is the only hospital that remains fully functional. However, I spoke with them today and they too are on generator and losing food and water fast. The city now has no clean water, no sewerage system, no electricity, and no real communications. Bodies are still being recovered floating in the floods. We are worried about a cholera epidemic. Even the police are without effective communications. We have a group of armed police here with us at the hotel that are admirably trying to exert some local law enforcement. This is tough because looting is now rampant. Most of it is not malicious looting. These are poor and desperate people with no housing and no medical care and no food or water trying to take care of themselves and their families. Unfortunately, the people are armed and dangerous. We hear gunshots frequently. Most of Canal street is occupied by armed looters who have a low threshold for discharging their weapons. We hear gunshots frequently. The looters are using makeshift boats made of pieces of styrofoam to access. We are still waiting for a significant national guard presence.

The health care situation here has dramatically worsened overnight. Many people in the hotel are elderly and small children. Many other guests have
Have unusual diseases. They are unfortunately . 'We have better medical letter. There are ID physicians in at this hotel attending an HiV confection. We have commandered the world famous French Quarter Bar to turn into an makeshift clinic. There is a team of about 7 doctors and PA and pharmacists. We anticipate that this will be the major medical facility in the central business district and French Quarter.

Our biggest adventure today was raiding the Walgreens on Canal under police escort. The pharmacy was dark and full of water. We basically scooped the entire drug sets into garbage bags and removed them. All under police excort. The looters had to be held back at gun point. After a dose of prophylactic Cipro I hope to be fine.

In all we are faring well. We have set up a hospital in the the French Qarter bar in the hotel, and will start admitting patients today. Many with be from the hotel, but many with not. We are anticipating to dealing with multiple medical problems, medications and and acute injuries. Infection and perhaps even cholera are anticipated major problems. Food and water shortages are iminent.

The biggest question to all of us is where is the national guard. We hear jet fignters and helicopters, but no real armed presence, and hence the rampant looting. There is no Red Cross and no salvation army.

In a sort of cliché way, this is an edifying experience. Once is rapidly focused away from the transient and material to the bare necessities of life. It has been challenging to me to learn how to be a primary care phyisican. We are under martial law so return to our homes is impossible. I don't know how long it will be and this is my greatest fear. Despite it all, this is a soul edify experience. The greatest pain is to think about the loss. And how long the rebuid will. And the horror of so many dead people .

PLEASE SEND THIS DISPATCH TO ALL YOU THING MA Y BE INTERSTED IN A DISPATCH From the front. I will send more according to your interest. Hopefully their collective prayers will be answered. By the way suture packs, sterile gloves and stethoscopes will be needed as the Ritz turns into a MASH

Greg Henderson

Another letter from a friend of a friend..

Friday, September 2nd, 2005
Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?

And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,

Michael Moore

MMFlint@aol.com

www.MichaelMoore.com

P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st. Oh, don't worry about the gas prices

One thing is certain - what little faith I had that my government was in any way shape or form able or prepared to defend or assist the American people in the event of a natural disaster or a terrorist attack is every bit as destroyed as New Orleans and the Twin Towers. It cannot serve or protect. It can only take our money and go on vacation after an intern gives it a BJ in the oval office and whine about how difficult we make things when things do go its way.

On the one hand, I agree with a lot of what you say--it seems to me that, given the reality that New Oleans was going to one day be flooded there should have been a lot more boats available for rescue attempts, among other obvious preperations.

On the other hand, consider what has been done; a city of 500,000 to 1,000,000 people was largely evacuated in 36 hours and what should have been the deaths of 100,000s has been kept to, at worst (I hope) a single digit percentage of that. Before we too quickly condemn the local and federal government for their obvious falings, consider what the death toll has been for comparable disasters in other parts of the world.

Now obviously we have higher standards--we're American so we think that we are not as vulnerable to the crap that is common elsewhere. In the face of natural disasters, that comforting thought falls apart. But again, lets wait a bit before totally writing off the effectiveness of the relief efforts.

Let me also add my expression of admiration to PAD for his generosity.

"... I have to ask why is our President so out of touch with what seems to be common knowledge? And what misfortune stems from having such poor leadership at the top?"

He doesn't read the paper or watch the news. He's said as much himself any number of times now. He gets any information he "needs" in cliff note versions of reports and papers that his handlers feed him. Why so shocked that Bush doesn't know the first thing about facts that were being reported all over the place for almost 48 hours before this happened?

But you know...pointing out how Bush was wrong about the levees-that it was common knowledge points back to the idea that this was forseeable to all of those in the area.

I think it is most definitely important to be pushing the beauricrats to move this forward. But I don't think it solves this problem to try and lay blame at one person's feet, either. This covers a lot of ground, and goes much farther around than Bush and the Republican Crew. It seems like a lot of the politicians are flailing at this time. Noone wants to bite the bullet and take some of the burden.

I know what some members of the Army Corps of Engineers said, and I absolutely positively believe what they're saying. What I'm not sure about is the terminology that is being used. If you're budgeted 100 million dollars one year, and the next year you ASK for 150 million, but only get 120 million, does that mean your budget is cut by 30 million, or increased by 20 million? In Government-Speak, it means you had a budget cut. And while I do believe that's what they're really trying to say (that they wanted X, only got Y, and called it a slash), I must admit that's just speculation on my part. However, here are some numbers for you:

1998 ACE budget: 3.24 billion
1999 ACE budget: 3.96 billion
2000 ACE budget: 3.9 billion
http://www.house.gov/transportation/water/hearing/02-10-99/02-10-99memo.htm

2005 ACE discretionary budget: 4.0 billion
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/corps.html

That second website describes in detail the individual projects...with the vast majority of monies going to New York/New Jersey, interestingly enough.

So...while the ACE budget actually ROSE 100 million dollars in the period between 2000 and 2005, Louisiana's cut of the pie did seem to shrink. So, if you're going to blame someone, who do you blame? Do you want to change the story of "Bush cut funding" to "Bush should have funded more?" then go right ahead...it's a valid sentiment if naive (little thing called Congress...and the Democratic-run Senate for a couple years there...also have some say). Do you believe that Congress and the ACE caved in to New York/New Jersey pressure after 9/11 and budgeted accordingly? Also valid although also more speculation than anything else. What you CAN'T say is, flat-out, "It's George Bush's fault."

Is there any truth, incidentally, that even if New Orleans had got all the monies it requested that the project wasn't scheduled to be completed until 2007? I had heard that, but I won't state it as fact yet. If it's true, then, well, jeez.

Is there any truth, incidentally, that even if New Orleans had got all the monies it requested that the project wasn't scheduled to be completed until 2007? I had heard that, but I won't state it as fact yet. If it's true, then, well, jeez.

Yes and no.

Yes, there was a project to mitigate Cat 5 surges. It wasn't to be completed until 2007. But it wasn't funded.

However, from what I hear, the failure point was not in storm surges, but in strengthening a levy for flooding. THAT repair was scheduled for 2003, but was not funded.

from the pharybgula.org blog:

#38420: rrt - 09/02 at 10:18 AM
For what it's worth, a my rambling comments on all this:

Without wasting too much time on detail (and I'm nobody important, heh), I've got a working relationship with FEMA, and in general, they're very much my ally. We do good work together, primarily in the field of mitigation: preventing disaster damage. Most often, for us that means buying out floodprone properties, converting them to open-space forever, but other things as well. It depends on the state, the most threatening disasters, etc. There are several Federal programs, run by FEMA, that fund mitigation activities, the idea being that in the long-run, these programs pay for themselves in prevented expenses of taxpayer-funded assistance, hardship to individuals, economic damage, etc.

Early in this administration's first term, one of their first actions was to cut Project Impact, a new-ish mitigation program that had been started under Clinton's FEMA director, James Lee Witt. By most accounts this was a successful program. Project Impact was responsible for some significant earthquake-resistance work done in the Seattle area prior to the Nisqually earthquake. This almost certainly saved lives and damage. The President announced THAT DAY he was ending Project Impact.

The single largest mitigation funding program, the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, has also been in the administration's sights from day one. The President's budget has called for its elimination in every annual budget. It's only been through the political sausage-making process that HMGP has been constantly reinstalled, and even then, the administration did succeed in cutting it's funding in half. It's been at that level ever since, and we definitely feel the pinch.

Partly as justification for slashing HMGP, the Administration announced a new program, Pre-Disaster Mitigation. PDM, however, worked entirely differently from HMGP. Again, sparing gory details, PDM requires much more work from FEMA to administer and implement, and was generally perceived as being set up to limit overall disaster mitigation spending, as well as possibly to enable political influence on the distribution of funds. PDM suffered badly from delays and poor implementation early on--FEMA was not given adequate time to prepare for it. Most recently, the Administration has now announced that PDM funding will also be slashed by more than half, and the rules that govern how it is distributed are being radically adjusted in ways that (again) seem to allow more wiggle room for political influence.

This does not even address general changes in attitude. Historically we have many active mitigation grants and projects with FEMA. Pressure has increased dramatically to close outstanding grants--so that unspent money can be returned. Every aspect of program management has become much more restrictive, slowly strangling our ability to run mitigation projects at all. In recent years, mitigation funds for one major disaster were delayed an entire YEAR after the disaster because the actual cash fund that supplies mitigation money was "raided" for the war on terror. And always, increasingly, the focus has drifted more towards terrorism in planning and funding, nevermind the "predictable" disasters we experience every year, costing us far more money.

In some ways I do not blame FEMA for what's happening. Planning for these disasters is the responsibility of the State and local governments, not FEMA, despite the assistance they offer in planning. True, for a disaster of this scope that's not entirely relevant--FEMA would have to have some advance planning of their own regardless of what the states and municipalities plan. And it's clear now that the local and FEMA planning and response were inadequate. Even so, I still would temper that with the understanding that the nature of this disaster would greatly hinder the response, even with good planning.

There is one criticism of this administration that I cannot entirely support. It's becoming clear that funds to reinforce New Orleans' flood protection system were reallocated for the Iraq war, and that those funds may have helped prevent the worst of New Orleans' problems. It certainly does indicate the administration's priorities.

But levees and pumps are generally not the answer. That city should not be there. I cannot refute the historical significance of New Orleans, and the reasons it was originally located there. But especially given the immense cost of this disaster, I question the wisdom of rebuilding. I would very much like to see a study of the feasibility and costs of relocating as much as possible to safer ground. Unfortunately, I know this is not what will happen. The city will be rebuilt in-place, and billions will be spent on bigger levees and more pumping stations. But I would at least like to see a serious discussion of it.

Make of that what you will.

In agency terms, those are budget cuts. Agencies put together funding requests, which are slightly inflated estimates of what the Agency Honchos think will allow that agency to fulfill it's critical mission goals. So anything less than that request is seen as a budget cut, because it means that something the agency planned to do will have to get cut.

In all reality, who knows what would have happened had the ACE been allowed to keep the funds it needed to complete the levee upgrade. The thing that angers me isn't so much that funding was cut. It's that Bush acted yesterday like the whole idea that the levees could fail was news to him. It displayed an ignorance that I consider embarrassingly niave in the man that's supposed to be the leader of this country. Yet he's unfamiliar with one of the top vulnerabilities we have? One that FEMA considers to be such a large risk that they ran drills on just this disaster last summer? One that Bush's administration looked at, and decided that rather than fund the $20 billion it would take to upgrade the entire levee system, he'd just spend $2 billion for a few projects.

CNN has the before and after satellite shots up, and I'm guessing that even if the levees have been strengthened, they still would have broken.

Oh, a letter from Michael Moore. Ok, one at a time, one at a time:

"Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland."

OK, I'm not so far right as to say that there isn't something called Global Warming, and in the long run it's going to be a problem. (Of course, I was told in the 70s by scientists that Global Cooling was going to be a monstrous disaster and that anyone who didn't believe another Ice Age was approaching was insane - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling), but no. No, no, no. Let's look at the top ten strongest hurricanes that have hit American shores:

1. Florida Keys, 1935, 892 millibars, 26.35 inches
2. Camille, 1969
3. Andrew, 1992
4. Florida Keys and Texas, 1919
5. Lake Okeechobee, 1928
6. Donna, 1960
7. Galveston, 1900
7. Grand Isle, 1909
7. New Orleans, 1915
7. Carla, 1961
(7-10 all had the same strength)

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/06/06/Hurricaneguide2004/Strongest_hurricanes.shtml

Six of them occured on or before 1935. Hell, three of them before 1915. Now, I may only be an unfrozen caveman lawyer, but can we seriously say with scientific fact that Katrina was influenced by Global Warming? Reputable meteoroligists say that the link is premature at best and that the entire thesis is faulty (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-warm30aug30,1,2676962.story?coll=la-headlines-nation), although I certainly will concede that it wouldn't hurt to do some more research. And yes, I know that there will always be some scientists who claim that global warming is definitively causing harsher earthquakes, but they are certainly far from the credible majority.

But seriously, I wouldn't expect Mr. Moore to bother doing any research into facts, not when there's context to be skewed and rhetoric to be made!

While the Global Warming thing is up in the air, it cannot be disputed that, for whatever reason, ocean temps are overall warmer, resulting in stronger storms. And if Global Warming is contributing to that, then mabye we ought to do something to curb it. It's like a Catch-22. We don't have any proof, but if we're right, and we don't spend lots of money now to improve our air quality, we're going to spend a ton of money later fixing damage from storms like this. But if we're wrong, and we DO spend tons of money now to reduce emissions, then we STILL might end up spending tons of money later, too, to fix the damage that has nothing to do with emissions, but is really a natural cycle.

"It can only take our money and go on vacation after an intern gives it a BJ in the oval office and whine about how difficult we make things when things do go its way."

Huge tragedy, and your bitching about Clinton? What planet do you live on man?

JAC

Jim, have you heard the Mayor's radio interview from yesterday? Have you heard him describe the situation, and the appalling lack of response? You talk about not assigning blame, yet here's what you said

"People who live there could have gotten out sooner, taken this more seriously, been more prepared."

I've disagreed with you in the past, but here I'm just plain going to call you wrong. Don't start defending the various failures at all levels of our elected leaders to respond to this crisis, while at the same time blaming the very people we should all be praying for.

Go back and read what I said. Right now is NOT the time to be blaming anyone but rather helping the victims. My point was VERY clear. I was NOT blaming the victims. I was simply saying that there were a lot of factors that led to this situation, and you cannot evaluate the government's response without also evaluating the people who were there in New Orleans.

There is no question the response could have been better. In a few weeks, we MUST analyze this situation to make sure we respond better next time. But right now there are 3 facts:

1.) Some CHOSE not to leave. They could, but they refused to do so. Their choice has added to the burden of trying to help those who genuinely had no ability to leave in time. I do not wish anyone ill, but if you deliberately stand in the way of a hurricane, you do bear some responsibility.

2.) There is clearly a breakdown in government response on all levels: local, state, and federal. That said, we are again talking about a Category 4 hurricane (when it hit). By definition, you don't know fully were it will hit until hours ahead of time. When you are talking about such a huge land area that was hit, complete with flooding that greatly hampered rescue efforts, you might begin to comprehend that it would take a very comprehensive plan and a very strong leader to pull off the work that needs to be done. Obviously neither is in place. (When you are talking about a local disaster, this person cannot be the president, whomever he or she might be. This takes someone more local, such as Rudy Guiliani after 9/11.) To say there was a "lack of response" is to ignore the enormous work that was done. It is to live in a fantasy land that says we could have instantly gotten vehicles, etc. into the area. Yes, there were many mistakes made, and they must be evaluated. But there was not a lack of response.

3.) The crime and looting after the hurricane is inexcusable and cost people their lives. That is why I earlier said shooting looters is a valid consideration. Because the looting both kept out rescuers (regardless of whether it should or not), and it took police away from rescuing people to keeping the peace. There is NO excuse for the looting and anarchy that has happened. I am very sympathetic to those without food, water, usable toilets, etc. I understand tempers may flare. But much of the looting began long before we reached that level of destitution.

Bottom line, my point was also clear: WE are the government. We are the people who must take responsibility. I know of 3 churches in the area who have mobilized their people to provide food, shelter, and comfort to those in need. My church is sending money we will collect this Sunday to help. I am sure many other faith groups and charities are doing the same thing. We must not sit back and just blame the government. It will never fully meet a need like this. It is our responsibility to do everything we can as individuals to help in any way possible.

As you can tell, your post really ticks me off. To even imply that I don't care that people are dieing is beyond the pale. I am sickened by how many are turning this into an opportunity to gain political points rather than focusing on those who need aid NOW. And I would be saying this whether Bush, Gore, Clinton, Kerry, or Reagan was president. It does not matter. People are still dieing. Their lives have been totally shattered. And many people are trying to do something about it. Find some constructive way and go help.

Iowa Jim

Thank you for that post, Roger. It was truly fascinating. It seems to me from the timeline there that cutting Project Impact was a rather foolish bean-counting move, although if the intention was to fold it into a pre-existing program to save cost, that I can understand...they just f-ed it up. However, it happened before the war (if "early in the administration" is accurate), so one can't really blame the war on that one. The changing attitude is something I've heard a lot and believe whole-heartedly. I think it's also important to point out that the onus for the planning was supposed to be at the local level. That doesn't forgive what seem to be cock-ups at the federal level, but I hope it slows down all the "Bush is to blame" stuff.

"Politicizing it is certainly not going to solve the problems"

I disagree, in fact I'm throwing in my hat with all the other idiots who feel this is so important! In fact I demand that all releif efforts in NO and the other afflicted areas stop until we can figure out who exactly is to blame. Since Clinton has already been bitched about, I suggest one of the following is completely and wholely responsible, I just don't know which. Jimmy Carter, Todd Mcfarlane, Steve Ditco, Richard Nixon, FDR, Hitler, Mother Teresa, Any one of the popes (you pick), Walt Disney, The entire porn industry. The person reading this post (yes you!), George Carlin, Hubert Farnsworth, Xena warrior princess (who inceidently was in NO before the disaster... huh,. seee) The entire cast and crew of Star Trek (all 5 shows and the movies, living and dead)and finally Bin Ladin.

sigh.... There I said it, urge to kill fading..fading...RISEING...fading.......gone.

JAC

Bobb:
"While the Global Warming thing is up in the air, it cannot be disputed that, for whatever reason, ocean temps are overall warmer, resulting in stronger storms. "

Heh. Actually, I'm exactly opposite. I think that global warming IS a fact, but I do dispute that it's causing stronger storms. That was the gist of the article I cited earlier.

However, I reserve the right to be absolutely wrong!

Jim, in a way, I'm glad I ticked you off. In short, what I got out of your prior post was

1) Don't be pointing fingers around and blaming people

2) But those people that stayed behind, they're partly to blame for the problems.

You say you're not blaming them, but you are. You say again "but if you deliberately stand in the way of a hurricane, you do bear some responsibility."

If you don't want to point fingers, then don't. And why would you say that, when there's still thousands that need help, when we're not supposed to be assigning blame, unless you mean to say "they got what they deserved?"

"There is NO excuse for the looting and anarchy that has happened" I'm with you on the anarchy, to a degree. But as I sit here and sip my filtered water, relaxing in an air-conditioned building, and getting ready to go home to my fully stocked, not-flooded home, I'm not going to sit in judgement over people that in many cases were just trying to secure the necessities of life that they needed in order to surive the 5 or more days they were going to be on their own. And even those that took non-food items, I'm not really going to judge, because it is anarchy down there. If they think that by taking a case of Shrek 2 DVDs, they might be able to trade for a bottle of water, or can of coke, great!

Here's something you can look up with ease.

Sen. Mary Landrew (D-La.) has been fighting to keep the funding at the needed levels to actually do the job for both ACE and the levees projects for about three years now. She has based everything that she has argued for on actual costs and on FEMA studies on the levees and its projections for a levee break. She kept being shot down. The work she was fighting for would have helped to strengthen the same areas that broke and caused the flooding.

Do you know how FEMA nailed the predictions for how and where the leeves would fail and where the flooding would be at its worste when it did its studies and its drill last year? Because those points were where the ACE projects stalled due to project fundings. Those points were the points left incomplete in the work meant to support and strengthen the levees.

Food for thought.

"In fact I demand that all releif efforts in NO and the other afflicted areas stop until we can figure out who exactly is to blame."

Heh, that's going to be rather lonely corner you're sitting in Jeff, having that little chat by yourself.

All I can say...I want EVERYONE's head on a platter.

*sigh* [and everyone will be blaming everybody else...., but the truth is, in my eyes, there was plenty of incomptency and political cronyism to go around, for both parties....]

bobb posted : "Heh, that's going to be rather lonely corner you're sitting in Jeff, having that little chat by yourself."

Now, and I'm just checking, everyone else but this guy did get that my post was scarcasm right? Cause I tend to think the poeple who post here are quite intellegent normally and am rather shocked when proven wrong.

JAC

Sarcasim!?! Joking?!? On this site?

Jeff, what were you thinking? That's it... No more wire coat hangers for you! Ever!!!!!!

....though it DOES occur to me...

If it had been a bomb from a terrorist planted on the levee, what was Homeland Security's plan?

Clinton used to have me rolling my eyes at the way he would over act when at the scene of some emergency or another. He would bite his lower lip and look like you had just killed his puppy while having his voice break and catch at just the right moment fro dramatic effect. Hell, he would look and act like that while talking about a good friend's hangnail. He was so into showing his feelings on his sleeve that he often came off as fake even when he wasn't. Used to drive me nuts.

Ten minutes ago I saw Bush on CNN talking from NO about what he saw and what he wants to do about it. The man was grinning, had a twinkle in his eye and was throwing out one liners out about how he had visited the city before and enjoyed himself maybe a bit too much while talking about the damage to the area.

God, how I miss Clinton.

Iowa Jim wrote:
Some CHOSE not to leave. They could, but they refused to do so. Their choice has added to the burden of trying to help those who genuinely had no ability to leave in time. I do not wish anyone ill, but if you deliberately stand in the way of a hurricane, you do bear some responsibility.

Yeah, but Jim, you’re painting with an enormously broad brush there. Because there was no way to distinguish between those who stayed because they had no way to leave (no money, no car, no FEMA/DHS facilitation of the evacuation) and those who chose to stay, the response should have been as concerted as if this struck with no warning. Regardless of whether they stayed because they wanted to or because they had to, these are Americans and they damned well deserve better than this.

Iowa Jim wrote: To say there was a "lack of response" is to ignore the enormous work that was done. It is to live in a fantasy land that says we could have instantly gotten vehicles, etc. into the area. Yes, there were many mistakes made, and they must be evaluated. But there was not a lack of response.

Even President Bush has said that the response has been “not acceptable”. Obviously, the relief response has not been up to snuff. I don’t think that most people believe that nothing has been done. I do think that people have a hard time comprehending that this is the United States of America and we don’t seem to be able to respond adequately to a crisis that we’ve supposedly had measures in place to address. Instead it’s taken 5 days to get food and water to men, women and children slowly starving to death. This is not a village in Somalia; this is happening in our country and our government has been a bit too casual.

Iowa Jim wrote:
The crime and looting after the hurricane is inexcusable and cost people their lives. That is why I earlier said shooting looters is a valid consideration. Because the looting both kept out rescuers (regardless of whether it should or not), and it took police away from rescuing people to keeping the peace. There is NO excuse for the looting and anarchy that has happened. I am very sympathetic to those without food, water, usable toilets, etc. I understand tempers may flare. But much of the looting began long before we reached that level of destitution.

Iowa Jim wrote:
That is true. The opportunistic were looting immediately after the storm. But the situation deteriorated so quickly because 24 hours after the city flooded, there was still little or no relief effort; people began to understand that they were going to be on their own for a while. Jim, I get that you sympathize, but I’m guessing you’ve never been in such a desperate, destitute, and fearful situation. No one has said that the looting of electronics and other luxury items is acceptable. But food, water, diapers, shoes, other necessities in 95 degree heat … you know, Walmart has insurance. If I were there, I’d definitely do whatever I had to in order to keep my 20-month old daughter alive, especially when my government is sluggish to come and help me to save her.

Iowa Jim wrote:
My church is sending money we will collect this Sunday to help. I am sure many other faith groups and charities are doing the same thing. We must not sit back and just blame the government. It will never fully meet a need like this. It is our responsibility to do everything we can as individuals to help in any way possible.

Excellent. I'm glad you're doing something. Except that we have to rely on the government to coordinate these efforts when they’ve declared martial law in the affected area. Therefore, yes, we can blame the government. Look, this is America and in times when America has a natural disaster it is the government’s responsibility to lead the relief effort. We as citizens can collect all of supplies and money in the world, but it’s the government that has to be up to the task of search and rescue.

I live in Los Angeles and all I can say is that this week's events have certainly given me cause for concern about the preparedness of our government (on all levels) for a large scale natural disaster.

Monica
a mom in LA

Do you know how FEMA nailed the predictions for how and where the leeves would fail and where the flooding would be at its worste when it did its studies and its drill last year? Because those points were where the ACE projects stalled due to project fundings. Those points were the points left incomplete in the work meant to support and strengthen the levees.

But according tot the New York Times the levee that failed was one that HAD been strengthened:

No one expected that weak spot to be on a canal that, if anything, had received more attention and shoring up than many other spots in the region. It did not have broad berms, but it did have strong concrete walls.

Shea Penland, director of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of New Orleans, said that was particularly surprising because the break was "along a section that was just upgraded."

"It did not have an earthen levee," Dr. Penland said. "It had a vertical concrete wall several feel thick."

There's also the Chicago Tribune:
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday that a lack of funding for hurricane-protection projects around New Orleans did not contribute to the disastrous flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina.

In a telephone interview with reporters, corps officials said that although portions of the flood-protection levees remain incomplete, the levees near Lake Pontchartrain that gave way--inundating much of the city--were completed and in good condition before the hurricane.

However, they noted that the levees were designed for a Category 3 hurricane and couldn't handle the ferocious winds and raging waters from Hurricane Katrina, which was a Category 4 storm when it hit the coastline. The decision to build levees for a Category 3 hurricane was made decades ago based on a cost-benefit analysis.

Obviously the anti-Bush nuts will keep on claiming that anything bad that happens is Bush's fault and I expectthe anti-Clinton nuts to dig up all sorts of stuff that will "prove" that no, actually, it was Clinton's fault. Hopefully the rest of us will find better ways to deal with this.

Toward that end, Instapundit.com has TONS of blogger suggestions on charities to donate to. Salvation Army is a good one--I don't agree on all of their politics but they have a great setup for disasters and most of the money goes to where it belongs. The Red Cross is an obvious choice and given the large Catholic population, Catholic Charities is an obvious choice.

My wife and I had to cancel a vacation this weekend due to the uncertain gas situation. It means missing a visit to some dear friends I haven't seen in way too long but at least I can donate some of the money we would have used for a hotel to the rescue effort. Peter's donation is above and beyond the call of decency. Not everyone is in a position to do that sort of thing but I wonder if anyone knows of any corporate deals that might be useful--you know, like if you buy something a portion goes to relief efforts. I know if something like that existed I might be doing my chistmas shopping early.

"There's also the Chicago Tribune:
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday that a lack of funding for hurricane-protection projects around New Orleans did not contribute to the disastrous flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina.

In a telephone interview with reporters, corps officials said that although portions of the flood-protection levees remain incomplete, the levees near Lake Pontchartrain that gave way--inundating much of the city--were completed and in good condition before the hurricane.

However, they noted that the levees were designed for a Category 3 hurricane and couldn't handle the ferocious winds and raging waters from Hurricane Katrina, which was a Category 4 storm when it hit the coastline. The decision to build levees for a Category 3 hurricane was made decades ago based on a cost-benefit analysis.

Obviously the anti-Bush nuts will keep on claiming that anything bad that happens is Bush's fault and I expectthe anti-Clinton nuts to dig up all sorts of stuff that will "prove" that no, actually, it was Clinton's fault. Hopefully the rest of us will find better ways to deal with this."

Well, the last news report I saw on it said that both the spots that gave way were at incompleted upgrades areas on the levee work and focused on the funding issue. If I'm wrong I'm wrong and so was the reporter. Not the first time for either.

"Now, and I'm just checking, everyone else but this guy did get that my post was scarcasm right? Cause I tend to think the poeple who post here are quite intellegent normally and am rather shocked when proven wrong."

Jeff, I got that it was sarcasm. Either that, or you're a total nutjob. =) My attempt to convey my own sarcasm through a "heh" clearly failed.

From the AP:

NO could be facing a month or more before all the flood waters from Hurricane Katrina and ruptured levees can be pumped out.

Lowering the water level a foot per day was called an optimistic estimate depending on how much of the pumping capacity can be restored and whether any more storms complicate the work.

pumps could lower the water as much as a foot a day, but it is likely to start more slowly.

There are six pumping stations in the city and the corps could bring in auxiliary pumps, Flowers said.

Draining New Orleans is not like pulling the plug on a bathtub drain; much of the city is below sea level so the water will have to be pumped up and out.

Contamination by oil, chemicals and sewage also complicates the effort.

Removing the water would be slowed if it has to be treated before it can be discharged, though it might be possible to get some type of dispensation so it can be pumped quickly into the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain.

The corps is working on plans to create a city somewhere in the area to accommodate about 50,000 people — similar to what was done in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in Florida.

Joe V.

One of the first spinless write ups on the subject of the funding issues that I've seen hit my email a few minutes ago.

http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=344

Also from the AP
Crude oil prices fell by $2 a barrel on Friday as Europe prepared to tap up to two million barrels a day of emergency reserves to help ease a fuel crisis threatening the United States.

Twenty-six countries in an international energy consortium will release more than 60 million barrels of crude oil and gasoline to relieve the energy crunch caused by Hurricane Katrina in the United States.

As part of that effort, the Bush administration will release 30 million barrels of crude oil from U.S. reserves.

Already there are 20 ships carrying gasoline from commercial foreign stocks to the United States, he said. The supplies from government stocks would be in addition.

Joe V.

Here's a WTF for you.

Now, Fox News ain't gonna paint this to make it look bad. Some of the in studio people have bent over to make strange sounding claims as to how great it's all going today. But a few minutes ago, Shep Smith went on a rant and stated that the people in the dome aren't being given food, water, etc in anything near what's needed or what's been reported today. Then he pointed out that the people could walk across a bridge and be on their way to a cleaner environment where they could also be treated and cared for with greater ease but the military has set up check points and is ordering people who are attempting to get out of the damaged areas to turn around and return to where they came from. And this has been going on for two days.

Now, I get the idea of containing some people for the fear of what they may have picked up or caught in the waters now that they're toxic soups. I get the idea of controling the flow of a mass of people into another area and the worry of looting at a new location. But WTF can't they let the people be moved to a location where they will be cleaner and safer and the rescue workers will be able to tend to them with greater ease if they can do it on foot by themselves? How can they keep saying that the greatest problem to helping these people is getting to them if it really is that easy for them to get out and find a better area to gather? Guide them and get them out of there.

Does anybody know enough about the area to know if they're right or have Shep and Geraldo just gone and lost it?

WTF!?!

Sorry. Forgot to type that Geraldo is in the Dome and said mostly the same. Kinda made the end bit a "huh" kinda line.

"Jeff, I got that it was sarcasm. Either that, or you're a total nutjob. =) My attempt to convey my own sarcasm through a "heh" clearly failed."

oh good, all is forgiven then. I do have one question concerning the above post. Why can't I be both?

JAC

CNN has the before and after satellite shots up, and I'm guessing that even if the levees have been strengthened, they still would have broken.

And yet, according to reports, the one leveee that was "strengthened" was still designed for only a Cat3.

So, since our government was so inept and unwilling to fix and expand the levees, we'll never truly know whether an improved levee would have held up.

But, I'd give an improved levee, one designed for a Cat4 or Cat5 storm, better odds than those Cat3's that gave way.

I'm sorry Craig, and I truly ask this with curiosity and not snarkiness, but why did you put quotation marks around the word strengthened there? It's fact...though granted, you're right, the bean-counters of the past forty years all contributed to that decision

For that matter, I don't dispute what was in the factcheck.org report, because even though I believe people have been warning about it for years, I'm sure that every single project that requested funding has made similar claims, and you have to make decisions. Unfortunately, this is the one that came true. What I would like to know is why Congress felt the need to pour all the ACE money into New York and New Jersey.

I'm sorry Craig, and I truly ask this with curiosity and not snarkiness, but why did you put quotation marks around the word strengthened there?

I put the question marks around the word because, from what I've read, while improvements were made to that particular levee, it was not improved to actually deal with a bigger storm than it was originally designed for.

So, while they improved the levee designed for a Cat3 storm, when they were done, it was still only designed for a Cat3 storm.

I lived in the Quad Cities during the Flood of '93, so I've seen what levees can do. Rock Island, IL, where I lived, had one. Davenport, across the Mississippi River, did not. Guess which city wasn't flooded?

St. Louis's levee system held up, and iirc, they had some of the highest flood stages in the entire Midwest.

They can work... if you build them to deal with a worst case scenario.

ArizonaTeach wrote:

OK, I'm not so far right as to say that there isn't something called Global Warming, and in the long run it's going to be a problem. (Of course, I was told in the 70s by scientists that Global Cooling was going to be a monstrous disaster and that anyone who didn't believe another Ice Age was approaching was insane

This reminds me of the remarks I happened across George Will making on "This Week with George Stephanopolis" several weeks ago. Will was far more close-minded than ArizonaTeach, and openly scoffed at the idea of global warming (I guess he is "that" far right), citing the '70's global cooling warnings as proof that scientists are just alarmists who shouldn't be believed. By the time he finished his tirade, though, it occurred to me: might the fact that scientists have gone from fearing a global cooling to declaring global WARMING in the span of thirty years - such a copmplete reversal in what the data is telling them over such a short period of time - not actually be a stong indicator that there IS global warming?

might the fact that scientists have gone from fearing a global cooling to declaring global WARMING in the span of thirty years - such a copmplete reversal in what the data is telling them over such a short period of time - not actually be a stong indicator that there IS global warming?

And let's keep in mind that the two are not exactly mutually exclusive--that is, global warming could possibly lead to an ice age.

The problem is that we are woefully ignorant of all the factors that make up the global weather patterns. Some have eevn suggested that the last few decades of clean air standards have contributed to the overall problem--clean air lets in more sunlight. It would be idiotic though to therefore say that we could improve the situation by allowing more smoke into the atmosphere.

Agreed that that would be idiotic -- but of course, when Reagan justified clear-cutting forests on the grounds that trees cause pollution, idiocy became ensconced as official policy.

TWL

Hmm...I don't know exactly to which you're refering, Tim (although one needs not say much more than "ketchup = vegetable" to remind me how ridiculous a number of Reagan-era initiatives were), but if you're refering to an earlier version of the Healthy Forest Initiatives, there's truth to that...and that's coming from someone who was affected directly by the Arizona wildfires that have grown out of control these last few years in part because foresters were prevented from doing clear-cutting. It's a policy endorsed by the Society of American Foresters (http://www.safnet.org/policyandpress/hfiupdate.cfm) but opposed by the Sierra Club (http://www.sierraclub.org/forests/fires/healthyforests_initiative.asp), so YMMV.

Luke, you make an excellent point. My only response (and not, mind you, that I disagree with you, necessarily; just I feel this point needs to be made), is that scientists didn't exactly change their minds from cooling to warming...both theories were prominent in the '70s; it's just that the cooling faction was louder. All that's happened is that it's reversed, not altered, really. As an interesting point of reference, I would refer you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

In the news coverage the past week, there was a person in New Orleans who was able to get into his car after the hurricane had passed and drive himself to Baton Rouge. Granted, I don't know the area he was in or how feasible it would have been for the military to follow his path back to the city.

But why, why, why couldn't they have helicopters drop in food and water? I can understand how roads would be impassible and difficult. But the airport seems to be in working order. If they were worried about the supply drops being mobbed by people, why not drop some troops first? And then just keep dropping supplies until at least everyone has had food and water?

"Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do." -- Ronald Reagan, 1981

Later in his first term, Anne Gorsuch attempted to gut the Clean Air Act on various grounds, Reagan's quote above among them. It wasn't about clear-cutting, but it was an attempt to justify removing any sort of regulations about auto emissions -- since, after all, trees were much worse offenders.

Sigh. On the other hand, at least his administration admitted up front when it was trying to rape the country...

TWL

The biggest problem with the global warming debate is that the press (either side) never checks the quality of its source materials. The only data that I will go by in the debate is something that came out of the highly reputable National Academy of Sciences. They don't go out to prove or disprove scientific theories as much as they set about validating the facts that they have to work with. Their data shows that global warming is happening, that it is a natural cycle and that we may be increasing the speed of this cycle and the strength with which it will hit us. But the data as they lay it out isn't really sexy enough for most news organizations.

We keep ending up with people picking up on some theory that isn't that solid and running it as a headline because it has the type of data that makes a shocking front page or will spark huge debates. Problem is that it can be shot down easily and makes the real data/argument look bad.

And it's not just with that topic. Bill posted two sources to dispute the levee case. I took it as solid as the only thing I had seen was a TV news bit that sited the stuff about the levee projects and the funding shortfalls. Since then I have seen news reports (not editorials or talking heads) that make the case both ways. I liked that factcheck.org did a piece on it so quickly. At least it clears it up a bit. Then there was the Fox News bit I posted about earlier that didn't make any sense. I've been seeing stuff that backs that and stuff that would refute that. Hell, there was still a news blip going a bit ago about Able Danger and what files Sandy Berger stole. Thing is with that one is that the agency that kept the records has said several times that no documents were removed. But we keep getting news stories reporting both versions of events.

That's the thing that sucks the most about the "new" media. Once somebody gets a story out there it seems like it just gets grabbed and run with and spread throughout the echo chamber. It especially sucks when you have a major event and everybody is in competition to get that huge/shocker/major career making story out first. God knows we get some winning garbage outta those situations. Maybe history sets it straight and maybe it doesn't but it sucks to have to sift through "news" with a fine comb just to figure out if it's factual or not.

What you say is true, Jerry, but you know, when I remember how long it took the Watergate story to get told, it seems like things work a whole lot faster now.

The AA=ble Danger story has gone from Big Splash, to Debunked, to Suddenly Alive Again in about 2 weeks. I thought the whole thing was pretty unlikely but I guess we'll see.

The drawback to all this is that stories don't seem to have the same longevity they used to. The Tsunami seems like ancient news--will New Oleans be a subject people are tired of hearing about in just a month or two?

I'll agree with that -- stories break faster and die faster. Just as TV shows now have about twelve minutes to build a huge audience or be cancelled (as opposed to, say, NBC holding onto "Cheers" despite it being one of their worst-rated shows its first season), news stories have to reach an earth-shattering crescendo within about a week of hitting the mainstream media, or they're forgotten.

I suspect that will in general serve to benefit whichever party is in power at the time. I sure as hell think it's benefitting the GOP now, but I think it's more the nature of the beast as it currently exists than anything conspiratorial.

TWL

Thank you for the compliment, ArizonaTeach. Your reply raises an interesting point (and so does yours, Bill, about our lack of knowledge of long-term weather cycles). I haven't found info on the 70's opinions in that link yet, but I take your word for it. I will keep an open mind on the "certainty" and extent of global warming ... but I'll remain a little irked at those (obviously not you guys) who've taken the "ignore it, and it won't exist" approach to the issue.

Hrm. Depending on the mass media for deep analysis is a lost cause by now. Their coverage of global warming is parallel to their coverage of intelligent design...they don't know enough about the subject to know how empty headed it really is, so they take intelligent design proponents seriously and treat it like there is a scientific controversy (instead of the reality that damn near all biologists think it's a pile of crap).

And if you consider that this is an area where things can be determined in a relatively objective matter, think of areas where things can be more subjective....

Anyway, far as I'm concerned, nothing I've seen has changed my desires for a collection of heads to be mounted on my pike (starting from the mayor of New Orleans, up to the governor of Louisiana and through the head of FEMA....)

Their coverage of global warming is parallel to their coverage of intelligent design...they don't know enough about the subject to know how empty headed it really is, so they take intelligent design proponents seriously and treat it like there is a scientific controversy (instead of the reality that damn near all biologists think it's a pile of crap).

That's one of the best summations (and damnations) of the media's treatment of both topics that I've read lately. Very nice.

TWL

Re Reagan: "Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do." Believe it or not, he was partially right. In hot weather, trees release volatile organic hydrocarbons including terpenes and isoprenes - two molecules linked to photochemical smog. In very hot weather, the production of these begins to accelerate.
America's Great Smoky Mountains are supposed to take their name from the photochemical smog released by millions of hectares of hardwoods.

"Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do."

This inspired one of my all time favorites protest posters: a guy showed up at the next Reagan rally with a large cardboard tree that had a word baloon coming out saying "Chop me before I kill again!"

"Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do."

While technically true, the statement is misleading. The statistic, I think, is that plants/trees worldwide produce more global warming associated pulltants that all the automobiles in the US do. Which is to take a larger pollutant source and spread it out over a much larger area, and then compare it to a very concentrated few sources (cities) in just one country. And it's also a very simplistic statement, since it ignores that the ecosystem is a SYSTEM, and as such it's designed to accomodate certain rates and concentrations of pollutants. Add in human-made pollution, and that's going to have an impact.

"oh good, all is forgiven then. I do have one question concerning the above post. Why can't I be both?

JAC"

Won't argue with the sarcastic, but I think you've got some serious work to do before we get to labelling you a total nutjob. So chop chop! =)

Hey, I know this is the sort of stupid question that an Earth Science teacher should already know but since A- the lake is one of the things that is always threatening to flood the city and B-they need someplace to put all of the toxic sludge currently in the city, why don't they drain the lake, thus eliminating A and fill it back up when they pump out New Orleans, thereby taking care of B.

This would leave them with a partially filled lake of poison which they could then start cleaning up. The lake should remain half field to prepare for the next big rainfall.

Ok, I know this would not work or it would have been done but why? New Orleans has the ocean, the river and the lake, all threatening to destroy it. Not much you can or should do about the first two but lakes can and have been eliminated.

Of course, this would be bad for the environment but so are levees and cities in general.

"why don't they drain the lake"

Reasonable question. But Lake Pontchartrain is connected to the Gulf by a channel (several? can't remember anymore). It's also much larger than New Orleans, so draining it would require far more work/time than fixing the levees and pumping out the city.

Once things settle down I hope that people will learn from this for the next one.

For me, one thing that keeps coming around is how poorly we use the people around us who can help many others. The buses that sat unused--if the mayor of Sanford called and said "Bill, if there were ever an evacuation of Sanford, could your family leave without you and you drive one of the school buses full of evacuees to ***** (someplace presumably far the hell away from Sanford)?" I'd be flattered and honored to say yes.

There are plenty of people here better than me, so I don't think those buses would go driverless.

I also hope that someone comes up with a plan for people to drop their animals off at some place before a natural disaster hits, because I'll bet a lot of the folks who stayed behind were people who refused to part with an animal that is a part of the family. Again, there would be as many, if not more, volunteers for this duty.

As an added incentive, these folks should be named ahead of time, given a dinner and award by the mayor and featured in a front page photo spread. Just in case any of the bastards think about skipping town when the poop actually hits the fan.

Anyway, that's what I'D do if I were mayor.

"Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do."

I love this one. It ranks right up there with the other great Republican quote against environmental policies or arguments.

"One volcano puts more pollutants into the atmosphere then an entire year of U.S. industry does." Although, depending on who is saying this one, it can vary from being one year to the entire history of U.S. industry. I picked one year for a reason though. Closer to the truth with that one.

See, and this is a fun statement to make when you want to start out the debate by screwing with the heads of both sides, both statements are 100% true.

But this is the fun thing about the truth. Half of the truth can end up going 180 degrees in the wrong direction then the complete truth. And both of those statements, while 100% true, are only 50% of a 100% truth.

The National Academy of Sciences has released several studies on the subjects. In each of these they explain that (in the shortened version) that the pollutants released by trees, volcanoes, undersea fissures and other such natural sources are "soft" pollutants (i.e. organic in composition.) When these pollutants encounter moisture in the atmosphere, they get weighted down and rarely reach the highest levels of the atmosphere. One good tropical storm will remove almost the entire discharge of a volcano overnight and the normal storm cycle of the U.S. handles the pollutants created by trees.

Industry creates what is referred to as hard pollutants (i.e. inorganic in composition.) These do not get either weighted down or broken down by atmospheric moisture and are rarely completely rained out of the atmosphere. The CFC's found in the areas of the greatest ozone layer damage have all been hard CFC's and the tests down on the areas where the air pollution is at its worse (outside of right after things like major fires or eruptions) show that the largest amount of pollutants causing problems for people/the environment in the air are hard pollutants.

The shorter version of all that? Natural sources do create more "pollution" then many man made sources but the man made sources do the greatest damage and cause the most harm. It's a perverted twist on the concept of quality over quantity. Now take this bit of knowledge and go ye forth to piss off some conservatives in debates. ;)

The problem is, I haven't heard anyone say that since Reagan. Oh I'm sure people say it, but I don't think it's the main argument against, say, Kyoto.

That argument usually goes something more like this--to actually stop or reverse the global warming process we would have to reduce our emissions to a level that would require the elimination of our way of life. Nobody wants to give up their jobs or way of life. Any politician proposing that we do so will be bounced out in record time.

Now I've heard facts and figures and undoubtedly bogus claims by both sides but I wouldn't mind being shown any decent non-spin sources that just answer the questions--What would it take to actually improve the global warming problem? Would they prevent global warming or just slow it down? How much of a change in our technology and way of life would it entail? (if the answer to the last one is "A great deal." the next question should be "well, that isn't going to happen so why am I wasting time talking to you.").

Frankly, if the solutions aren't any good I'd just as soon let things go on as they are and hope and wait for new technology to arise that WILL solve the problem. But I'm certainly willing to hear any proposals.

"What would it take to actually improve the global warming problem?"

The Fox network ha already given us the solution. All the robots must point thier exaust pipes up and discharge, thus moving the earth farther away from the sun. Failing that there is the stop gap method of harvesting a giant ice cube from a comet and dropping it in the ocean.

Someone call Plane Express STAT!

JAC

"What would it take to actually improve the global warming problem?"

Well, if it were up to me, I'd try to kill a couple of birds with one stone by making it illegal to own a vehicle over a certain weight class unless it legitimately ties into your livelihood. (Hauling, construction, etc...) Esentially, tell all the yuppie fucks who wouldn't know a dirt road if it bit them in the ass that they don't need a Hummer. (Believe me, it's a lot nicer than what I'd LIKE to do to them)
We'd reduce emissions, road wear, and gas comsumption.

Personally, I have ZERO sympathy for anybody who whines about "losing their way of life" when what they really mean is that they just don't want to give up their huge-ass status symbol SUV.

Also, we need to see more of a push for development of hydrogen powered vehicles. It's cleaner, infinitely renewable, and (despite what opponents try to say) no more dangerous- probably even safer- than gasoline.

Personally, I have ZERO sympathy for anybody who whines about "losing their way of life" when what they really mean is that they just don't want to give up their huge-ass status symbol SUV.

yeah but see, this is what I mean. Eleiminate every SUV on the planet and we have really not changed global warming more than an iota. There are a lot of iota sized ideas we could do and they all add up to a large iota. But still an iota.

Also, we need to see more of a push for development of hydrogen powered vehicles. It's cleaner, infinitely renewable, and (despite what opponents try to say) no more dangerous- probably even safer- than gasoline.

That'd be cool by me--I'm sorry people let that little accident with the Hindenberg put the kibosh on balloons ("It's an airship!").

But doesn't hydrogen require that energy be used to generate the hydrogen? (I think we would get the hydrogen by breaking bonds between the Hydrogen and oxygen in water). If we all switched from oil to hydrogen, would the reduction in emmisions be enough? (keeping in mind that most of the world probably still uses wood as the main source of energy and won't be switching to anything high tech any time soon).

Well, here's one link I pulled off of Google...

http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/proj_production_delivery.html

Granted, I'm far from an expert, but it seems that many of the lines of inquiry being followed currently involve use of "clean" energy sources in the harvesting of hydrogen. Of course, it will take time and further research for these methods, or others, to achieve viable consumption vs output ratios, but the same can be said of any new technology. People just need to support it now, because the potential long-term benefits are great.

The potential benefits even go beyond the environmental, considering how much socio-political crap in this country is either directly caused by or at least related to oil procurement, production, and consumption.

-Rex Hondo-

Interesting link, Rex. Thanks.

Obviously the technology has a long way to go and some seem more promising than others--hard to imagine many of them producing the mass quantities we need. But as you say, supporting it now may yield big results.

One good bit of news--while everyone hates the oil companies it is from them that I expect the real advances to come. They have no intention of going under just because their product (oil) is going to run out. Already the technology for extracting oil from shale has made tremendous strides and it will not take much more of a price increase in oil to make it economically feasible. We have something like 300 years worth of oil shale so anyone who thought they would see the energy depleted Road Warrior scenario in their lifetime will be sadly disappointed.

Ultimately I'd like to see us get off of oil entirely but it's good to know that it's there.

http://www.climateark.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=44994

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts -- A U.S. chemist is trying to determine how the world will produce enough energy to supply 9 billion people by mid-century -- and whether that can be done without pumping off-the-charts amounts of carbon dioxide into the air.

Daniel Nocera, 48, is working to achieve an old, elusive dream: using the bountiful energy in sunlight to split water into its basic components, hydrogen and oxygen. The elements could then be used to supply clean-running fuel cells or new kinds of machinery. Or the energy created from the reaction itself, as atomic bonds are severed and re-formed, might be harnessed and stored.

There is a beautiful model for this: photosynthesis. Sunlight kickstarts a reaction in which leaves break down water and carbon dioxide and turn them into oxygen and sugar, which plants use for fuel.

But plants developed this process over billions of years, and even so, it's technically not that efficient. Nocera and other scientists are trying to replicate that -- and perhaps improve on it -- in decades.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, but it's generally locked up in compounds with other elements. Currently, it is chiefly harvested from fossil fuels, whose use is the main cause of carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming.

Frankly, if the solutions aren't any good I'd just as soon let things go on as they are and hope and wait for new technology to arise that WILL solve the problem. But I'm certainly willing to hear any proposals.

I'm glad you're willing to hear proposals, but I feel like this mindset is ultimately going to be self-defeating.

I don't know at what point a solution reaches the "not any good" stage, but from the rest of your post it sounds like any solution that (a) doesn't solve the problem or (b) causes significant disruption to people's lives is likely to fit the bill. (In other words, I'm hoping this isn't taken as a straw man argument, since I think it's your actual position. Corrections welcome.)

If I'm right in those assumptions, then you've essentially set yourself up to say that NO solution is any good, and that we should keep waiting until technology lets us come up with a perfect one. The problem with that is twofold: first, there's never going to be a perfect one; and second, the less we do now the worse the problem gets, meaning that a later solution has to be even better.

I'm not that much of an idealist, particularly when it comes to the assumption that technology will eventually fix everything. I think we're honor-bound to our kids to do as much as is feasible now, just in case the tech doesn't come through -- and so that if it does, they don't have to pull off one of those James-Bond-defuses-the-bomb-with-007-seconds-left-on-the-clock deals.

At a friggin' minimum, MPG standards for cars and trucks should be set far, far, far higher than they currently are. That's something we've got the technology to achieve now without a whole lot of effort, and it's borderline criminal how much the lower standards are costing us environmentally, economically, and from a foreign-policy standpoint.

TWL

And on a different note, anyone who isn't reading Bryan Lambert's "You Are Dumb" column should be. A sample is at the below link: yes, it's political at times, but it's also uproariously funny, IMO.

http://www.youaredumb.net/archive/2005/9/2

TWL

Tim,

We are in absolute agreement on MPG standards. At the very least, any car not meeting reasonable standards should have a special tax plunked on it, the proceeds going to research in alternative energy.

I don't know at what point a solution reaches the "not any good" stage, but from the rest of your post it sounds like any solution that (a) doesn't solve the problem or (b) causes significant disruption to people's lives is likely to fit the bill. (In other words, I'm hoping this isn't taken as a straw man argument, since I think it's your actual position. Corrections welcome.)

Well, here's the thing--any solution that causes major disruption AND doesn't even solve the problem is a waste of time talking about because--and I use capital letters here to emphasize how much I know this is true--THERE IS NO WAY IT WILL EVER BE IMPLEMENTED. Imagine a congressman pr senator trying to sell some Kyoto style law that essentially says "Ok folks, we have to close down this factory and ration gasoline and we're switching to 4 day work weeks (with a 20% drop in salaries, natch) and really, it isn't going to make any likely change in the result but at least we are doing something to---" (at this point, Senator Pete Tagliani was cut off as an angry mob burned him in Effigy. The mayor of Effigy was said to be upset.)

The point is, unless people are sure that their sacrifice will make a difference, they will not stand for it. period. So I don't see the point of wishing it were different. If we all lived like Hobbits life would be grand but it would take a plague with about 95% fatality to get us down to a population level that would allow that to happen.

And just to tie it in to today's news--if people were willing to do what is REALLY needed to put a dent in the global warming problem would we be seriously even THINKING about rebuilding a city? We would be thinking about dismantling the ones that nature has not already destroyed for us.

One other thing--since USA citizens produce far more greenhouse gases than most people it would be a valuable thing environmentally to reduce or at least freeze the population. Since our birthrate is actually low the only option is to eliminate immigration. In fact, according to some graphs I have seen our population may have actually dropped at some point in this century were it not for immigrants.

Now from my own point of view, this is ok--it's a bad thing economically to have a shrinking population (Europe and Japan are demographic time bombs). But from an environmental aspect, eliminating illegal immigration would be potentially more valuable than any MPG standard we could achieve. Are environmentalists prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Pat Buchanans of the world?

One last point (and Tim, please believe that I'm writing this not to score points or beat you in a game of wits--I make it a point never to do that with people who can teach Physics. :) I've got kids who will long outlive me, God willing, and I'd like them to have a life as good or better than mine, so it behooves me to try to keep things from going downhill). I know that trusting in future technology can be an easy way to hide your head in the sand and go on blithely crapping on the planet, secure in the notion that some future scientist will clean up the mess. At the same time--let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. A significant reduction in industrial technology might not register more than a blip on the total environment but it could significantly delay some of the future technologies and inventions that will really solve the problem.

As much as we all like to hate Big Business, I expect that if anyone invents a car that runs on hydrogen (or stupidity) it will probably be as a result of research going on at Ford or Chrysler.

"We have something like 300 years worth of oil shale so anyone who thought they would see the energy depleted Road Warrior scenario in their lifetime will be sadly disappointed."

WELL CRAP! All that money on the black market, wasted! Now what will I do with these anti personnel vehicle mounted rockets? sigh, Oh well, I guess I can only hope Skynet becomes operational soon.

JAC

"We have something like 300 years worth of oil shale so anyone who thought they would see the energy depleted Road Warrior scenario in their lifetime will be sadly disappointed."

WELL CRAP! All that money on the black market, wasted! Now what will I do with these anti personnel vehicle mounted rockets? sigh, Oh well, I guess I can only hope Skynet becomes operational soon.

JAC

oops double clicked.... sorry
JAC

"If we all lived like Hobbits life would be grand but it would take a plague with about 95% fatality to get us down to a population level that would allow that to happen."

Shut up! Bush might think thats a great idea, and put someone on that! Don't let him hear!

JAC

Now what will I do with these anti personnel vehicle mounted rockets?

Jeff, if you have to have me tell you how you can have fun with an anti personnel vehicle mounted rocket you really need to get out more. Hell, just point it in any random direction and pull the trigger.

Actually, maybe you should just send it to me. I promise I'll put it to good use. Kenny G is gonna have a concert in Raleigh...

Jeff, if you have to have me tell you how you can have fun with an anti personnel vehicle mounted rocket you really need to get out more. Hell, just point it in any random direction and pull the trigger.

Actually, maybe you should just send it to me. I promise I'll put it to good use. Kenny G is gonna have a concert in Raleigh...

Hey! Wait until we squeeze some money from him! (He's a UW alum who hasn't given anything to the alma mater yet....)

You know, while everyone's favorite sport the past few days - from politicians to the media - seems to be "Who to blame?", I for one would rather give credit where it is due at this point and focus on the extraordinary efforts of those saving people from the roofs of their homes, the generousity of people who have not only donated money but opened up their homes to strangers in a time of need. I met a woman last night who is from Louisiana and says she despises Bush, but was tired of the focus being on blaming him. She says she knows people personally who simply refised to leave. She is also having 13 evacuees stay at her house. That is the type of memory I will make sure to remember when I think of this. While I will never understand those that would fire upon those trying to fix the levee, what will dominate my thoughts is how New Orleans truly has become "America's City" this past week; how the people - even though the media and Al Sharptons insist on playing the race card - of this country viewed those evacuating and in need of help as Americans, how everyone from corporations to faith-based organiztions to the Average Joe have decided that they want to do whatever they can.
In so many ways, this disaster has brought out the best in us. It would do well for us to realize and remember that while we complete the task at hand and make damn sure it doesn't happen again.

Jerome, while I agree with you--the unrestrained glee with which some folks immediately began the blame game tells us a lot about them--there is no question that heads should role. Firing the head of FEMA during the crisis would be foolish but Mr Wolf should expect to be cleaning out his desk shortly. I'll wait and see before saying the same about Chertoff at Homeland Security. And it's up to the people of New Orleans to remember what the mayor and governor did come next election time. (Boy, does Guilliani look better and better. If there's one thing a mayor should know it's that you make damn sure that you are the LAST one out, not one of the first.)

Bush will have to take his lumps for appointing Brown to FEMA and just hope that his critics will overreach and try to pin too much blame on him, resulting in a backlash. Fortunately for him, they probably can't help themselves.

None of this has exactly filled me with confidence regarding our ability to respond to the next terrorist attack. Of course, I never had much confidence to start with--the last good idea I heard from those guys was to buy duct tape and they got reamed in the press for it.

(Safety Tip form Cap'n Bill: there are very very few situations that are not improved by your having duct tape. Bear attacks. Broken car windows. release of Anthrax spores. Falling posters. Even leaky ducts.)

Out of curiosity, I did the math. Let's say there were 100,000 people who had no means of transportation to get out of the city. And lets say, on average, a bus carries 50 people. That is 2,000 buses needed to evacuate the city. Hate to say it, but that is a logistical nightmare on a good day, much less when 300,000 people are in cars also trying to escape.

Let's say there are 10,000 people stuck at the Superdome. Even if you cram 100 per bus, that is still 100 buses you need, and the number would most likely be closer to 200 buses. Buses that have fuel, etc. Obviously that is a huge amount.

My point? The logisitics involved in this are quite overwhelming, to say the least. It will be interesting to see what we could have done better -- and clearly, there is a lot of room for improvement. But even on a good day this would be a nightmare to oversee. And that is just simply evacuating people.

I am glad to hear of the overwhelming support that is coming from the average person. I have a friend in Alabama who is using the trucks for his business transport supplies for free. The son of another friend has flown to Texas to help a church that is helping feed the 10,000 in the Astrodome. And the list goes on. As much as the government may have failed in some form or fashion, it is good to hear of those who are not waiting for the government to figure out what to do next. They are jumping in there and helping, doing what needs to be done. You may see hints of it in the news, but far more is going on than is being reported. Guess it is not as good of a story as someone bashing Bush or some other government official.

Iowa Jim

I'm on record for wanting heads from local to federal....and Chertoff is one of them. On MEET THE PRESS, he was continuing to insist that nobody expected the levees to breach after the storm (obviously thought he was off the clock after the storm passed) and that he and his subordinates gave the Superbowl a second thought even though they knew it was a last resort gathering spot for refugees [they had apparently prestaged a great deal of food and water but didn't think to send any there]. From what I can tell, their performance under the gun was on the same level as the local authorities.

Out of curiosity, I did the math. Let's say there were 100,000 people who had no means of transportation to get out of the city. And lets say, on average, a bus carries 50 people. That is 2,000 buses needed to evacuate the city. Hate to say it, but that is a logistical nightmare on a good day, much less when 300,000 people are in cars also trying to escape.

Let's say there are 10,000 people stuck at the Superdome. Even if you cram 100 per bus, that is still 100 buses you need, and the number would most likely be closer to 200 buses. Buses that have fuel, etc. Obviously that is a huge amount.

My point? The logisitics involved in this are quite overwhelming, to say the least. It will be interesting to see what we could have done better -- and clearly, there is a lot of room for improvement. But even on a good day this would be a nightmare to oversee. And that is just simply evacuating people.

I am glad to hear of the overwhelming support that is coming from the average person. I have a friend in Alabama who is using the trucks for his business transport supplies for free. The son of another friend has flown to Texas to help a church that is helping feed the 10,000 in the Astrodome. And the list goes on. As much as the government may have failed in some form or fashion, it is good to hear of those who are not waiting for the government to figure out what to do next. They are jumping in there and helping, doing what needs to be done. You may see hints of it in the news, but far more is going on than is being reported. Guess it is not as good of a story as someone bashing Bush or some other government official.

Iowa Jim

Out of curiosity, I did the math. Let's say there were 100,000 people who had no means of transportation to get out of the city. And lets say, on average, a bus carries 50 people. That is 2,000 buses needed to evacuate the city. Hate to say it, but that is a logistical nightmare on a good day, much less when 300,000 people are in cars also trying to escape.

Let's say there are 10,000 people stuck at the Superdome. Even if you cram 100 per bus, that is still 100 buses you need, and the number would most likely be closer to 200 buses. Buses that have fuel, etc. Obviously that is a huge amount.

My point? The logisitics involved in this are quite overwhelming, to say the least. It will be interesting to see what we could have done better -- and clearly, there is a lot of room for improvement. But even on a good day this would be a nightmare to oversee. And that is just simply evacuating people.

Yeah, a mess....but then again, that's why you make plans so you can solve these problems ahead of time.

[On the other hand, I've heard that there was no way to undertake a forced evacuation without the backup of lots of National Guard to enforce it, which has its own problems....]

I'd like to know who was behind the evacuation plan. It was apparently outsourced to a private company, but I don't know who's behind that company...

the last good idea I heard from those guys was to buy duct tape and they got reamed in the press for it.

In all fairness, I think the reason they got reamed was that this was their only piece of advance to the public.

Jim, your numbers are great back of the envelop calculations. Of course, you can cut the number in half if you assume that the buses can take two trips. More if the evacuation site is about 60 miles from downtown and you have enough advance warning to plan for multiple trips.

This is one of many things that people pay taxes for. The idea that a below sea level city on top of a swamp could experience a major is a known possible disaster, not (as Bush and Brownie seem to have thought), something no one could have conceived of.

Given the fact that a failure of the levees was talked about as far back as 1975, the fact that city and state officials did not have an evacuation contingency plan in place is inexcusable. I don't see any of this a placing blame, simply acknowledging that the people of New Orleans and then country in general need to learn from this lesson and demand better from our elected officials.

Somebody was tallying up the gaffes. I doubt that this is exhaustive...

http://www.theagitator.com/archives/025267.php#025267

Hi y'all,
For those who think hydrogen will get us out of global warming, go over to sci.energy.hydrogen for a rude awakening. Hydrogen cars are just a boondoggle for extracting grant and subsidy money from the guv'mint. Just call them a pollution multiplier, and you have the gist of it!

BTW, I have been in a disaster or two, Northridge and the Santa Barbara wildfires, and I think I know one of the reasons for the problems in NO. The folks that evacuated were the very ones that usually mobilize and help during an emergency!

The folks that were left were the ones that DON'T do things. Due to illness, disability, lack of resources or ambition, they remained behind while all the good and decent, capable folk followed recomendations and got out. The ones left behind often had a mindset of "Take care of me!" They followed instructions of "Go here for us to take care of you" and they did. Then, the problem was, there were no resources at those sites to handle the problem.

Well, Charlie, I tried several variations of the address or partial address that you posted and none of them worked.

The main problem with hydrogen is that it takes energy to produce it by separated it from oxygen in water. Some have proposed setting up solar plants in the deserts of California and Arizon where it's sunny all year round to generate the electricity. Water would be piped in from the coast for electrolysis. The problem is liquifying it under pressure requires even more energy.

It could be done, but it would require a massive investment in our infrastructure to convert all of our gas stations to hydrogen stations. So we'll just have to see if the engineering problems can be overcome to make it economically feasible.

I got to something that seemed to be talking about some of the perils associated with hydrogen fuel cells, among them that the conversion to energy ends up removing oxygen from the air, and locking it in water. I'm way too far removed from my chemistry lessons, but there was some chat on CharlieE's site about how oxygen in water doesn't get back into the air for us to breathe.

I don't really see how that's an issue. When you use electrolysis to separate hydrogen and oxygen in water, the oxygen is released to the air. When hyrdorgen reacts with oxygen by combustion or in a fuel cell, the same amoung of oxygen is consumed, recreating the water, so the net balance of oxygen in the air would remain unchanged.

BTW, what URL did you use to visit Charlie's site? I got tired of guessing what the complete address was after .com, .net, and .org all failed.

I just cut and paste what he posted into the yahoo search, and then jumped to the first or second hit that came up on the search. It was clunky, but I wanted to see what the negatives were about it. I found it hard to believe that such a huge negative could have been hidden from the public, or that scientists would avdocate fuel cells as an alternative energy source if it posed a threat to all life on earth.

I also didn't exactly buy the "eliminate oxygen from the air FOREVER!" claims, since, well, if it really were a closed/one-way system, we'd all be gasping for air sooner or later.

I had the great pleasure of meeting the David Family at CCC this year and I live in the Lake view area of New Orleans...Right no a literal lake thanks to the levee Break. I think, from the photos that I have seen, that we lost everything. Over thirty years of collections and the memories that go with them. It breaks my heart. We are luckier than a lot of people. My wife and I are okay and as long as we have life, we have hope.

Blame makes for great rattings for the news nets and I think there is enough to go around. Right now, what I would like to do most is go home, and start to rebuild. I want to thank everyone who has been kind and thoughtful during this time. I hope people save their angier to a time when they can make sure that our goverment is orginized enough to make the aftermath less tradgic for those people who have the misfortune to not have the resources to flee a storm like this one.

Frank Schiavo

Den, I assume Charlie's referring to a Usenet group. Go over to groups.google.com and put in the group name -- that should work. I haven't tested it myself and don't have time to at the moment, but that's my best guess.

(And Bill, I do plan to respond to your post upthread, tonight if possible.)

TWL

Well, the good news today is that we learned where ol' George gets it from:

"Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them," (Barbara) Bush told American Public Media's "Marketplace" program.

Man, I wish I could be such a heartless bitch after such a tragedy. It might just get me elected to public office.

Ugh. Now I remember why I stopped going to Usenet groups back in college, and that was the darks when Usenet was the be all and end all of internet discussion.

As far as "rude awakenings" go, there seemed to be more flaming at the groups I skimmed through rather than intelligent discussions.

The "eliminate all oxygen from the earth forever" argument sounds like a paranoid lunatic fantasy. After all, we've burn thousands tons of oil, coal, and natural gas every year, all of which remove oxygen from the atmosphere - faster in fact than the plants can convert the CO2 released back into O2, as evidenced by the increase in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere measured over the last 50+ years.

I guess living on cots in a crowded arena with no water, no food and no sewage or trash removal is okay if you're poor and therefore used to it.

At least Bar didn't say, "let them eat cake."

Frank, I'm very sorry to hear of your losses and glad to hear that you and your wife are physically ok.

Fred

I'll second that, Fred. I can't imagine what your situation feels like, Frank, but I wish you and your wife all possible good luck.

Given the fact that a failure of the levees was talked about as far back as 1975, the fact that city and state officials did not have an evacuation contingency plan in place is inexcusable. I don't see any of this a placing blame, simply acknowledging that the people of New Orleans and then country in general need to learn from this lesson and demand better from our elected officials.

Valid point that busses could have taken multiple trips, but that does not negate how many trips it would have taken.

There are published reports that there WAS a plan and it was not followed. It is documented that it took the governor until Thursday to sign an order to allow school buses to be used.

I do think it is way too early to point fingers. But if you want a somewhat unbiased view of what happened, the BBC website has some interesting facts:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4216508.stm

Iowa Jim

Nah, it's not too early to point fingers...cause they're gonna be pointing at EVERYONE.

And I think one BIG thing to point at is the insistence on following bureacratic forms and protocol in the face of an emergency on the part of lower and middle management. Not a lot of common sense here; I think it took so long for the governor to sign the order because she probably thought it didn't NEED an order--just the common sense God gave a turnip to go out there and get the buses. Similiarly, a lot of the delay in getting some National Guard and equipment there was that they were waiting on paperwork to be signed and they were following post 9/11 security screening measures [until someone had the bright idea of issuing an order to allow visual and manual searches].

And let's not get into the turf wars....

I think it took so long for the governor to sign the order because she probably thought it didn't NEED an order

I doubt it. Politicians tend to know EXACTLY what they're powers are and are loath to give it up. Interestingly, even the mayor is now turning on the Governor (although I think that the mayor should probably shut up--he's the one who best knows his city and should have had the people in place to get the buses to higher ground, not to mention better stuff at the Dome. Telling people that they had to expect to be "on their own" for 3 or 4 days is ridiculous, at least when the alternative would not be that hard to do.

Frank Schiavo-- my condolences on your losses. Look, I know this is probably way way down on the list of things to worry about but when you get resettled and want to start rebuilding that lost collection, send me an e-mail. (along these lines, wouldn't it be cool if there was a place we could send comics to all those kids hanging out in refugee centers. Yes, yes, I KNOW they really need food water and clothes and I'm not saying don't send those as well but wouldn't it be smart of Marvel or DC to send some stuff to keep the kids occupied?

Bill:

>Frank Schiavo-- my condolences on your losses. Look, I know this is probably way way down on the list of things to worry about but when you get resettled and want to start rebuilding that lost collection, send me an e-mail. (along these lines, wouldn't it be cool if there was a place we could send comics to all those kids hanging out in refugee centers. Yes, yes, I KNOW they really need food water and clothes and I'm not saying don't send those as well but wouldn't it be smart of Marvel or DC to send some stuff to keep the kids occupied?

Agreed. Bill, if you have any interest in pursuing this, I have a huge number of comics that I'd send to wherever.

Fred

Bill,

A response, as promised -- whew!

We are in absolute agreement on MPG standards. At the very least, any car not meeting reasonable standards should have a special tax plunked on it, the proceeds going to research in alternative energy.

Careful -- isn't that big bad social engineering? :-)

More seriously, that sounds like a reasonable plan to me.

I don't know at what point a solution reaches the "not any good" stage, but from the rest of your post it sounds like any solution that (a) doesn't solve the problem or (b) causes significant disruption to people's lives is likely to fit the bill. (In other words, I'm hoping this isn't taken as a straw man argument, since I think it's your actual position. Corrections welcome.)

Well, here's the thing--any solution that causes major disruption AND doesn't even solve the problem is a waste of time talking about because--and I use capital letters here to emphasize how much I know this is true--THERE IS NO WAY IT WILL EVER BE IMPLEMENTED.

I agree with that, but you're not quite answering the situation I addressed. You're discussing a proposal that causes disruption AND doesn't solve the problem, whereas I was discussing the OR option. Significant different, in my opinion.

You're right, of course, in that a draconian proposal which can't promise definite results is a dead bill -- but I think there are certainly middle-ground areas between your scenario and a bill that does nothing but nibble 'round the edges. Our agreement on MPG standards is proof enough of that.

One other thing--since USA citizens produce far more greenhouse gases than most people it would be a valuable thing environmentally to reduce or at least freeze the population.

Perhaps, but that argument can be turned around as well. Given that Americans are one of the biggest per-capita producers of greenhouse gases AND that there are so many of us, even incremental changes in our behavior to reduce production could have a significant effect. Having each person do X could have a lot more global impact if "each person" refers to every American as opposed to, say, every native of Luxembourg.

I know that trusting in future technology can be an easy way to hide your head in the sand and go on blithely crapping on the planet, secure in the notion that some future scientist will clean up the mess. At the same time--let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. A significant reduction in industrial technology might not register more than a blip on the total environment but it could significantly delay some of the future technologies and inventions that will really solve the problem.

Stated that way, your point is certainly valid -- but the worry is how easily that can be used as an excuse. If *any* act putting the brakes on industry or technology can be shot down with "how do you know this isn't the path to a future tech that will solve the problem?", then the overall effect is likely going to make things worse in the short term and dicey in the long.

I think it's an issue of coming up with sensible regulations. By "sensible" I think I mean "utterly out of the hands of politicians who know nothing about science, which is to say most of them."

Side note, but one related to the core thread here: the president of the university where Lisa's working just gave her start-of-the-year talk yesterday, and talked a fair bit about the Gulf Coast. She said a number of things, some of which showed her to be very human and not just someone mouthing platitudes ... but the big thing that got Lisa's attention was something like this:

"People ask how we can go about our daily business in light of all this. Our business is education, which means we are the long-term solution. We're the ones training the scientists who can help create better forecasts, engineers who can predict and solve problems further in advance, and politicians who can learn enough science to stop being stupid and learn from these mistakes."

I was impressed, even second-hand.

As much as we all like to hate Big Business, I expect that if anyone invents a car that runs on hydrogen (or stupidity) it will probably be as a result of research going on at Ford or Chrysler.

I've got my doubts about Ford, since if memory serves one of their execs is the one who said in an interview that he didn't believe fossil fuels were millions of years old in the first place -- but Chrysler maybe. I'd be more likely to bet on someone like Toyota, though.

TWL

Hi Y'all,
Sorry, yes the sci.energy.hydrogen is a Usenet newsgroup. You need to either use google groups to read it, or get a newsreader such as outlook express or netscape's newsreader to see it.

Basically, what you find is, that since there aren't any hydrogen wells, we have to create any hydrogen using other energy. All the public 'demonstrations' of hydrogen use the main source we use presently - they strip the carbon off natural gas, and vent it into the atmosphere as CO2 to get the hydrogen.

Since it takes more hydrogen to move a vehicle than it would if you just used the natural gas directly, you create a LOT more CO2 using hydrogen than necessary.

Also, if you have electricity from wind or solar, then just add it to the grid. Then, you get to offset the use of coal to generate electricity, and you are REALLY doing something to reduce pollution.

And the BS about using up the oxygen, Den was right. The electrolysis process frees up oxygen. And if you are doing the reformation of natural gas thing, you are still just burning it, and the more CO2 we produce, the more the plants make oxygen. Kinda nice feature, that... 8-)

Charlie

Charlie, just to be a nit-picker, we don't create hydrogen, we extract it. And whatever extraction process we use, there's going to be a net loss of energy.

The process I've seen talked about the most is to use solar/wind electricity to separate the H out of the H20, and it's just a matter of time before we can get the efficiency of that process down before we have useful and affordable fuel cells. Because the technology already exists. Fuel cells have been around for decades, but their cost has limited them to things like space exploration. It's just getting the production costs down and energy outputs up to the point where we can put them in cars that don't cost $100,000.

http://www.nbc10.com/news/4943604/detail.html

You gotta love these people....

"After a tour of the Houston Astrodome in Texas earlier this week, where thousands of hurricane victims are being housed, Barbara Bush said in a National Public Radio interview: "So many of the people here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."

Frank,

I'm right there with you. Where'd you shop, by the way?

Well, Charlie, any demonstrations are just that, demonastrations. If anyone were to build a large-scale hyrdrogen fuel production, they would extract it from water, not natural gas, because water is cheaper, more abundant, and doesn't emit CO2.

The real hurdle, however, remains getting the energy for electrolysis. Until that problem is solved, hydrogen will remain only a theoretical source of energy.

I agree with that, but you're not quite answering the situation I addressed. You're discussing a proposal that causes disruption AND doesn't solve the problem, whereas I was discussing the OR option. Significant different, in my opinion.

Tim, first off, great post.

Well, with the or position, if the proposal doesn't do anything it's just another wasted law that will probably do little more than reinforce the notion that environmentalists are out of touch with reality.

And if it causes people to feel that their lives are being seriously diminished it won't be passed.

Now if you could PROVE that draconian measures would have long term tangible results...but that is very unlikely. While the vast majority of scientists recognize global warming as a likely reality there is considerable less agreement on the amount due to human activity and how much benefit there can be gained by realistic restrictions on that activity.

We are somewhat caught in a Catch-22 here. We all recognize that overpopulation is a serious problem but the only way to get a culture to stop having too many children is to increase its affluence. Which makes it more like the USA which makes it more likely to produce greenhouse gasses. Africa probably produces very few of the gasses but is an ecological catastrophe. the only hope of saving most of the biodiversity of the African savannah or the tropical rainforests is to make the people of those lands well off enough that they don't need to hunt bushmeat and burn down acres of forest. But doing that requires the kind of technological economy that also pumps out CO2. So...

I don't know what the solution is but it must be acceptable to the general population. If it costs too many jobs they will simply elect politicians that deny there is any problem at all.

Well this is all kinds of fucked up:

"I am stunned by an interview I conducted with New Orleans Detective Lawrence Dupree. He told me they were trying to rescue people with a helicopter and the people were so poor they were afraid it would cost too much to get a ride and they had no money for a "ticket." Dupree was shaken telling us the story. He just couldn't believe these people were afraid they'd be charged for a rescue." (CNN)

For folks looking for a timeline on who did what (or SAID they did what), here are two sources:

http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2005/09/04/katrina-response-timeline/

http://www.thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline

Another thing that catches my eye. In talking about the power struggle between the Feds and Louisiana before Katrina hit--

""We wanted soldiers, helicopters, food and water," said Denise Bottcher, press secretary for Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana. "They wanted to negotiate an organizational chart."

Hm, if the local folks are supposed to be the front line first responders, wouldn't it help if the federal government gave up the resources to the locals so they could do an effective job and leave less for FEMA to do? Or am I off base here?

"Hm, if the local folks are supposed to be the front line first responders, wouldn't it help if the federal government gave up the resources to the locals so they could do an effective job and leave less for FEMA to do? Or am I off base here?"

This ties into my latest thoughts. What is Homeland Security's function? Why are taxpayers funding an agency that seems to have it's primary logical function delegated to the states? Is this another example like No Child Left Behind, only worse, a program that has a management stream funded by Federal tax dollars, but the field level responsibilities are foisted off to the states, without any funding?

Good point...

My thought was that, in the hours before the hurricane struck, WHY THE HELL ARE YOU "NEGOTIATING" ABOUT ORGANIZATIONAL CHARTS???? If you wanna play power games, this was something that should have been taken care of BEFORE the fecal matter hit the fan, not when time is of the essence.

And given all the other crap FEMA pulled off (diverting local supplies without checking with local authorities, mandating volunteer rescue workers go through a half day sexual harassment seminar before getting them to the site, putting out flyers uring victims to call a 800 number or go to a website for "immediate" help, and using trained rescue workers to hand out those flyers), it's obvious to me that both FEMA and Homeland Security have been a titanic waste of tax dollars.

Why were they futzing around with about org charts? Simple, THAT WAS WHERE THE PROBLEMS WERE!

Much of what I have heard has been "We were ready to go in, but we didn't get the 'GO' order to move..." Since they didn't have any co-ordinated organization, most of the help outside of the city was paralyzed. And inside the city, each little group was doing what it could, but there was no way to get needed help when it was more than a local organization's ability, like the convention center and Superdome rapidly outstripping the limited resources that were there, or the busses left to drown...

It is never a bad thing to set up organization. It is a bad thing to just say "Go Help" and then not tell you "Help here..."

Charlie

When was DHS created? 2001? In 4 years' time, they haven't been able to come up with a pre-approved Emergency Response Authority org chart?

That's a level of incompetence that would get lots and lots of people fired in a business. When it's a government organization, using taxpayer money, it becomes a criminal waste of public resources.

Why were they futzing around with about org charts? Simple, THAT WAS WHERE THE PROBLEMS WERE!

No. That's dead wrong.

If the mantra was that local authorities were the ones responsibile, THEN GET THEM RESOURCES BEFORE THE TROUBLE HIT. And if there's a question on procedures, DO IT BEFORE THERE'S TROUBLE. Raising questions when a hurricane is bearing down is the wrong time to do it.

Moreover, there's a very good chance that playing these power games before Katrina hit is what caused the organizational problems in the first place, as FEMA did NOT respect the authority of the locals, who supposedly knew where to go, and did not supply resouces and communication equipment that were needed by local authorities.

The people that live in that city must feel like they can't win.

Some of them are moved to Texas and then Rita comes along and chases them there. Plus, I just saw the morning news showing an area that was finally dry in NO that is now roof high in water again. They just got to where they could start to repair and rebuild and then, pow, they again look like they did back on day three of Katrina.

Man, that's messed up.