The New Orleans Times Picayune is the largest newspaper in Louisiana. It also has, in my opinion, the coolest name of any paper in the entire country. I hope to someday have my own by-line on an article or editorial published under the Picayune banner.
As the media sniping and cheep shots at President Bush starts to wear thin and die down, the “lamestream” major media is actually starting to do some research to back up the stories they publish under the heading of news rather than just printing hot headed and ill informed rhetoric delivered by various idiots with obvious axes to grind in public.
Believe me when I say that there is plenty of information out there that indicates that the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana knew they had a problem—they just chose to ignore it while they waited for the Feds to pony up the cash, cash that the Levee Boards would then be free to spend as they saw fit. Not necessarily on levee construction either.
Much of this information has been bouncing around the bloggosphere for over a week now—things like The City of New Orleans Emergency Plan that I wrote about last Sunday in my posting titled Tonight’s Reading Assignment and the numerous news articles in the Times Picayune and other media sources dating back into the 1990’s addressing the vulnerability of the existing levee system and the Category 3 design criteria.
Here’s an excerpt from part I of the article published June 23, 2002:
“If enough water from Lake Pontchartrain topped the levee system along its south shore, the result would be apocalyptic. Vast areas would be submerged for days or weeks until engineers dynamited the levees to let the water escape. Some places on the east bank of Orleans and Jefferson parishes are as low as 10 feet below sea level. Adding a 20-foot storm surge from a Category 4 or 5 storm would mean 30 feet of standing water.
Whoever remained in the city would be at grave risk. According to the American Red Cross, a likely death toll would be between 25,000 and 100,000 people, dwarfing estimated death tolls for other natural disasters and all but the most nightmarish potential terrorist attacks. Tens of thousands more would be stranded on rooftops and high ground, awaiting rescue that could take days or longer. They would face thirst, hunger and exposure to toxic chemicals.”
Sound familiar? And how about this:
"The debris, largely the remains of about 70 camps smashed by the waves of a storm surge more than 7 feet above sea level, showed that Georges, a Category 2 storm that only grazed New Orleans, had pushed waves to within a foot of the top of the levees. A stronger storm on a slightly different course -- such as the path Georges was on just 16 hours before landfall -- could have realized emergency officials' worst-case scenario: hundreds of billions of gallons of lake water pouring over the levees into an area averaging 5 feet below sea level with no natural means of drainage.
That would turn the city and the east bank of Jefferson Parish into a lake as much as 30 feet deep, fouled with chemicals and waste from ruined septic systems, businesses and homes. Such a flood could trap hundreds of thousands of people in buildings and in vehicles. At the same time, high winds and tornadoes would tear at everything left standing. Between 25,000 and 100,000 people would die, said John Clizbe, national vice president for disaster services with the American Red Cross."
See, these articles prove that they KNEW that they had a problem and they KNEW that they needed to plan to provide a means to evacuate the large inner city population, and yet when the disaster finally came they DIDN’T do anything to help. They just point fingers and issue statements blaming the President.
HOW IN THE HELL CAN ANY REASONABLE, SANE PERSON HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT THE PRESIDENT AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHOULD BEAR ANYTHING OTHER THAN A SMALL AMOUNT OF SECONDARY RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS SITUATION?
Is it just me?
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