RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Hurricane Katrina

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Destroying FEMA

By Eric Holdeman

Tuesday, August 30, 2005; Page A17

SEATTLE -- In the days to come, as the nation and the people along the Gulf Coast work to cope with the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we will be reminded anew, how important it is to have a federal agency capable of dealing with natural catastrophes of this sort. This is an immense human tragedy, one that will work hardship on millions of people. It is beyond the capabilities of state and local government to deal with. It requires a national response.

Which makes it all the more difficult to understand why, at this moment, the country's premier agency for dealing with such events -- FEMA -- is being, in effect, systematically downgraded and all but dismantled by the Department of Homeland Security.


Apparently homeland security now consists almost entirely of protection against terrorist acts. How else to explain why the Federal Emergency Management Agency will no longer be responsible for disaster preparedness? Given our country's long record of natural disasters, how much sense does this make?

What follows is an obituary for what was once considered the preeminent example of a federal agency doing good for the American public in times of trouble, such as the present.

FEMA was born in 1979, the offspring of a number of federal agencies that had been functioning in an independent and uncoordinated manner to protect the country against natural disasters and nuclear holocaust. In its early years FEMA grew and matured, with formal programs being developed to respond to large-scale disasters and with extensive planning for what is called "continuity of government."

The creation of the federal agency encouraged states, counties and cities to convert from their civil defense organizations and also to establish emergency management agencies to do the requisite planning for disasters. Over time, a philosophy of "all-hazards disaster preparedness" was developed that sought to conserve resources by producing single plans that were applicable to many types of events.

But it was Hurricane Andrew, which hit Florida in 1992, that really energized FEMA. The year after that catastrophic storm, President Bill Clinton appointed James Lee Witt to be director of the agency. Witt was the first professional emergency manager to run the agency. Showing a serious regard for the cost of natural disasters in both economic impact and lives lost or disrupted, Witt reoriented FEMA from civil defense preparations to a focus on natural disaster preparedness and disaster mitigation. In an effort to reduce the repeated loss of property and lives every time a disaster struck, he started a disaster mitigation effort called "Project Impact." FEMA was elevated to a Cabinet-level agency, in recognition of its important responsibilities coordinating efforts across departmental and governmental lines.

Witt fought for federal funding to support the new program. At its height, only $20 million was allocated to the national effort, but it worked wonders. One of the best examples of the impact the program had here in the central Puget Sound area and in western Washington state was in protecting people at the time of the Nisqually earthquake on Feb. 28, 2001. Homes had been retrofitted for earthquakes and schools were protected from high-impact structural hazards. Those involved with Project Impact thought it ironic that the day of that quake was also the day that the then-new president chose to announce that Project Impact would be discontinued.

Indeed, the advent of the Bush administration in January 2001 signaled the beginning of the end for FEMA. The newly appointed leadership of the agency showed little interest in its work or in the missions pursued by the departed Witt. Then came the Sept. 11 attacks and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Soon FEMA was being absorbed into the "homeland security borg."

This year it was announced that FEMA is to "officially" lose the disaster preparedness function that it has had since its creation. The move is a death blow to an agency that was already on life support. In fact, FEMA employees have been directed not to become involved in disaster preparedness functions, since a new directorate (yet to be established) will have that mission.

FEMA will be survived by state and local emergency management offices, which are confused about how they fit into the national picture. That's because the focus of the national effort remains terrorism, even if the Department of Homeland Security still talks about "all-hazards preparedness." Those of us in the business of dealing with emergencies find ourselves with no national leadership and no mentors. We are being forced to fend for ourselves, making do with the "homeland security" mission. Our "all-hazards" approaches have been decimated by the administration's preoccupation with terrorism.

To be sure, America may well be hit by another major terrorist attack, and we must be prepared for such an event. But I can guarantee you that hurricanes like the one that ripped into Louisiana and Mississippi yesterday, along with tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, floods, windstorms, mudslides, power outages, fires and perhaps a pandemic flu will have to be dealt with on a weekly and daily basis throughout this country. They are coming for sure, sooner or later, even as we are, to an unconscionable degree, weakening our ability to respond to them.

The writer is director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.

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Makes you feel proud to be led by the clueless and those who cheer them on in their cluelessness.

But of course these sort of facts are inconveniences and can be dismissed as 'Bush hating' without giving it another thought. I'm sure people in Louisiana are giving it some thought though.

Again, the people and policies you cheer have real consequences that can mean life or death.



Oh and wanna, before you go and snicker at RFK Jr., most major media yesterday and today ran stories on global warming perhaps being a cause of these stronger, more frequent hurricanes. Thanks for bringing it up though. It's much appreciated.

An Economics Professor tells Fox News that federal aid for disaster ravaged areas is unconstitutional and actually causes more deaths:

..if we look at Article One, Section Eight of the United States Constitution — and I encourage all Americans to look at that before we start opening up our tax coffers to pay for all of this — we have every obligation to provide for New Orleans in terms of charity, private charity from one person to the other.

But the founding fathers never intended...to provide one dollar of taxpayer dollars to pay for any disaster or anything that we might call charity.

What we now have is the law of unintended consequences taking place, where FEMA has come into New Orleans, a place where, ecologically, it makes no sense to have levees keeping the Mississippi River from flooding into New Orleans, like it naturally should.

Now with FEMA bailing out Louisiana, bailing out Florida and lowering the overall cost of living in these places, we have people with no incentive to leave. And the law of unintended consequences means that more people are dying with every one of these storms. They're becoming more and more expensive, more and more property loss, just because the federal government has violated the Constitution to provide for these funds.

It's an interesting viewpoint and, given that, more often than not, the free market approach tends to be proven the correct one over time, it is possible the Professor is correct that less, not more, federal aid will save lives in the long run.

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the G-man said:
Speaking of unintended consequences...<P>An Economics Professor tells <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,167790,00.html">Fox News</a> that federal aid for disaster ravaged areas is unconstitutional and actually causes more deaths:<P><blockquote><I>..if we look at Article One, Section Eight of the United States Constitution — and I encourage all Americans to look at that before we start opening up our tax coffers to pay for all of this — we have every obligation to provide for New Orleans in terms of charity, private charity from one person to the other.<P>But the founding fathers never intended...to provide one dollar of taxpayer dollars to pay for any disaster or anything that we might call charity.<P>What we now have is the law of unintended consequences taking place, where FEMA has come into New Orleans, a place where, ecologically, it makes no sense to have levees keeping the Mississippi River from flooding into New Orleans, like it naturally should.<P>Now with FEMA bailing out Louisiana, bailing out Florida and lowering the overall cost of living in these places, we have people with no incentive to leave. And the law of unintended consequences means that more people are dying with every one of these storms. They're becoming more and more expensive, more and more property loss, just because the federal government has violated the Constitution to provide for these funds.</I></blockquote><P>It's an interesting viewpoint and, given that, more often than not, the free market approach tends to be proven the correct one over time, it is possible the Professor is correct that less, not more, federal aid will save lives in the long run.

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Steve T said:

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unrestrained id said:
... more important than disaster preperadness.

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The awful truth is there for all to see. How long have we been deceived?
Whomod is really.
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wannabuyamonkey!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Oh and wanna, before you go and snicker at RFK Jr., most major media yesterday and today ran stories on global warming perhaps being a cause of these stronger, more frequent hurricanes. Thanks for bringing it up though. It's much appreciated.

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August 30, 2005
Storms Vary With Cycles, Experts Say
By KENNETH CHANG

Because hurricanes form over warm ocean water, it is easy to assume that the recent rise in their number and ferocity is because of global warming.

But that is not the case, scientists say. Instead, the severity of hurricane seasons changes with cycles of temperatures of several decades in the Atlantic Ocean. The recent onslaught "is very much natural," said William M. Gray, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University who issues forecasts for the hurricane season.

From 1970 to 1994, the Atlantic was relatively quiet, with no more than three major hurricanes in any year and none at all in three of those years. Cooler water in the North Atlantic strengthened wind shear, which tends to tear storms apart before they turn into hurricanes.

In 1995, hurricane patterns reverted to the active mode of the 1950's and 60's. From 1995 to 2003, 32 major hurricanes, with sustained winds of 111 miles per hour or greater, stormed across the Atlantic. It was chance, Dr. Gray said, that only three of them struck the United States at full strength.

Historically, the rate has been 1 in 3.

Then last year, three major hurricanes, half of the six that formed during the season, hit the United States. A fourth, Frances, weakened before striking Florida.

"We were very lucky in that eight-year period, and the luck just ran out," Dr. Gray said.

Global warming may eventually intensify hurricanes somewhat, though different climate models disagree.

In an article this month in the journal Nature, Kerry A. Emanuel, a hurricane expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote that global warming might have already had some effect. The total power dissipated by tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic and North Pacific increased 70 to 80 percent in the last 30 years, he wrote.

But even that seemingly large jump is not what has been pushing the hurricanes of the last two years, Dr. Emanuel said, adding, "What we see in the Atlantic is mostly the natural swing."

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Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco has ordered everyone still in the city of New Orleans -- many of which have been huddled in the Superdome and other rescue centers -- to leave.



As many as 25,000 people were going to be bused from the Superdome to the Houston Astrodome in Texas.

At the same time, sections of Interstate 10, the only major freeway leading into New Orleans from the east, lay shattered, dozens of huge slabs of concrete floating in the floodwaters. I-10 is the only route for commercial trucking across southern Louisiana.

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the G-man said:
Speaking of unintended consequences...<P>An Economics Professor tells <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,167790,00.html">Fox News</a> that federal aid for disaster ravaged areas is unconstitutional and actually causes more deaths:<P><blockquote><I>..if we look at Article One, Section Eight of the United States Constitution — and I encourage all Americans to look at that before we start opening up our tax coffers to pay for all of this — we have every obligation to provide for New Orleans in terms of charity, private charity from one person to the other.<P>But the founding fathers never intended...to provide one dollar of taxpayer dollars to pay for any disaster or anything that we might call charity.<P>What we now have is the law of unintended consequences taking place, where FEMA has come into New Orleans, a place where, ecologically, it makes no sense to have levees keeping the Mississippi River from flooding into New Orleans, like it naturally should.<P>Now with FEMA bailing out Louisiana, bailing out Florida and lowering the overall cost of living in these places, we have people with no incentive to leave. And the law of unintended consequences means that more people are dying with every one of these storms. They're becoming more and more expensive, more and more property loss, just because the federal government has violated the Constitution to provide for these funds.</I></blockquote><P>It's an interesting viewpoint and, given that, more often than not, the free market approach tends to be proven the correct one over time, it is possible the Professor is correct that less, not more, federal aid will save lives in the long run.

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Pig Iron said:
Can you believe that because of looters they have to pull off 5,000 policeman from helping? Jesus, people are so classless...looting in the middle of death and destruction. Granted, much of teh stuff lost will be covered by business's insurance, but that is just so sad. i can only think that the idiots wading in the shitty water to get a tv set will end up with some bacterial disease and get their just dessert.

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Jim Jackson said:
...but I do believe many looters are simply trying to find sustenance and I cannot fault them for that).

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"No one can say they didn't see it coming"

In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.

By Sidney Blumenthal


Aug. 31, 2005 | Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, Hurricane Katrina has left millions of Americans to scavenge for food and shelter and hundreds to thousands reportedly dead. With its main levee broken, the evacuated city of New Orleans has become part of the Gulf of Mexico. But the damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act of nature.

A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late.


The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which before the hurricane published a series on the federal funding problem, and whose presses are now underwater, reported online: "No one can say they didn't see it coming ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

The Bush administration's policy of turning over wetlands to developers almost certainly also contributed to the heightened level of the storm surge. In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands surrounding New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot. Bush had promised "no net loss" of wetlands, a policy launched by his father's administration and bolstered by President Clinton. But he reversed his approach in 2003, unleashing the developers. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency then announced they could no longer protect wetlands unless they were somehow related to interstate commerce.

In response to this potential crisis, four leading environmental groups conducted a joint expert study, concluding in 2004 that without wetlands protection New Orleans could be devastated by an ordinary, much less a Category 4 or 5, hurricane. "There's no way to describe how mindless a policy that is when it comes to wetlands protection," said one of the report's authors. The chairman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality dismissed the study as "highly questionable," and boasted, "Everybody loves what we're doing."

"My administration's climate change policy will be science based," President Bush declared in June 2001. But in 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency submitted a study on global warming to the United Nations reflecting its expert research, Bush derided it as "a report put out by a bureaucracy," and excised the climate change assessment from the agency's annual report. The next year, when the EPA issued its first comprehensive "Report on the Environment," stating, "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment," the White House simply demanded removal of the line and all similar conclusions. At the G-8 meeting in Scotland this year, Bush successfully stymied any common action on global warming. Scientists, meanwhile, have continued to accumulate impressive data on the rising temperature of the oceans, which has produced more severe hurricanes.

In February 2004, 60 of the nation's leading scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, warned in a statement, "Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policymaking": "Successful application of science has played a large part in the policies that have made the United States of America the world's most powerful nation and its citizens increasingly prosperous and healthy ... Indeed, this principle has long been adhered to by presidents and administrations of both parties in forming and implementing policies. The administration of George W. Bush has, however, disregarded this principle ... The distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease." Bush completely ignored this statement.

In the two weeks preceding the storm in the Gulf, the trumping of science by ideology and expertise by special interests accelerated. The Federal Drug Administration announced that it was postponing sale of the morning-after contraceptive pill, despite overwhelming scientific evidence of its safety and its approval by the FDA's scientific advisory board. The United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa accused the Bush administration of responsibility for a condom shortage in Uganda -- the result of the administration's evangelical Christian agenda of "abstinence." When the chief of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the Justice Department was ordered by the White House to delete its study that African-Americans and other minorities are subject to racial profiling in police traffic stops and he refused to buckle under, he was forced out of his job. When the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting oversight analyst objected to a $7 billion no-bid contract awarded for work in Iraq to Halliburton (the firm at which Vice President Cheney was formerly CEO), she was demoted despite her superior professional ratings. At the National Park Service, a former Cheney aide, a political appointee lacking professional background, drew up a plan to overturn past environmental practices and prohibit any mention of evolution while allowing sale of religious materials through the Park Service.

On the day the levees burst in New Orleans, Bush delivered a speech in California comparing the Iraq war to World War II and himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt: "And he knew that the best way to bring peace and stability to the region was by bringing freedom to Japan." Bush had boarded his very own "Streetcar Named Desire."


salon.com

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HURRICANE KATRINA: THE LEVEES

HURRICANE-PROTECTION PROJECTS
Flood-control funds short of requests

By Andrew Martin and Andrew Zajac
Washington Bureau
Published September 1, 2005


WASHINGTON -- Despite continuous warnings that a catastrophic hurricane could hit New Orleans, the Bush administration and Congress in recent years have repeatedly denied full funding for hurricane preparation and flood control.

That has delayed construction of levees around the city and stymied an ambitious project to improve drainage in New Orleans' neighborhoods.

For instance, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers requested $27 million for this fiscal year to pay for hurricane-protection projects around Lake Pontchartrain. The Bush administration countered with $3.9 million, and Congress eventually provided $5.7 million, according to figures provided by the office of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.).

Because of the shortfalls, which were caused in part by the rising costs of the war in Iraq, the corps delayed seven contracts that included enlarging the levees, according to corps documents.

Much of the devastation in New Orleans was caused by breaches in the levees, which sent water from Lake Pontchartrain pouring into the city. Since much of the city is below sea level, the levee walls acted like the walls of a bowl that filled until as much as 80 percent of the city was under water.

Similarly, the Army Corps requested $78 million for this fiscal year for projects that would improve draining and prevent flooding in New Orleans. The Bush administration's budget provided $30 million for the projects, and Congress ultimately approved $36.5 million, according to Landrieu's office.

"I'm not saying it wouldn't still be flooded, but I do feel that if it had been totally funded, there would be less flooding than you have," said Michael Parker, a former Republican Mississippi congressman who headed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from October 2001 until March 2002, when he was ousted after publicly criticizing a Bush administration proposal to cut the corps' budget.

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Poverty Lad said:




And the emperor fiddled as Rome burned...

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the G-man said:
I don't think anyone here is particularly incensed at the looters stealing food to survive. It's the ones stealing TVs, etc., we find repugnant.

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Pig Iron said:
a grocery store I can understand to a degree, especially with no water around to drink..I'd break in, leave an IOU for the water and food. You have to live.

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Poverty Lad said:
No, Rob, Fuck YOU.

If anything in UID's post preceding is true, then this disaster is squarely laid at Bush's feet. People died, are dying, because of his blundering badly with the issues at hand.

Not the time? You're right, the time was several years ago. But now all we can do is shake our heads and help the survivors as best we can.

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Pig Iron said:

Hence I said this...

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Pig Iron said:
a grocery store I can understand to a degree, especially with no water around to drink..I'd break in, leave an IOU for the water and food. You have to live.

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the facts are these. Global warming cannot credibly account for Katrina's power: The Gulf Coast has been hit by powerful hurricanes from time immemorial; in 1900, 8,000 people perished in a category 4 storm in Galveston, Texas. The energy bill just signed by President Bush contains half a billion dollars in coastal restoration funds for Louisiana alone. The Army Corps' much-maligned levees keep New Orleans safe from spring flooding, and its planned $700 million, 72-mile Morganza-to-the-Gulf of Mexico levee might have held Katrina at bay, were it not still at least a decade from completion.

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Pig Iron said:I might add that the rebuilding should really be debated, before they just start blindly rebuilding in such a precarious area...

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Rob Kamphausen said:
politics? are you fucking kidding me?

fuck you.

not the time.

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But it is the time to say "fuck you"? You may run the board, Rob, but I don't have to pay this remark any heed. No one is overlooking the devastation or the human ruin while at the same time worrying about the failure of the political system that may have played the lion's share of the role in the flooding in New Orleans.

We can multitask this one, Rob. We can be devastated at the event, motivated to take action to assist, and still want our political leaders held accountable for their possible failures. We can do all that, Rob, I promise. And even still have time to put our thoughts down in a blog somewhere...

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Rob Kamphausen said:
honestly, are people here that politically motivated and enraged that dubya is your hot topic now? i mean, above and beyond anything, y'can't just think "holy fuck, i gotta help out" and leave it at that? you have to have a target?

thats very, very sad.

this whole thing is a disaster. a major tragedy. we can't give it a week before we start scouring major news outlets like salon.com for politically motivated day-after-think-and-blame imagery?

i mean, fuck, we could also blame and point message-board-fingers at the development of many cities surrounded by oceans and two of the mightiest rivers, all while themselves being below sea level and in direct paths of annual hurricane attacks.

you could blame all the levee contractors for making their rates so high, when you know they're only working half assed.

blame all the financial requests for coming in too late, when they could have been made in 1991, when this was all just as pertinent.

blame kerry for not running his campaign on preventing august 2005 natural disasters.

blame whoever the fuck you want. hell, blame me.

but can't we start being concerned first? help out first? put differences aside first?

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Jim Jackson said:
But it is the time to say "fuck you"? You may run the board, Rob, but I don't have to pay this remark any heed.

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theory9 said:
Politics is the refuge of the petty--people concerned with solving problems tend to be apolitical and are often the people who really get things done.

Bush, Kerry--a caring person craves not these things.

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r3x29yz4a said:
I never get this idea that people should see a tragedy thousands of miles away and decide they have to help out there when their own city has problems.
sorry, but my money is going to help people in San Francisco. As your money should go towards New York.

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r3x29yz4a said:
You (Rob) had how many murders/tragic deaths in your city last year? How many of those did you personally donate money to the families for?

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the G-man said:
I don't think anyone here is particularly incensed at the looters stealing food to survive. It's the ones stealing TVs, etc., we find repugnant.

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wannabuyamonkey said:

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the G-man said:
I don't think anyone here is particularly incensed at the looters stealing food to survive. It's the ones stealing TVs, etc., we find repugnant.

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Of course there's even a problem with those looting to "survive" recently I heard that the government has essentially taken over the grocery stores and is distributing the food w/in, ut the looters have been taking the food and hording it. So while it's a survival instict. It's survival at the expence of others.

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Poverty Lad said:
No, Rob, Fuck YOU.

---> If anything in UID's post preceding is true <---, then this disaster is squarely laid at Bush's feet. People died, are dying, because of his blundering badly with the issues at hand.

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Not the time? You're right, the time was several years ago. But now all we can do is shake our heads and help the survivors as best we can.

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