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

From meteorologist Jeff Master's blog at the Weather Underground:

The track forecast has not changed significantly, and the area from New Orleans to the Mississippi-Louisiana border is going to get a catastrophic blow. I put the odds of New Orleans getting its levees breached and the city submerged at about 70%. This scenario, which has been discussed extensively in literature I have read, could result in a death toll in the thousands, since many people will be unable or unwilling to get out of the city. I recommend that if you are trapped in New Orleans tomorrow, that you wear a life jacket and a helmet if you have them. High rise buildings may offer good refuge, but Katrina has the potential to knock down a high-rise building. A 25 foot storm surge and 30 - 40 foot high battering waves on top of that may be able to bring down a steel-reinforced high rise building. I don't believe a high rise building taller than six stories has ever been brought down by a hurricane, so this may not happen Monday, either. We are definitely in unknown waters with Katrina.

Hurricane force winds are now striking Louisiana. Katrina is 105 miles south southeast of New Orleans, and landfall is expected early Monday morning. Computer models suggest that more than 80 percent of buildings would be badly damaged or destroyed, he said.

CNN reports the New Orleans Superdome, where 10,000 people took shelter from Hurricane Katrina, has started leaking.

The report said sections of the roof has peeled away and panic was reported inside. Officials described the situation as terrifying but said they expect the building structure to hold.

In St. Bernard Parish, spokesman Larry Ingargiola said the two shelters -- at Chalmette and St. Bernard high schools -- suffered major damage, WWL-TV reported. CNN reported the parish's 911 center was destroyed by the storm.

As of 6 a.m., 317,000 Entergy customers were without power as were 40,000 Cleco customers in St. Tammany Parish.

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the G-man said:
Roof of Superdome is leaking

CNN reports the New Orleans Superdome, where 10,000 people took shelter from Hurricane Katrina, has started leaking.

The report said sections of the roof has peeled away and panic was reported inside. Officials described the situation as terrifying but said they expect the building structure to hold.

In St. Bernard Parish, spokesman Larry Ingargiola said the two shelters -- at Chalmette and St. Bernard high schools -- suffered major damage, WWL-TV reported. CNN reported the parish's 911 center was destroyed by the storm.

As of 6 a.m., 317,000 Entergy customers were without power as were 40,000 Cleco customers in St. Tammany Parish.

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That is scary......80% of buildings destroyed possibly......fuck man this is bad......My prayers go out to thedoctor, Grimm and Prometheus and anyone else caught in the middle of this.

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PJP said:
[That is scary......80% of buildings destroyed possibly......fuck man this is bad......My prayers go out to thedoctor, Grimm and Prometheus and anyone else caught in the middle of this.

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Wednesday said:
Lucky for us down here--I was born in Miami. I didn't dislike Miami but I didn't like it either. I really like living in Pembroke Pines, though--it was only a Category 1 when it blew through. We were lucky enough to get out of it with minimal damage and a mass electric outage throughout the cities (twas annoying).

A friend has family in Mississippi and he's freaking out, last I heard. I hope everything works out for you all.

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In downtown New Orleans, streets that were relatively clear in the hours after the storm were filled with 1 to 1 1/2 feet of water Tuesday morning after two levee breaches sent water from Lake Pontchartrain (search) coursing through city streets.

Water was knee-deep around the Superdome and lapped at the edge of the French Quarter. Canal Street was literally a canal. Little islands of red ants floated in the gasoline-fouled waters through downtown. The Hyatt Hotel and other high-rise buildings around the Superdome had rows and rows of shattered windows.

Col. Rich Wagenaar of the Army Corps of Engineers (search) said a breach in the eastern part of the city was causing flooding and "significant evacuations" in Orleans and St. Bernard parishes. He did not know how many people were affected.

The city considered bringing in barges to provide electricity.

Authorities said there was also a levee breach in the western part of the city that began Monday afternoon and may have grown overnight.

National Guardsmen brought in people from outlying areas to the Superdome in the backs of big 2 1/2-ton Army trucks. Louisiana's wildlife enforcement department also brought people in on the backs of their pickups. Some were wet, some were in wheelchairs, some were holding babies and nothing else.

Louisiana officials said people in some swamped neighborhood were feared dead, but gave no immediate numbers.

"All I know is when my people go out, they tell me there are a lot of people awaiting rescue. I hear there are hundreds of people still on their rooftops," said Gen. Ralph Lupin, commander of National Guard troops at the Superdome in New Orleans, where some 10,000 people had taken shelter.

Louisiana emergency operations officials in Baton Rouge said people could not go home. Bridges connecting mainland Louisiana and New Orleans were washed away and parts of Interstate 10 were underwater.

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MisterJLA said:

Doesn't this belong in the 'are you happy where you live thread'?

LOL

:P

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

...after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

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

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: “It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.”

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

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

About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount. But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said.”

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

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unrestrained id said:
An amazing late-breaking article from Editor & Publisher. Bottom line: Experts knew this was coming, and all the preparations ground to a halt because Bush stole New Orleans' disaster preparation money so he could use it for his Iraq debacle:

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

...after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

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

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: “It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.”

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

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

About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount. But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said.”

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

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Of course the predictable reaction to this is not to marvel at the stupidity of all this wasted money that could have saved lives, but to lash out in anger at me posting this in the 1st place. "ohhhh you're politicizing this disaster. Better to greive and not point fingers." Sort of like the reaction to no WMD's in Iraq.

I'm sure New Orleans and Mississippi could use some of their National Guardmen deployed over in Iraq right about now too. And wasn't the Red Cross labeled a "liberal" organization because of their report on prison abuse. I wonder if America can really take all that "liberal" help right about now....

And Bush? he's still on vacation. Decided to take one final day off.

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PJP said:
You forgot to say that Bush was responsible for the Tsunami, Peter Jennings death and me not winning the Lottery.

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PJP said:
you can never fully prepare for something like this......to politicize it is criminal......I am not having alot of love for Bush these days but this is not his fault......not even close.

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Captain Sammitch said:
I'm still hung up on the tastelessness of it...

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Congress changed the law to discourage Americans from piling up debt, filing for bankruptcy and leaving banks holding the bag. But there are no exemptions for a small group that was never the intended target of the legislation: those who have been displaced by extraordinary circumstances.

In extreme cases, homeowners could find themselves fighting to keep the bank from seeking a court order to garnish their wages as a result of something they'd never considered and are not insured against — such as a landslide, flood or earthquake.

"There are no special exceptions for these people," said bankruptcy attorney Howard M. Ehrenberg. "Homeowners who have their finances in order and generally do not think about bankruptcy may find that after this kind of natural disaster they won't be eligible for relief."

In cases where FEMA does step in, it is usually in the form of low-interest loans that must be repaid

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Pig Iron said:

It's everybody's fault..not Bush, Bush is a dick though..how's that? New orleans just really should not exist as a city...Look at what they have to do in holland....Mother nature is a bitch...

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Blog Index RSS
08.29.2005
“For They That Sow the Wind Shall Reap the Whirlwind” (101 comments )

As Hurricane Katrina dismantles Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, it’s worth recalling the central role that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour played in derailing the Kyoto Protocol and kiboshing President Bush’s iron-clad campaign promise to regulate CO2.

In March of 2001, just two days after EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman’s strong statement affirming Bush’s CO2 promise former RNC Chief Barbour responded with an urgent memo to the White House.

Barbour, who had served as RNC Chair and Bush campaign strategist, was now representing the president’s major donors from the fossil fuel industry who had enlisted him to map a Bush energy policy that would
be friendly to their interests. His credentials ensured the new administration’s attention.

The document, titled “Bush-Cheney Energy Policy & CO2,” was addressed to Vice President Cheney, whose energy task force was then gearing up, and to several high-ranking officials with strong connections to energy and automotive concerns keenly interested in the carbon dioxide issue, including Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Commerce Secretary Don Evans, White House chief of staff Andy Card and legislative liaison Nick Calio. Barbour pointedly omitted the names of Whitman and Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, both of whom were on record supporting CO2 caps. Barbour’s memo chided these administration insiders for trying to address global warming which Barbour dismissed as a radical fringe issue.

“A moment of truth is arriving,” Barbour wrote, “in the form of a decision whether this Administration’s policy will be to regulate and/or tax CO2 as a pollutant. The question is whether environmental policy still prevails over energy policy with Bush-Cheney, as it did with Clinton-Gore.” He derided the idea of regulating CO2 as “eco-extremism,” and chided them for allowing environmental concerns to “trump good energy policy, which the country has lacked for eight years.”

The memo had impact. “It was terse and highly effective, written for people without much time by a person who controls the purse strings for the Republican Party,” said John Walke, a high-ranking air quality official in the Clinton administration.

On March 13, Bush reversed his previous position, announcing he would not back a CO2 restriction using the language and rationale provided by Barbour. Echoing Barbour’s memo, Bush said he opposed mandatory CO2 caps, due to “the incomplete state of scientific knowledge” about global climate change.

Well, the science is clear. This month, a study published in the journal Nature by a renowned MIT climatologist linked the increasing prevalence of destructive hurricanes to human-induced global warming.

Now we are all learning what it’s like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence which Barbour and his cronies have encouraged. Our destructive addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East and--now--Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children.

In 1998, Republican icon Pat Robertson warned that hurricanes were likely to hit communities that offended God. Perhaps it was Barbour’s memo that caused Katrina, at the last moment, to spare New Orleans and save its worst flailings for the Mississippi coast.

www.StopGlobalWarming.org

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

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Wednesday said:
Lucky for us down here--I was born in Miami. I didn't dislike Miami but I didn't like it either. I really like living in Pembroke Pines, though--it was only a Category 1 when it blew through.

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48 hours ago, reporters asked New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin what he intended to do about prisoners in the Orleans Parish Prison. He ignored the reporter, and apparently ignored the incarcerated. The inmates didn’t appreciate it.

Via ABC News:

Inmates at a prison in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans have rioted, attempted to escape and are now holding hostages, a prison commissioner told ABC News affiliate WBRZ in Baton Rouge, La.

Orleans Parish Prison Commissioner Oliver Thomas reported the incident to WBRZ.

A deputy at Orleans Parish Prison, his wife and their four children have been taken hostage by rioting prisoners after riding out Hurricane Katrina inside the jail building, according to WBRZ.

The estimated rioting prisoners and their hostages are approximately one mile northwest of the Louisiana Superdome where thousands of civilians are awaiting evacuations.

I hope the National Guard troops coordinating the evacuation of the Superdome are armed, or this could get even uglier than it already is.