New Orleans a Harbinger of What's To Come?

[LoungeMachine]

I have no cut-n-paste to post.

I have no great answers or insights.

I'm just sick.


I'm sick from watching my country's "leaders" play golf, guitar, and go shopping while their FEMA and Homeland Security Chiefs lie and try and shift blame.

9/11 was 4 YEARS AGO.

THIS is the BEST we can do for our own people????????

I'm sick to DEATH of hearing the sheep prattle on about "no one could have predicted......blah, blah, blah"

BULLSHIT.

Many DID predict this. Furthermore, it has also been predicted that we are going to be hit AGAIN by "terrorists"

If they hit a major dam, will it takes DAYS for help to arrive?

Wake up sheeple. We should be ashamed of this administration even more than before. They are NOT ready to protect us, or help us in a state od disaster.

They WILL however, find time to golf, among other things.

The Michael and Michael show is DESPICABLE.

THEY SHOULD BOTH BE FIRED [ neither should have ever been HIRED ]

Instead, they will probably be given Medals of Freedom

What FEMA and DOHS have done is SHOW THE WORLD that we are NOT ready for another attack.

WHAT THE FUCK HAVE WE BEEN DOING FOR THE LAST 4 YEARS THEN?????????


I'm sick.

I'm sick for my country, sick for my fellow man, and sick of these "leaders" we have.

:mad:

[Nitro Express]

Let's go back to Sept. 11. That disaster happened because we did nothing since the bombing of the World Trade Center in the 90's. Now I'm not going to blame Bush or Clinton. I'm not going to make things partisan. But one thing that is clear here is America gets all sorts of warning signs and we do nothing.

9/11 should have been motivation enough to have iron clad security and emergency response. The borders are open as ever. The federal emergency response is a sad joke.

I'm also looking at our country long-term. We don't manufacture anything. Did you know the US right now even runs a trade deficite with Mexico? In short, we have to import things. If we do get into a major world war and the way the world is going, that is a real possibility, how are we going to make the needed equipment?

Another crisis I see is people aren't as civil as they used to be. I'm in the real estate business and I'm amazed at how screwed up people are now. How much they lie. I tottaly got out of residential real estate because my buildings were getting trashed and I had to hammer the rent out of people. This was not low income housing. These were nice upper middle class rentals.

Now look at how many people in New Orleans behaved during this disaster. Shameful.

We can blame our politicians and they should be called out but I'm afraid we are rotting at the individual and family level. America in many ways is falling apart.

One thing for certain, global warming is here. Also, the magnetic flux of the earths core is starting to shift. The global warming is partly due to the magnetic shift. The result is more volcanic erruptions and earthquakes. More global warming resulting in higher intensity storms. Katrina was one of an ever increasing amount of large hurricanes.

The religiouse people are saying the bible says this will happen. The non-Christian crowd are saying, man has caused it with his pollutants. Even the theory on what causes these disassters has divided us.

I look at New Orleans and wonder if we really did accomplish much with the civil rights movement. My kids have sevral black friends. They don't even notice the color difference, they are just other kids to play with. My parents weren't prejudice. My grandad paid his black workmen the same as he did whites. Something not too common in the 40's and 50's. But people of my grandparents era sure had more predudice tendancies. It's kind of nice that some of that has desolved.

Now I look at this black mayor of New Orleans and Jesse Jackson and people like them. They are bringing the prejudice back by declaring the white people hate black people. That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard. It's shameful. Their blame only make the whites mad and if this shit keeps up, we are back to the early 1960's again.

I look at how inept the population is. In short, this country isn't a team anymore. It's everyone doing their own thing trying to screw the other guy. We are so busy fucking each other up the ass we forgot Islamic terrorists and their allies have a giant dildo with no lube for us. It really is one fuck fest. Maybe John the Revelator was right. Maybe we will degenerate into one big fuckfest that is so horrid, Christ will burn us all up and rapture the small percentage of good people left. Who knows. All I know is we have fallen a long way in a short amount of time.

[ashstralia]

lounge, while i understand your indignation,

i think a big problem for you guys is fema.

our country has ses, state emergency service,

and they are localised and ready to roll 24/7.

my town was built on a swamp; sugar and bananas are our main

primary industry. we get a biggish flood about every 3 years,

and a really big one every 30 or so.

my point is that having a LOCAL emergency service,

and a plan and equipment to back up what is going to be

a LOCAL emergency, beats the shit outta having a FEDERAL

agency to deal with. now, we're unlikely to have to deal with

a new orleans sized situation in my lifetime, but never say never, ya know?

in my view, the louisiana gov't dropped the ball on the disaster.

like you said, people knew this would fucking happen!!!

they should have been trucking in supplies, and moving people to higher ground

days before katrina arrived. and where i live, that's a state responsibility.

[ashstralia]

Originally posted by Nitro Express
Let's go back to Sept. 11. That disaster happened because we did nothing since the bombing of the World Trade Center in the 90's. Now I'm not going to blame Bush or Clinton. I'm not going to make things partisan. But one thing that is clear here is America gets all sorts of warning signs and we do nothing.

9/11 should have been motivation enough to have iron clad security and emergency response. The borders are open as ever. The federal emergency response is a sad joke.

I'm also looking at our country long-term. We don't manufacture anything. Did you know the US right now even runs a trade deficite with Mexico? In short, we have to import things. If we do get into a major world war and the way the world is going, that is a real possibility, how are we going to make the needed equipment?

Another crisis I see is people aren't as civil as they used to be. I'm in the real estate business and I'm amazed at how screwed up people are now. How much they lie. I tottaly got out of residential real estate because my buildings were getting trashed and I had to hammer the rent out of people. This was not low income housing. These were nice upper middle class rentals.

Now look at how many people in New Orleans behaved during this disaster. Shameful.

We can blame our politicians and they should be called out but I'm afraid we are rotting at the individual and family level. America in many ways is falling apart.

One thing for certain, global warming is here. Also, the magnetic flux of the earths core is starting to shift. The global warming is partly due to the magnetic shift. The result is more volcanic erruptions and earthquakes. More global warming resulting in higher intensity storms. Katrina was one of an ever increasing amount of large hurricanes.

The religiouse people are saying the bible says this will happen. The non-Christian crowd are saying, man has caused it with his pollutants. Even the theory on what causes these disassters has divided us.

I look at New Orleans and wonder if we really did accomplish much with the civil rights movement. My kids have sevral black friends. They don't even notice the color difference, they are just other kids to play with. My parents weren't prejudice. My grandad paid his black workmen the same as he did whites. Something not too common in the 40's and 50's. But people of my grandparents era sure had more predudice tendancies. It's kind of nice that some of that has desolved.

Now I look at this black mayor of New Orleans and Jesse Jackson and people like them. They are bringing the prejudice back by declaring the white people hate black people. That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard. It's shameful. Their blame only make the whites mad and if this shit keeps up, we are back to the early 1960's again.

I look at how inept the population is. In short, this country isn't a team anymore. It's everyone doing their own thing trying to screw the other guy. We are so busy fucking each other up the ass we forgot Islamic terrorists and their allies have a giant dildo with no lube for us. It really is one fuck fest. Maybe John the Revelator was right. Maybe we will degenerate into one big fuckfest that is so horrid, Christ will burn us all up and rapture the small percentage of good people left. Who knows. All I know is we have fallen a long way in a short amount of time.


fuck, who needs cut n paste?

great post, nitro.

[LoungeMachine]

I couldn't agree more.....

[Nickdfresh]

There was no coordination here between local, state, and federal. But I blame the Feds the most, because that's where my money goes...And a lot of it's going to IRAQ. We spend $419BILLION a year on defense, the next biggest spender is RUSSIA with $65B....

The Dept. of Homeland Security (http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interapp/press_release/press_release_0541.xml)/FEMA gets $28.9B a year! That's more than some governments total budgets...Where does all the money go?


What a sad joke that this happened...

[diamondD]

This was a fuckup from the mayor's level up. Between him and the governor, the feds were unable to do anything. And then the feds didn't do near as good a job as should be expected of them.


I think it's becoming more and more obvious to the people of New Orleans and LA that they elected politicians, and not leaders.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by diamondD
This was a fuckup from the mayor's level up. Between him and the governor, the feds were unable to do anything. And then the feds didn't do near as good a job as should be expected of them.


I think it's becoming more and more obvious to the people of New Orleans and LA that they elected politicians, and not leaders.

But so did you...
http://www.rotharmy.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=684035

[jacksmar]

Hmm.. don't see the Bush connection to the mayor's office.

"Housing has now vaulted to the forefront of the Nagin agenda. Other priorities for the near future include police recruiting and crime reduction; developing a "proactive" street repair strategy; economic development projects; a citywide cleanliness campaign; a 100-bed methadone clinic to attack the heroin epidemic; reform of the mayoral and City Council professional service contracts systems; minority business development; a new personal computer on every desk at City Hall; and a $10 million pay raise for city employees."

http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2002-08-27/commentary.html

In 2004, the priority was, "In New Orleans, we need to develop a museum that would be set aside to honor the civil rights movement,"
Not a mayor's quote, but an example of "priorities".

[Warham]

Liberals want to bypass the inept mayor and lackadaisical governor and put the majority of blame on Bush. What a shock.

[diamondD]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
But so did you...
http://www.rotharmy.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=684035

But by all accounts, Bush mostly followed the standard procedures for this type of emergency.

The mayor let buses sit idle that could have carried people out of town. The mayor told them to go to the Superdome and didn't provide any kind of security.

The governor refused to turn it over to the feds when it was time to.

Quit being blinded by your hatred of Bush. I'm definitely not so blind as to think he doesn't do stuff I disagree with.

But, Bush... But, Bush... please. :rolleyes: Everyone fucked up here.

[FORD]

Originally posted by Warham
Conservatives want to bypass the inept horse groomer and lackadaisical election fixing lawyer and put the majority of blame on Democrats. What a shock.

[Warham]

Originally posted by FORD


If the shoe fits...

[Guitar Shark]

diamondD, weren't you arguing yesterday that the blame game doesn't help matters? ;)

[FORD]

The Busheep are falling for the KKKarl Rove spin game as usual.

The simple fact is that federal funds were allocated to fix this problem, and those funds were cut by the BCE so they would have more money for their illegal war.

Even if this had been 1942, and the war were neccessary, the BCE would still be responsible for the budget cuts which led to the disaster, though under those circumstances, people might be more forgiving of them. But in this case, an already sickening lie of a war which has killed nearly 2000 Americans and 100,000 Iraqis can now add the thousands of dead in New Orleans to that total.

[diamondD]

Originally posted by Guitar Shark
diamondD, weren't you arguing yesterday that the blame game doesn't help matters? ;)

I still say it doesn't help. But I didn't start this thread either did I? ;)


It seems that's the main topic in here, who to blame and who to ignore the facts about.

[ELVIS]

That bullshit is just not true...

[ELVIS]

I was referring to FORD's last bullshit post...

[scamper]

Do they have anykind of a body count started for New Orleans yet?

[ELVIS]

Not really...

[Guitar Shark]

Originally posted by diamondD
I still say it doesn't help. But I didn't start this thread either did I? ;)


It seems that's the main topic in here, who to blame and who to ignore the facts about.

I know, just keeping you on your toes. ;)

FORD, my understanding is that people have been talking about reinforcing the levees in NO since the 90s, if not before. Don't place all of your blame on the "BCE."

[ELVIS]

Reinforcing the levees has been a local government issue since the hurricanes in the 60's...

Blaming it on the BCE is a new low for FORD...

As much as he hates Bush, he knows better...

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by ELVIS
Reinforcing the levees has been a local government issue since the hurricanes in the 60's...

Blaming it on the BCE is a new low for FORD...

As much as he hates Bush, he knows better...

I'm not saying it's all BUSH's fault. But budget cuts HAVE led to a failure to shore up the levees. Why the fuck do we have a Army Corp of Engineers if they're going to be undermined?

It's like blaming a crime wave on the police dept. after you've gutted their budget.

[ELVIS]

It's a local political issue of the corrupt Louisiana polititians...

Nothing to do with federal funding...

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by ELVIS
.....

Nothing to do with federal funding...

WHO DO YOU THINK FUNDS THIS SORT OF THING???

THE ARMY CORP OF ENGINEERS!!

Here, I'll repost the article...

Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen? 'Times-Picayune' Had Repeatedly Raised Federal Spending Issues

By Will Bunch

Published: August 31, 2005 9:00 PM ET

PHILADELPHIA Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city, the waters may still keep rising in New Orleans. That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal. With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until it's level with the massive lake.

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.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet 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."

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:

"That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. 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.

One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer: a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on Monday.

The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. ... In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."

Local officials are now saying, the article reported, that had Washington heeded their warnings about the dire need for hurricane protection, including building up levees and repairing barrier islands, "the damage might not have been nearly as bad as it turned out to be."

Will Bunch (letters@editorandpublisher.com) is senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 when he reported for Newsday. Much of this article also appears on his blog, Attytood, at the Daily News.

Link (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313)

[jacksmar]

Uh... ok.

What did they do with the bucks they had for this shit in the 90's?

A little closer to my home.
http://www.baynews9.com/content/36/2005/9/7/117128.html

New Orleans at its finest.
:elvis:

[stringfelowhawk]

I won't place the blame on Bush alone but anyone who tries to rationalize that their coastline is the states responsibility is not familiar with the way our government was set up to run by that group of people who decided to break away from England.
Its not JUST his fault though. The mayor and the governor could have done ALOT more than they did. They are responsible for using the money they DID receive for something, even if it was just for gas in all those damn buses that were just sitting there. Yeah! I know it wasn't enough to buy a Snickers. They didn't have enough to start any new projects is one thing and I understand that but as soon as they KNEW Katrina was definately gonna hit them they could have spent that little bit of change to try and evacuate more people than they did. If you're gonna say that would be illegal, you'd be right, but who's gonna prosecute them for saving lives by doing it? It would have at least looked like they were trying. They FUCKING WAITED to get hit and it would not surprise me if that wasn't politically motivated to prove how vulnerable New Orleans really was. Cause bitching, complaining, computer models, experts, and lack of cash sure as hell wasn't enough to convince anyone to take it seriously. They can't say that now. He's right. They CAN NOT say they didn't see it coming. Most of the evacuation planning and acting once they realized they were ground zero is squarely on the state but the money they needed to try to lessen the chances of this very thing from happening rests with the federal government for not providing the necessary funds. If you think someone would have been in jail for using that change to save people then you have to say the federal government should be put on trial for doing that very same thing by diverting funds away from those levee projects to fight HIS war.

[Keeyth]

Yep.

[ELVIS]

What was done about the problem during the Clinton Administration ??

[DLR'sCock]

Originally posted by FORD
The Busheep are falling for the KKKarl Rove spin game as usual.

The simple fact is that federal funds were allocated to fix this problem, and those funds were cut by the BCE so they would have more money for their illegal war.

Even if this had been 1942, and the war were neccessary, the BCE would still be responsible for the budget cuts which led to the disaster, though under those circumstances, people might be more forgiving of them. But in this case, an already sickening lie of a war which has killed nearly 2000 Americans and 100,000 Iraqis can now add the thousands of dead in New Orleans to that total.


It is as simple as this. Two Levees gave way because they obvioulsy needed repair and were in a weakened state, and they didn't get repaired because the monies were cut every year. What was the figure? $446 million was supposed to be allocated to the Hurricane Levee Project, but they only receieved $168 million since 2001? If you don't have the money to do the maintenance and repair work, how does it get done? Where did that money? Iraq and Homeland Security, who BTW oversee FEMA.

[Keeyth]

Originally posted by DLR'sCock
It is as simple as this. Two Levees gave way because they obvioulsy needed repair and were in a weakened state, and they didn't get repaired because the monies were cut every year. What was the figure? $446 million was supposed to be allocated to the Hurricane Levee Project, but they only receieved $168 million since 2001? If you don't have the money to do the maintenance and repair work, how does it get done? Where did that money? Iraq and Homeland Security, who BTW oversee FEMA.

Actually the levees were only designed to handle a catagory 3 Hurricane, not a catagory 5. They knew this, but did not want to spend the money on it as it was not deemed "cost effective".

So now they have to spend billions... ...smart, huh?

[LoungeMachine]

Forget "dirty bombs" or jets into skyscrapers.

They only need to hit a dam.

Standing Water = The New WMD

[FORD]

Originally posted by Guitar Shark
I know, just keeping you on your toes. ;)

FORD, my understanding is that people have been talking about reinforcing the levees in NO since the 90s, if not before. Don't place all of your blame on the "BCE."

What I'm saying is that there were specific funds allocated to the Army Corps of Engineers to deal with this specific problem, and that those funds were specifically cut by the BCE in order to divert the money to the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. And this was AFTER a FEMA study ranked the likelihood of a devastating hurricane in New Orleans to be equal to that of a terrorist attackin New York City which as we all know, also happenned in recent memory.

The third scenario on that list is for the "Big One" to hit San Francisco. (Mezro, if you're reading this, you might want to look at those odds) Considering Jeb has already proclaimed the citizens of SF "an endangered species", I wonder what federal projects will get cut there. Or what state projects they'll force Herr Gropenator to cut?

[LoungeMachine]

The Neo Cons want to shift blame to local authorities, and if I were in their shoes with the administration looking more incompetent by the day, I wouldn't blame them.

But.

Is it, or is it NOT the....


FEDERAL [ as in national ]

EMERGENCY [ as in cat. 5 hurricanes ]

MANAGEMENT [ as in oversee, prepare for, and take charge]

AGENCY [ as in OUR agents looking out for US ]



If not NOW, when ?

If not THERE, where?



What good is having a "FEMA" is you're just using it to reward your cronies with no experience in Federal, Emergency, or Management [unless you count horses]????????