Judge: Army Corps' negligence caused Katrina flooding

[FORD]

Judge: Corps' negligence caused Katrina flooding


NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal judge has ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers' failure to properly maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding by Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast in 2005.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval late Wednesday ruled in favor of residents who alleged the Army Corps' shoddy oversight of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet led to the flooding of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward and neighboring St. Bernard Parish.

Many in Katrina have argued that Katrina, which struck the region Aug. 29, 2005, was a manmade disaster caused by the Army Corps' failure to maintain the levee system protecting the city.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[Big Train]

The negligence hardly started under "Chimpy's" (how dare they speak badly about the office of the president...Pick a path Ford) watch.

[FORD]

The BCE cut the funding. Then they sent the guys who should have fixed the levees to Iraq for no goddamn reason. Chimp certainly deserves a lot of the blame.

[Big Train]

They cut funding that was already at anemic levels. Clinton could have fixed it, Bush Sr, Reagan , Carter and Ford. None of them did.

[ELVIS]

Dude, New Orleans, Louisiana and the Federal Government knew this area was a disaster waiting to happen for over fifty years and more!

There are TV documentaries reporting the eminent danger from the early 60's...

The corrupt local government of the time refused (for years) to do anything about the problem and chose to look the other way...

The city is below sea level and that has been known since it was built. Thank God for Jindall. He's honest and is actually doing something about it. We don't need the Federal Government to fix our state and no state should...

The federal Government is ultimately the problem...

[Nickdfresh]

Dude, New Orleans, Louisiana and the Federal Government knew this area was a disaster waiting to happen for over fifty years and more!

There are TV documentaries reporting the eminent danger from the early 60's...

The corrupt local government of the time refused (for years) to do anything about the problem and chose to look the other way...

The city is below sea level and that has been known since it was built. Thank God for Jindall. He's honest and is actually doing something about it. We don't need the Federal Government to fix our state and no state should...

The federal Government is ultimately the problem...

Yeah, 'cause local and state Louisiana gov'ts are a the paradigm of efficiency. And as for Gov. "Kennith" Jindall--hindsight is easy. I'm sure he's reasonably effective, but that doesn't mean he'd of done any better that anyone else prior to, and during, the hurricane. And I think it was Al Franken that said that, "conservatives like to piss and moan that (federal) government doesn't work, and then prove it when they take control of said gov't..." (sic)

And it was reported shortly after the Katrina catastrophe that the draining of funds intensified during the run up to the Gulf War II. There was an article here I posted from the Times-Picayune I can sadly no longer find...

[Mushroom]

The BCE cut the funding. Then they sent the guys who should have fixed the levees to Iraq for no goddamn reason. Chimp certainly deserves a lot of the blame.

Ford you're letting your emotions cloud you judgement. Blame it on Chimpy? Fuck no, I blame it on the Army Corp. and the State of Lousiana, and the Louisiana National Guard, and then Bush and his FEMA appointee.

99% of the Army Corp is civilian. there are upwards of 36,000 civilian employees. there was no shortage of manpower. what really went to Iraq was the money. and you can blame democrats and republicans in congress, and BCE for that..

If Chimpy decided in 2001 to allocate funds to New Orleans for levees, it still would have taken years to fix a "Big" 'Old Problem' and Katrina would still be a sizeable disaster.

[Guitar Shark]

The BCE cut the funding.

Ignoring the fact that you keep referring to a fictitious "BCE", certainly you are aware that Congress holds the power of the purse, not the executive branch.

[FORD]

Well, I hate to turn this into a he said, she said thing, but...

Budget cuts delayed New Orleans flood control work
01 Sep 2005 23:19:07 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Bush administration funding cuts forced federal engineers to delay improvements on the levees, floodgates and pumping stations that failed to protect New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters, agency documents showed on Thursday.

The former head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that handles the infrastructure of the nation's waterways, said the damage in New Orleans probably would have been much less extensive had flood-control efforts been fully funded over the years.

"Levees would have been higher, levees would have been bigger, there would have been other pumps put in," said Mike Parker, a former Mississippi congressman who headed the engineering agency from 2001 to 2002.

"I'm not saying it would have been totally alleviated but it would have been less than the damage that we have got now."

Eighty percent of New Orleans was under water after Katrina blew through with much of the flooding coming after two levees broke.

A May 2005 Corps memo said that funding levels for fiscal years 2005 and 2006 would not be enough to pay for new construction on the levees.

Agency officials said on Thursday in a conference call that delayed work was not related to the breakdown in the levee system and Parker told Reuters the funding problems could not be blamed on the Bush administration alone.

Parker said a project dating to 1965 remains unfinished and that any recent projects would not have been in place by the time the hurricane struck even if they had been fully funded.

"If we do stuff now it's not going to have an effect tomorrow," Parker said. "These projects are huge, they're expensive and they're not sexy."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the administration had funded flood control efforts adequately.

Tensions over funding for the New Orleans levees emerged more than a year ago when a local official asserted money had been diverted to pay for the Iraq war. In early 2002, Parker told the U.S. Congress that the war on terrorism required spending cuts elsewhere in government.

Situated below sea level, New Orleans relied on a 300-mile (483 km) network of levees, floodgates and pumps to hold back the waters of the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain.

Levees were fortified after floods in 1927 and 1965, and Congress approved another ambitious upgrade after a 1995 flood killed six people.

Since 2001, the Army Corps has requested $496 million for that project but the Bush administration only budgeted $166 million, according to figures provided by the office of Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu.

Congress ultimately approved $250 million for the project during that time period.

Another project designed to shore up defenses along Lake Pontchartrain was similarly underfunded, as the administration budgeted $22 million of the $99 million requested by the Corps between 2001 and 2005. Congress boosted spending on that project to $42.5 million, according to Landrieu's office.

"It's clear that we didn't do everything we could to safeguard ourselves from this hurricane or from a natural disaster such as Katrina but hopefully we will learn and be more prepared next time," said Landrieu spokesman Brian Richardson.

The levee defenses had been designed to withstand a milder Category Three hurricane and simply were overwhelmed by Hurricane Katrina, said senior project manager Al Naomi.

"The design was not adequate to protect against a storm of this nature because we were not authorized to provide a Category Four or Five protection design," he said.

A study examining a possible upgrade is under way, he said.

Link

I can tell you without reservation, that the funding cuts were caused by the GULF WAR II. Many ACOE projects have been paired down.

Some seem to have short memories around here.... good thing I could dig this up from an old thread

[Mushroom]

unfinsihed projects since 1965? we should be blaming the Army Corp and Every President going back to Eisenhower. It's ludicrous to point fingers only at Chimpy and Republicans.

It's going to be the same story after the much-anticipated "Big One" hits San Francisco, and we will hear similar responses.... "It's clear that we didn't do everything we could to safeguard ourselves from this 'Earthquake' or from a natural disaster... but hopefully we will learn and be more prepared next time..."

[FORD]

unfinsihed projects since 1965? we should be blaming the Army Corp and Every President going back to Eisenhower. It's ludicrous to point fingers only at Chimpy and Republicans.

It's going to be the same story after the much-anticipated "Big One" hits San Francisco, and we will hear similar responses.... "It's clear that we didn't do everything we could to safeguard ourselves from this 'Earthquake' or from a natural disaster... but hopefully we will learn and be more prepared next time..."

And California has had a lot of Repuke governors, including one absent minded jelly bean junkie, and a washed up action hero. Go figure.....

[Big Train]

Or the fact that it is next to impossible to get any real business done in San Francisco not related to tech.