How New Orleans Was Lost...

[Faeden]

sigh, so is Bush also to blame for the miles of devestation that isn't located at New Orleans?

Bush is also to blame for the boxing day tsunami, earthquakes in LA and the extinction of the dinosaurs

822224[/snapback]

OK now that is just .............. I do not think anyone has said that Bush is to blame for the devastation.

[JayRob303]

Give it time...

[bathory]

are the levies state or federal responsibility?

when did the supposed cuts occur?

would there have been enough time to strengthen the levies between now and when the cuts had occured?

what exactly is the percentage of national guardsmen from these states serving in Iraq?

how many helicopters would have been available had the iraq war not occured?

i can probably think of more unanswered questions this obviously biased article doesn't answer

[Grandpa Greenman]

Me_Again, I agree with you. When I watch what is going on in New Orleans and the surrounding area I wonder were is the army to end the chaos and help people. We are fighting two wars one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. The truth is that are our troops are stretched too thin.

I am not sure the city could have been saved, it is built in bad place. I have heard it may never be rebuilt. The thing is people are dieing there they need help. I guess we didn't learn anything from Andrew when people went without food or water for weeks.

We now have a million people that are homeless, out of work with little more that what is in the car or on their backs. We can't afford to continue to help the Iraqis, they are going to have to help themselves.

This is going to have ramification through out the country. Don't think so? Look at the price of gas. Soon the price of food will be affected. Look out kids things are going to get bad.

Edited September 2, 2005 by Darkwind

[Nameless]

Good thing he graciously gave up time from his vacation to deal with the problem.

[__Kratos__]

To me... this is all DISGUSTING how somebody would exploit the pain & suffering of this tragedy, just to say they are anti-war and their 15 minutes of fame.

Barf bag anybody?

[Faeden]

To me... this is all DISGUSTING how somebody would exploit the pain & suffering of this tragedy, just to say they are anti-war and their 15 minutes of fame. 

Barf bag anybody? 

822266[/snapback]

Kratos no one is doing that, but how Bush is dealing with this brings up some worrying issues, they should be said. People where saying on the news here why was bush grinning when he was giving a speech? I am not saying he finds it funny but it was brought up a lot on the news, perhaps he was just nervious?.

All the best

Faeden

Edited September 2, 2005 by Faeden

[Elysiumfire]

I seriously doubt that Bush needs any help from nature in order to be subjected to more blame. Where Bush is concerned I fall way short of my own empathic priciples, and I hate the bugger for it; I'm still reeling from the last election result!, for the Iraqis, that really was a disaster, for the terrorist, it was a joy to behold. Afterall, Bush has plowed the fields of hate and sowed the seeds of terrorism, the crop of which we have yet to harvest. How anyone can look at the lawless vacuum that is Iraq and say that the forced aid given to them was really a big help, is beyond my fathoming. I am sure the ghosts of the hundred thousand plus Iraqis are dancing with joy at their liberation from Saddam, pity they had to die in the process. What a total utter mess!

The people of New Orleans have suffered at the hands of nature, and perhaps, with the money used for the debacle in Iraq, the city might have been able to fortify its defenses? Perhaps, if the helicopters weren't in Iraq being shot down, people sitting out on the roofs of their homes in the city that was New Orleans, might be rescued sooner? Bush is to bloody blame, and that is the mantra I meditate to.

If global warming is a reality, what has happend to New Orleans will happen again and again. Hurricanes of greater intensity will hammer away at the East Coast until nature levels out, and that won't happen until we stop polluting and poisioning the only home we have. When asked about 'global warming', Bush claimed he had sent off for the leaflets, as the White House can be a bit nippy in winter. What a guy! What a pratt!

Regards

Elysiumfire

[JayRob303]

He's just putting on a confidant face, to lead us to believe the situation is under control...which currently, it isn't...however, I am sure that it will be dealt with.

Edited September 2, 2005 by JayRob303

[girty1600]

I wondered how long it would take before one man would be blamed for a natural disaster..... Not long.....

[bathory]

The people of New Orleans have suffered at the hands of nature, and perhaps, with the money used for the debacle in Iraq, the city might have been able to fortify its defenses? Perhaps, if the helicopters weren't in Iraq being shot down, people sitting out on the roofs of their homes in the city that was New Orleans, might be rescued sooner? Bush is to bloody blame, and that is the mantra I meditate to.

you do understand you have to prove that is the ccase in order for your point to be valid

anyone care to answer my list of questions too?

[Faeden]

Lets hope so Jayrob.

Bush is not to blame, but if this hurricane is because of global warming, then he is partly to blame, being he seems so unconcerned about it, and is in the most powerful position on the earth to do something about it, and he is a oil obsessed baron. But over all its the worlds responsibility, not just Bush, its also up to us as individuals to do our bit.

All the best

Faeden

[JayRob303]

Folks, even if Global Warming is the cause, and every person on the planet stopped driving vehicles that cause emmisions, women stopped using hairspray, etc... It's gonna take several lifetimes to reverse whatever damage has been done. Not to mention...hows this helping us now?

[Faeden]

Yes Jayrob But if we do not do nothing about it, its lights out humanity, its going to be hard turning back the damage, and we are going to need to make uncomfortable sacrifices, but id proffer that than destroying the whole earth, wouldn’t you?

Some people pretend its not happening, and hope that it will just get better if they put there heads in the sand.

We need to act now other wise all sh*tcreek is going to happen, and a lack of hairspray is going to be the last of our problems.

All the best

Faeden

[Me_Again]

Bush is not being blamed for the hurricane

Bush, who spent yesterday appearing across national television, will today visit the disaster zone on the ground. Some will say that it is already too late. And yes, his decision to return to Washington from his Texas ranch holiday two days after the disaster does leave him vulnerable. Image counts. But it is hardly the most damaging charge against him.

Similarly, he should be able to brush off the complaint that more should have been done to reinforce the levees. This is a long-standing grumble. It is hard to make a charge of unusual neglect stick on Bush.

But other accusations have more power to damage him. The charge that he has sent so many troops to Iraq that he has left the US unable to cope with natural disasters strikes at a very vulnerable point — the growing distaste of many Americans for the Iraq war.

Link

Would've, should've, could've...

[Nameless]

I wondered how long it would take before one man would be blamed for a natural disaster..... Not long.....

822286[/snapback]

We are not blaming Bush for what happened. It was a hurricane. But we are blaming Bush for what he doesn't do. It doesn't seem like he is doing much to save the sick and feed the hungry.

[The Caspian Hare]

Most of the Louisiana NG wasn't even mobilized before the storm. The Iraq deployments didn't make any difference.

Then there is the swirl of accusations against Bush now taking shape. Democrats in Congress have blamed him for diverting funds to homeland defence that should have been used to shore up New Orleans’s sinking levees.

That's the most ridiculous thing I've read here all day. Yeah, I'll bet Bush just plucked a wad of cash right out of the envelope marked "New Orleans leevee" and stuck it into one marked "neo-con plots."

[TraJikMaJik]

Most of the Louisiana NG wasn't even mobilized before the storm. The Iraq deployments didn't make any difference.

Then there is the swirl of accusations against Bush now taking shape. Democrats in Congress have blamed him for diverting funds to homeland defence that should have been used to shore up New Orleans’s sinking levees.

That's the most ridiculous thing I've read here all day. Yeah, I'll bet Bush just plucked a wad of cash right out of the envelope marked "New Orleans leevee" and stuck it into one marked "neo-con plots."

822453[/snapback]

No, But I bet when a bill came across his desk that said, "Fix New Orleans Levee" 30,000,000 dollars. He marked off that as expendable, and transfered that 30,000,000 available funds, into an Iraqi war account.. Hehe, Bush has an Iraqi war bank account.

Edited September 2, 2005 by TraJikMaJik

[bathory]

Levees not designed for Katrina-strength storm, official says

BY PETE CAREY

Knight Ridder Newspapers

(KRT) - The levee system that protected New Orleans from hurricane-caused surges along Lake Pontchartrain was never designed to survive a storm the size of Hurricane Katrina, the Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday.

The levees were built to withstand only a Category 3 storm, something projections suggested would strike New Orleans only once every two or three centuries, the commander of the corps, Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, told reporters in a conference call. Katrina was a Category 4 storm.

"Unfortunately, that occurred in this case," Strock said.

Strock said that the levee system's design was settled on a quarter of a century ago, before the current numerical system of classifying storms was in widespread use. He said that studies had begun recently on strengthening the system to protect against Category 4 and 5 hurricanes, but hadn't progressed very far.

Strock added that despite a May report by the Corps' Louisiana district that a lack of federal funding had slowed construction of hurricane protection, nothing the Corps could have done recently would have prevented Katrina from flooding New Orleans.

"The levee projects that failed were at full project design and were not really going to be improved," Strock said.

Strock's comments drew immediate criticism from flood-protection advocates, who said that the Corps' May report was a call for action and a complaint about insufficient funding, and that no action took place.

"The Corps knew, everybody knew, that the levees had limited capability," said Joseph N. Suhayda, a retired director of the Louisiana State University's Water Resources and Research Institute. "Because of exercises and simulations, we knew that the consequences of overtopping (water coming over the levees) would be disastrous. People were playing with matches in the fireworks factory and it went off."

Suhayda, an expert in coastal oceanography, said, "the fact the levee failed is not according to design. If it was overtopped, it's because it was lower in that spot than other spots. The fact that it was only designed for a Category 3 meant it was going to get overtopped. I knew that. They knew that. There were limits."

Some critics Thursday questioned the usefulness of levees, saying that all of them fail eventually.

"There are lots of ways for levees to fail. Overtopping is just one of them," said Michael K. Lindell, of Texas A&M University's Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center. "There's a lot of smokescreen about `low probabilities.' Low probabilities just means `Takes a long time.'''

Strock said that stopping the flow of water over the levees has proved to be "a very challenging effort."

Engineers have been unable to reach the levees themselves and have had to draw up plans based only on observations from the air, he said. "We, too, are victims in this situation," he said.

In Louisiana, Army Corps officials said they hoped that one break, in what's known as the 17th Street Canal, might be closed by the end of Thursday, but that a second break in the London Avenue canal is proving more intractable.

Short sections of the walls that protected the city from the waters of Lake Pontchartrain caved in under storm surges, including an area that recently had been strengthened.

A fact sheet issued by the Corps in May said that seven construction projects in New Orleans had been stalled for lack of funding. It noted that the budget proposed by President Bush for 2005 was $3 million and termed that amount insufficient to fund new construction contracts.

"We could spend $20 million if the funds were provided," the fact sheet said. Two major pump stations needed to be protected against hurricane storm surges, the fact sheet said, but the budgets for 2005 and 2006 "will prevent the corps from addressing these pressing needs."

Acknowledging delays in construction, Corps officials in Louisiana said that those projects weren't where the failures occurred. "They did not contribute to the flooding of the city," said Al Naomi, a senior project manager.

"The design was not adequate to protect against a storm of this nature," he said. "We were not authorized to provide protection to Category 4 or 5 design."

Source: KRT Wire

Well it would appear the initial article is clueless and nothing more than attempt to politicize the disaster to score a few cheap and easy points against Bush

[bathory]

Senate OKs $10.5 billion disaster bill

Hastert comments on rebuilding irk Louisiana governor

Thursday, September 1, 2005; Posted: 11:10 p.m. EDT (03:10 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Senate convened in special session Thursday night and approved a $10.5 billion disaster relief request from the Bush administration to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Only a few Senate leaders were required to approve the measure by voice vote. The House is expected to do the same when it takes up the matter Friday.

In the meantime, Speaker Dennis Hastert took some heat Thursday for questioning whether flood-stricken New Orleans should be rebuilt as it once was. (Full story)

The Bush administration asked Congress for $10 billion in additional funds for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and another $500 million for the Pentagon for its hurricane relief work, said White House budget chief Josh Bolten.

FEMA has been spending $500 million a day on disaster relief and had about $2.5 billion remaining in its disaster relief fund for the remainder of the fiscal year, Bolten said.

"We therefore felt it was prudent not to wait until next week when the Congress returns to make this request but to ensure that there would be no disruption and no uncertainty about funding," he said.

Katrina is believed to have killed more than 180 people on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and thousands are feared dead in New Orleans and its surrounding parishes.

Most of New Orleans was flooded when two of the levees that keep water out of the city, which is largely below sea level, failed in the wake of the storm.

In an interview Wednesday with the Daily Herald, a suburban newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, Hastert questioned whether it made sense to spend billions of dollars to rebuild a city "that's 7 feet under water."

"It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed," said the Illinois Republican.

"Your heart goes out to the people," Hastert told the paper. "But there are some real tough questions to ask. How do you go about rebuilding this city? What precautions do you take?

"When the electricity goes out and everything else goes out -- you don't have the pumps to pump it out either. Because it doesn't work either."

Hastert said he thought the issue merited a second look. "But you know we build Los Angeles and San Francisco on top of earthquake fissures, and they rebuild too. Stubbornness," he said.

Hastert's office later issued what his aides called a clarification of his remarks insisting he was not calling for the city to be abandoned or relocated.

But Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco made it clear she wanted more than just a clarification from the speaker.

"To destroy hope when hope is all we have left -- I demand an immediate apology," she said.

Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, whose father was a longtime mayor of New Orleans, said the city and its surrounding parishes are not just "worth saving, but they are worth every penny of a complete rebuilding effort."

She said Hastert "raises a debate that we can address at some time in the future. Right now, however, we have important work to do."

"My comments about rebuilding the city were intended to reflect my sincere concern with how the city is rebuilt to ensure the future protection of its citizens and not to suggest that this great and historic city should not be rebuilt," the statement said.

Bolten said Hastert's comments did not come up when President Bush spoke to congressional leaders about the disaster aid bill.

Bolten said the $10.5 billion was a "rough calculation" of what was needed for the first phase of relief efforts.

"Something that our folks on the ground have told us is that it's almost impossible to gauge what will be necessary to achieve recovery in New Orleans until it's basically drained out," he said.

CNN's Ted Barrett contributed to this report.

Source: CNN

This is why its taking time to get aid out there, blame democracy:P

[Essan]

Although the intensity of Katrina was down to the unusually high water temperatures in the Gulf, there's no reason to suppose this was a direct consequence of global warming.

We're are currently in the active period of a multi-decadal cycle of hurricane activity, so the frequyency and size of current storms is entirely within meteorological expectations. So again, nothing to indicate GW is to blame.

Unfortunately, despite the probablity (though by no means certainty) that a Cat 4 or 5 storm would hit the New Orleans areas sooner or later, the levees protecting the city were only designed to withstand the storm surge associated with at, most a CAT 3 storm. It would have cost tens of millions to improve them. And that's why NO fell: because no-one wants to pay more taxes to provide better defences against a storm that might not happen.

And as for the rescue operation: I guess no-one expected the need for experienced, heavily armed, soldiers to protect the aid supplies and rescue vehicles from violent, armed mobs. Somalia maybe. But America?

[Rhomphaia]

Jesus Jumped-Up Christ!

Is this what our society boils down to nowadays? Are we that concerned with placing blame for a disaster, or the response to it, that we are turning a blind eye to those that need help RIGHT THE **** NOW?

Sorry to blow up here, but I have had just about enough of people trying to find some way to blame our president when there are people dying in the heat and when someone goes out to try and find food, they have to push floating bodies out of the way. It makes me sick that this society is so fricking blame-happy that we can't concentrate on trying to help or save people who might not make it until tommorrow, but instead we start pointing fingers.

Anyone who does crap like that are just as bad as the people looting, beating people, and terrorizing the populace down there. In my opinion, anyone who points a finger instead of helping or even shutting the hell up needs that finger broken.

[jeceris]

Jesus Jumped-Up Christ!

Is this what our society boils down to nowadays? Are we that concerned with placing blame for a disaster, or the response to it, that we are turning a blind eye to those that need help RIGHT THE **** NOW?

Sorry to blow up here, but I have had just about enough of people trying to find some way to blame our president when there are people dying in the heat and when someone goes out to try and find food, they have to push floating bodies out of the way. It makes me sick that this society is so fricking blame-happy that we can't concentrate on trying to help or save people who might not make it until tommorrow, but instead we start pointing fingers.

Anyone who does crap like that are just as bad as the people looting, beating people, and terrorizing the populace down there. In my opinion, anyone who points a finger instead of helping or even shutting the hell up needs that finger broken.

822872[/snapback]

man, how do people like you JUST NOT GET IT!!!

i've been reading some of your posts on the other threads, and if you stand other opinions and thoughts on what the problems are, then don't read them.

it's not pointing fingers, it's criticism of a system that is supposed to work, falling apart.

NO ONE here has said bush is to blame for the hurricane, you simpleton.

hurricanes happen we know that.

but we are as part of society allowed to question those in charge when they screw up and your president is letting his own people down when they need him the most.

if i could go down there, and start sandbagging, or getting food and water to those who need it, without being shot at, i would.

but because of the failure of the system that is supposed to be in place to protect you in the event of a natural disaster, i cannot, and you cannot.

pointing out the mistakes and problems is the only way to prevent it from happening again.

but you would prefer keep quiet, and let it happen again.

that silence would be more distructive, than the non-existant help arriving in new orleans right now

[smallpackage]

sigh, so is Bush also to blame for the miles of devestation that isn't located at New Orleans?

Bush is also to blame for the boxing day tsunami, earthquakes in LA and the extinction of the dinosaurs

822224[/snapback]

Did you even read the article at all?

Read it, Then reply...

Since joc has been spoon fed to the point where his stomach can be used as a large pillow, I don't see a real purpose in a debate here. Theres also 2 other topics that he can spruce up.

[snuffypuffer]

I have a crazy idea. And it may just work, it's so out there with it's zaniness. Why doesn't everyone here just shut the **** up and donate some time or money to helping these folks out?

Laying blame is pointless, the situation is what it is, and all this bickering does nothing to help anything. All you're doing is making noise.