The Day a City Died
by KevinAugust 29th, 2006
Then:
11AM CDT — MICHAEL BROWN FINALLY REQUESTS THAT DHS DISPATCH 1,000 EMPLOYEES TO REGION, GIVES THEM TWO DAYS TO ARRIVE: “Brown’s memo to Chertoff described Katrina as ‘this near catastrophic event’ but otherwise lacked any urgent language. The memo politely ended, ‘Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities.’” [AP]
LATE MORNING – LEVEE BREACHED: “A large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee, where it connects to the brand new ‘hurricane proof’ Old Hammond Highway bridge, gave way late Monday morning in Bucktown after Katrina’s fiercest winds were well north.” [Times-Picayune]
11AM CDT — BUSH VISITS ARIZONA RESORT TO PROMOTE MEDICARE DRUG BENEFIT: “This new bill I signed says, if you’re a senior and you like the way things are today, you’re in good shape, don’t change. But, by the way, there’s a lot of different options for you. And we’re here to talk about what that means to our seniors.” [White House]
4:30PM CDT — BUSH TRAVELS TO CALIFORNIA SENIOR CENTER TO DISCUSS MEDICARE DRUG BENEFIT: “We’ve got some folks up here who are concerned about their Social Security or Medicare. Joan Geist is with us. … I could tell — she was looking at me when I first walked in the room to meet her, she was wondering whether or not old George W. is going to take away her Social Security check.” [White House]
8PM CDT — RUMSFELD ATTENDS SAN DIEGO PADRES BASEBALL GAME: Rumsfeld “joined Padres President John Moores in the owner’s box…at Petco Park.” [Editor & Publisher]
8PM CDT – GOV. BLANCO AGAIN REQUESTS ASSISTANCE FROM BUSH: “Mr. President, we need your help. We need everything you’ve got.” [Newsweek]
LATE PM – BUSH GOES TO BED WITHOUT ACTING ON BLANCO’S REQUESTS [Newsweek]
A year after the storm, the federal government has proven slow and unreliable in keeping the president’s promises.
… A June report by the Government Accountability Office concluded that FEMA wasted between $600 million and $1.4 billion on “improper and potentially fraudulent individual assistance payments.”
… The job still isn’t done. More than 100 million cubic yards of debris have been cleared from the region affected by Katrina. So far the government has spent $3.6 billion, a figure that might have been considerably smaller had the contracts for debris removal been subject to competitive bidding.
Working through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA gave each of four companies contracts worth up to $500 million to clear hurricane debris. This spring government inspectors reported that the companies — AshBritt Inc. of Pompano Beach, Fla., Phillips and Jordan Inc. of Knoxville, Tenn., Ceres Environmental Services Inc. of Brooklyn Park, Minn. and ECC Operating Services Inc. of Burlingame, Calif. — charged the government as much as four to six times what they paid their subcontractors who actually did the work.
… Despite Bush’s Jackson Square promise to “undertake a close partnership with the states of Louisiana and Mississippi, the city of New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities,” state and local officials had a hard time reaching a deal for federal aid to help residents rebuild their ruined homes.
In January the administration rejected a $30 billion plan for Louisiana as too expensive. The White House also balked at subsidizing the reconstruction of homes in flood plains, a policy that would have excluded all but a small fraction of Louisiana homeowners whose houses were significantly damaged.
The state finally won funding in July for the $9 billion ‘Road Home’ program, which pays homeowners up to $150,000 either to repair their damaged property or rebuild elsewhere in the state. People who leave the state are eligible for a 60% buyout. The money, which is being distributed through escrow accounts to prevent fraud, is just becoming available a year after the hurricane.
… A preliminary draft of the study released in July was widely criticized because it omitted five projects that state officials say should be started right away. At the same time, it focused on a massive levee that would stretch hundreds of miles along the Louisiana coast while paying only lip service to the critical task of shoring up the state’s vanishing wetlands, which provide a natural barrier to hurricane flooding.
… The first goal was to bring the levee system back to “pre-Katrina” levels by the beginning of the 2006 hurricane season on June 1. That goal was largely achieved. The next step will be to make improvements that will bring the system up to what is variously called Category 3 or 100-year protection by 2010.
But planners and state and local officials say that the levees need to be brought up to Category 5 protection, a level that would cost up to $30 billion, if people are to have confidence moving back to areas destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
We are supposed to be the greatest, strongest, most advanced nation the earth has ever seen, the City on the Hill, the example. And we couldn’t prevent a major city from dying and we have been unable to help it recover, unless you define recover as “line the pockets of politically connected companies”. Tell me, please, why I should believe that when the next terror attack or natural disaster strikes a major American city it, too, will not die?
People shouldn’t build cities below sea level.
Gee, it is a shame you were not around in 1718 to impart your vast knowledge; Just think this whole thing could have been avoided…
Unfortunately, the horrible losses from Katrina have been exacerbated by the rampant fraud through which a wide variety of scammers, both large and small, have been defrauding FEMA at the expense of taxpayers. Every citizen should be made aware, that if they learn of someone defrauding FEMA, or any other agency of the federal government, they may personally file a claim to recover triple the amount defrauded, and they typically get to keep up to 30% of the money as a reward. To learn how, and to read about every major case of this type in the last ten years, anyone can go to http://www.federalfraud.com
John Says:
August 29th, 2006
Gee, it is a shame you were not around in 1718 to impart your vast knowledge; Just think this whole thing could have been avoided
Fred: Was all the city above sea level when all of it was built? All the city didn’t spring up suddenly and then sink below sea level. Why should all taxpaying citizens of the U.S. pay so someone can live below sea level?
Yes, people should not live in the Atlantic/Gulf coasts because of hurricanes, or in the midwest because of tornadoes, or in California because of earthquakes, or in the North due to blizzards and snowstorms.
Che Guevara Says:
August 29th, 2006
Yes, people should not live in the Atlantic/Gulf coasts because of hurricanes, or in the midwest because of tornadoes, or in California because of earthquakes, or in the North due to blizzards and snowstorms.
Fred: People cannot avoid living where weather happens. They can avoid living below sea level. If they want to live below sea level, let them pay for it.
Fred;
It should be tied to federal disaster aid. If you apply for it, the feds buy you out and convert the property to a park / natural habitat. If you don’t want to have your land converted, buy insurance or pay for it yourself. This would protect the poor while preventing the rich from free-loading off disaster assistance.
Hey Fred,
People can live where ever they darn well please. And yes, your tax dollars should pay for it.
You have an appropriate name. Of course, communists do not allow people to live whereever they please.
AOG:
buy insurance
Which only helps if the insurers actually pay their claims instead of cheating their policyholders.
We know how to deal with greedy selfish capitalists, and that’s all we need to know. Vive La Revolucion!!!