Funds were cut for fortifying New Orleans against a hurricane…unbelievable
Okay, I’ve read a couple articles on this, and from what I’ve seen, spending to fortify levees and other flood protection for New Orleans has been reduced by about 44% since 2001. Why? To help pay for a war in Iraq and Homeland Security.
This article was in Editor & Publisher. And this one was in Salon.com. And especially check out this one in Salon as well.
Basically, if the funding wasn’t cut on these things, New Orleans may still exist. Think about that and see how it makes you feel. Is that war in Iraq worth THIS?
September 2, 2005 @ 6:49 am
You don’t know if this extra money would have protected New Orleans.
September 2, 2005 @ 9:44 am
The Trib has a fair overview of this. Basically, their has been a plan to upgrade levees debated since 1965. Some parts were completed, some parts weren’t. One of the parts completed recently was the 17th Street Canal, which failed. So even if the entire project had been fully funded (no project is EVER fully funded), it doesn’t seem it would have done any good. Don’t believe me… fair enough.
“I don’t see that the level of funding was really a contributing factor in this case,” said Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, chief of engineers for the corps. “Had this project been fully complete, it is my opinion that based on the intensity of this storm that the flooding of the business district and the French Quarter would have still taken place.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-050901corps,1,7189346.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
Don’t take this as a defense of the government… It’s obvious the local government didn’t have a disaster preparedness plan, even though they were faced with this destruction since the city was founded. The governor is overwhelmed and unable to meet the challenge and the federal government waited too long to take over. As a former governor, Bush deferred to the local authorities. Once it was obvious they weren’t up to the challenge, he needed to step in — and didn’t.
September 2, 2005 @ 10:45 am
OF COURSE they aren’t going to admit that it had anything to do with it, that means they would have to admit they were wrong, which Bush will never admit on anything.
Last year was one of the worst hurricane seasons on record, yet they still diverted funds.
And Axel, how do you know it WOULDN’T have helped? You can take this Lt. General’s word for it, but once again, if he admits that there was a problem, then he becomes liable. No one is going to admit to that. In fact they are going to try to deflect it as much as humanly possible.
The fact is, the government (local and federal) KNEW they were underprepared, yet funding kept continually getting cut. How does that happen? Seriously?
And c’mon, every budget has been hit hard by the war. How many other things are now severely underfunded because we are spending millions a day in Iraq?
We can spend that money on another country, but not on our own?
And our military and national guard are mainly overseas. If they were home, relief would have gotten to these people MUCH faster…
It’s a clusterfuck all around.
-Grey