Soapbox

Last night on CNN PResident Bush was asked why help was so slow in coming to the devastated New Orleans area in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The president replied, “well no one could have anticipated the levee’s breaking”.

Interesting statement coming froom an administration that said that no one could have anticipated airplanes being flown into buildings, when they had , of course, anticipated that very thing. Mr. Bush also couldn’t have anticipated that there would turn out to be no wMD’s in Iraq, that more soldiers were needed than we sent or that a massive insurgency would spring up in the power vacuum left by the invasion. Problem is, plenty of people anticipated those very things, but he ignored them.

The same holds true for New Orleans. The Bush administration cut funding for levee repair and reinforcement by 40 % in 2003 and diverted the money to Iraq. This despite the fact that experts have been warning for some time of the desperate need to protect New Orleans from a hurricane.

From a 2001 issue of “Scientific American”:

By Mark Fischetti

New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen. The city lies below sea level, in a bowl bordered by levees that fend off Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River to the south and west. And because of a damning confluence of factors, the city is sinking further, putting it at increasing flood risk after even minor storms. The low-lying Mississippi Delta, which buffers the city from the gulf, is also rapidly disappearing. An acre disappears every 24 minutes. Each loss gives a storm surge a clearer path to wash over the delta and pour into the bowl, trapping one million people inside and another million in surrounding communities. Extensive evacuation would be impossible because the surging water would cut off the few escape routes. Scientists at Louisiana State University (L.S.U.), who have modeled hundreds of possible storm tracks on advanced computers, predict that more than 100,000 people could die. The body bags wouldn’t go very far.

So you see Mr. bush, that dog won’t hunt. While you were clearing brush on your 5 week vacation, scientists were warning that a disaster of epic proportions was brewing. When you could have been mobilizing the army and national guards, getting men and supplies ready to roll as soon as the storm passed, instead you chose to attend a fund raiser. As reports of bodies floating in the streets of New Orleans were coming in, you were playig guitar and going golfing.

Lots of people anticipayed the levee’s breaking, Mr. Bush. You just didn’t listen to them.