I think you are missing the point here…
How can Bush surround himself with such incompetence that a person such as myself, as opposed to high level appointees responsible for disaster preparedness, is more informed than he is and more knowledgeable than they are?
You aren’t doing any favors for Bush with your line of argument.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Thunder,
It looks like you are changing your argument.[/quote]
Where? How? My contention has always been that Bush was advised that overtopping was likely to occur, but not breaching, so this idea that Bush knew that a breach was coming based on the video was false. What has changed about my argument?
Your contention was different - that any old numbskull should know that overtopping causes breaching. It can, but it does not follow that it necessarily will.
Yes. Are you surprised that someone would call you a pedant? You may not like it, but were you honestly surprised?
And that is a different argument - but I am game. Max Mayfield thought this, else why would he have advised otherwise? And why would Democrat Kathleen Blanco make and state the same observation? Based on their information, they both advised that they did not think a breach was coming, only overtopping. How come?
You can get it in the same department you can get Unoriginal, Recycled Cheap Arguments 101 - right next to weak claims of ‘talking points’, and my new favorite, ‘cognitive dissonance’.
[quote]My contention has always been that Bush was advised that overtopping was likely to occur, but not breaching, so this idea that Bush knew that a breach was coming based on the video was false. What has changed about my argument?
Your contention was different - that any old numbskull should know that overtopping causes breaching. It can, but it does not follow that it necessarily will.[/quote]
Okay, you are doing very good until your last sentence.
Overtopping is known to be a cause of breaching. It isn’t something that has a random chance of causing breaching, it is known and steps are routinely taken to safeguard against it.
I will still maintain that is is difficult, in a disaster preparedness sense, to expect overtopping but not plan for a possible breach.
And, honestly, any old numbskull should be able to figure out that overtopping during a cat-5 hurricane has a good chance of causing a breach. Hell, even I can figure that one out.
[quote]vroom wrote:
How can Bush surround himself with such incompetence that a person such as myself, as opposed to high level appointees responsible for disaster preparedness, is more informed than he is and more knowledgeable than they are?[/quote]
I nearly gave myself a hernia chuckling. You do a quick Google and consider yourself well-informed on the dynamics of these levees. You seriously - seriously - think that the folks in charge, meteorologists running models, giving the advice, do not know about your puppet show with PDFs?
No one is claiming that overtopping will never cause breach. Christ, Vroom. What is being suggested is that based on the information, the pros did not think the overtopping would give effect to a breach.
Try reading the website I posted:
"Today, Mayfield told NBC News that he warned only that the levees might be topped, not breached, and that on the many conference calls he monitored, “Nobody talked about the possibility of a levee breach or failure until after it happened.”
You keep padding your considerable ego with the idea that none of these scientists know what you know - that overtopping can cause breach. That is ridiculous. What is squarely at issue, and I am gonna type this extra-slowly, is this:
Based on the information available, did the scientists think the overtopping would result in breach?
Apparently not. That is an arguable point, of course, but don’t sit back and try and convince me or anyone else you knew something they didn’t. I am positive they knew what could potentially occur - they were trying to predict what would occur based on their info.
It’s not my job to do any favors for the Bush administration. I have repeatedly said that I don’t think this situation with the video somehow lets Bush off the hook with regard to what has transpired. No matter how many times I write that, like a brainless parrot, you raise a claim that I am somehow bending over backwards to ‘protect’ Bush. Do you have anything better than this? My focus has been squarely on the lunacy presented by the very first post in this thread. Take it or leave it, Vroom - but at least get it right.
And more besides, my argument is dirt simple - simply that Bush was not informed that a breach would occur, so saying he was is wrong. Your argument consists of saying that the national director of the Hurricane Center was manipulating his answers because of politics (even though Blanco was convnced of the same) and that you are more informed on these issues than is the gaggle of trained, educated experts working for the Hurricane Center and the Weather Service.
Laughable.
Not only the breach/overtop distinction, but here’s another little “word game” worth pointing out.
The briefing discussed the possibility of overtopping w/r/t a Cat 5 hurricane making ground. Katrina was a big Cat 3 when it hit NO.
Thunder, two issues.
One, you are not the only person I was discussing this issue with. Forgive me if I didn’t immediately catch the difference with your point of view than some others.
Two, you are not quoting pro’s at all. A pro would understand the absolute danger represented by an overflow event on a soil levee.
Shit, I’ve quoted two different governments and a military article – everyone else knows overflows and breaches go hand in hand, but not the pro’s that Bush relies on.
I’ll admit it doesn’t always have to result in a breach, but holy shit, let’s ask some pro’s and not some political appointees.
Based on the fact that an overflow was a likely event during an approaching cat-5 hurricane, on a soil levee system, anyone competent would know that a breach was something that must be planned for.
Now, again, Bush may only have been told about an overflow, and honestly, I can imagine him not putting two and two together to realize the severity.
However, this whole discussion is such a stretch. Do you happen to recall the original design specs for the levees? Do you happen to recall the Katrina’s designation as she bore down on the region?
How competent people could not give serious thought to a levee breach is just unimaginable, except in a politically charged debate.
This is revisionism.
A nice little article on what the federal government did correctly with Katrina:
Katrina: What went right
By Lou Dolinar
When New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin predicted a Hurricane Katrina death toll of 10,000, some thought he was erring on the low side. Twenty-five thousand body bags were stockpiled; the latest computer model predicted 60,000 dead. Yet weeks after the storm, fewer than 1,000 bodies have been found in all of Louisiana. Which prompts the question: What went right?
The answer is: something massive. Largely ignored by the agenda-driven national media, one of the largest rescue operations in history saved more than 50,000 people by boat and helicopter. In this Dunkirk on the Mississippi, Coast Guard and other military units, volunteers, and state and local first responders delivered thousands from death by drowning, dehydration, heatstroke, fire, starvation, and disease. The three goats of Katrina ? FEMA?s Michael Brown, Gov. Kathleen Blanco, and Mayor Nagin ? had little if any role; in fact, because local communication was wiped out by the storm, they may not even have known about the scale and success of the rescue operation.
THE RIGHT STUFF
Others did know. Orleans Parish civil sheriff Paul Valteau saw a part of this massive effort close up, when he pulled off the Franklin Ave. interstate exit at 3 p.m. on Monday, August 29, shortly after the storm had passed and levees had broken. ?They were screaming and hollering everywhere,? he recalls. Submerged homes and businesses stretched into the distance. Survivors stood on rooftops, water up to their waists and rising. Desperate pounding and shrieking came from attics. One man, a double amputee, clung to a tree as water surged around him. ?I saw things I never saw in 23 years as sheriff,? Valteau says. ?I saw things I never want to see again.? But he also saw Coast Guard helicopters dodge power lines to winch the endangered to safety. He joined one of the ad hoc rescue crews launching boats from the off-ramp. ?We weren?t alone. Hundreds of people who had boats showed up at interstate exits and launched their boats Monday afternoon.?
Meanwhile, at least three dozen helicopters from the Coast Guard and the Louisiana National Guard had already swarmed into the city, tracking right behind the storm and fighting 60 m.p.h. winds. Unlike befuddled city and state officials, the Coast Guard?s man in charge, Rear Admiral Bob Duncan, was literally on top of the situation: He flew in with the first crews, watched the first rescue himself, and spent the day in the air observing and directing operations. ?People are most in need right after the storm goes through,? he explains. ?When they feel comfortable going up on the roofs of their houses, we hope a big orange helicopter is waiting.?
Absent those early rescues, thousands would in fact have died, in line with the mayor?s prediction. With all communications knocked out, says Sheriff Valteau, ?it was a reasonable estimation. . . . The mayor didn?t know what was going on in the field. It was impossible for him to know how many hundreds of citizens were out there saving people.?
It was impossible, as well, for the media, which were getting most of their information from City Hall. What audiences across the country saw as a breakdown of relief efforts was in fact a breakdown of media relations. Instead of marveling at the courage and endurance of rescuers, television spread lurid rumors of near-parodic depravity: gang violence (with AK-47s!), murder (200 slain, stacked, and frozen!), rape (women, children, babies!), sniping at helicopters, and rampage at the Superdome. Mainstream publications have since shown these reports to be false; since most of what the media did report was dead wrong, no one should be surprised that there was a parallel failure to report what went right.
On this score, the biggest lie ? worse than the urban legends haunting the Superdome ? was that help was slow to arrive. Rescuers say that on Monday, when the levees failed and water surged through the city, they saved thousands who were in danger of drowning ? and that they simply could not have arrived any sooner. Not enough resources? Admiral Duncan says one of his biggest problems was that so many helicopters were operating, they risked crashing into one another.
As yet, there is no official hard count of how many were saved, nor has any central authority spoon-fed definitive numbers to the media. But clearly, success left a deep statistical footprint. The Washington Post, in a poll of survivors who relocated to Houston after staying through the storm, said 40 percent ? roughly 40,000 to 50,000 people, if the sample is representative ? reported that they had been rescued by the Coast Guard, Air National Guard units, or local police and firemen in boats.
The Coast Guard ? a branch of the much-maligned Homeland Security Department ? was far and away the main player. It claimed more than 24,000 rescues, and evacuated another 9,000 from hospitals and nursing homes. The Coasties got there first with the most ? 16 search-and-rescue helicopters. Equipped with night-vision gear and hoists, these first units, joined by many more, ran 24 hours a day, every day, for a week. Preliminary reports showed that on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the Coast Guard rescued 3,000 to 5,000 people from rooftops. The operation grew to hundreds of boats and 50 helicopters. Even barges were commandeered to load hundreds of survivors at a time who were stranded on broken levees.
According to Coast Guard Lt. Chris Huberty, who flew a Dolphin chopper on the night shift almost from the beginning, another reason relatively few lives were lost was that crews carefully selected who was brought to safety first. ?We?d put a rescue swimmer down to determine who needed to be taken away,? he recalls. ?I?d see three women, all healthy adults, and a guy in a wheelchair who was a diabetic; I?d say he needs insulin, let?s get him out of here first. The others might have to wait.? He says that by setting these priorities, the Coast Guard teams were able to get ?a pretty good handle? on the stranded sick, injured, and elderly in just a couple of days.
Huberty deeply resents TV?s characterization of the black residents of New Orleans. ?As many bad stories as you hear about looting, there were plenty of people sacrificing for others, regardless of their demographic. I can?t tell you how many times a man would stay behind an extra day or two on the roof and let his wife and kids go first. It broke my heart. We?d go to an apartment building and you?d see that someone was in charge, organizing the survivors. We?d tell him, ?We can only take five,? and they?d sort out the worst cases. It happened many times that the guy in charge was the last to leave.?
LOCAL HEROES
At the state level, the Louisiana National Guard?s 1-244th Aviation Battalion and 812th Med-Evac unit moved helicopters ? ten Black Hawks and six Hueys ? into New Orleans behind the storm. ?It was like a scene from a Stephen King movie,? says Capt. Shawn Vaughn, who piloted a Black Hawk. ?We just got back from Iraq and saw nothing like this kind of devastation there.? Most of the crews were from New Orleans, and knew the city well ? a boon for rescue operations. (The regrettable underside of this familiarity was that most lost everything they had in Katrina. One pilot was plucked from his sunken home by his own unit, and began flying again a few hours later.) The Black Hawk operation was a textbook example of quick-and-dirty improvisation: Lacking rescue hoists, crews adopted the nervy tactic of landing directly on rooftops to take on passengers, while applying power to keep the helicopters light so they wouldn?t collapse the storm-weakened buildings. Some stripped out their seating to increase capacity to 30 passengers standing, or to carry stretchers for the elderly and disabled.
Healthy evacuees were pulled from rooftops and transferred to nearby collection points. When they couldn?t maneuver in for a pickup, National Guardsmen called in the Coast Guard and smaller Hueys with rescue hoists. Individual Black Hawks pulled out as many as 250 people per day when the pressure was on. Vaughn estimates the unit saved up to 4,000 in the first week before switching to tasks, like sandbagging, for which its brawny copters were better suited. Not bad for a unit that wasn?t equipped for search and rescue.
Not everyone flew multimillion-dollar helicopters. Also on Monday, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries had 250 agents and their boats in the water, along with volunteers from inside the agency, according to Lt. Col. Keith LaCaze. His operation claimed 20,000 rescues by September 8 ? at which point it suspended calls for more volunteers and boats. LaCaze says many of these rescues were of people facing imminent death. ?There were a lot of people we rescued on the first night ? in houses and in attics where the water was almost over their head. There were still many people the next day in danger of drowning and dehydration.?
It has been reported that two shifts of New Orleans firemen were not on duty, and that up to half of the police department went AWOL. Wrong on both counts: Efforts by these local rescuers were robust. According to Firehouse magazine, firemen had prepared for the emergency, with ample boats and supplies in place. Local first responders were fielding 100 to 200 boats in the first 24 hours, according to officials quoted in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. When Sheriff Valteau reported for impromptu duty, he joined a pair of retired cops, a regular New Orleans policeman, a contractor, and a couple of volunteers. This illustrates the improvised nature of the successful local response to the crisis.
SUCCESS STORY
The above account covers the most important responders, but it is by no means exhaustive. The Air Force reported 1,300 rescues and some 14,000 ?transported? by September 4. By the end of Tuesday, August 30, the Navy ship Bataan ? later slammed for inaction by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman ? had five choppers flying rescue missions and had pulled out several hundred people. One Bataan airman, in an e-mail that was reprinted in his local newspaper, casually described how his helicopter had lifted 19 victims from the roof of a burning building. Other units on Day One came from as far away as Wisconsin, which sent two Black Hawks and three Hueys from the 832nd Medical Company and from the 1st Battalion, 147th Aviation unit. Three Hueys from the Georgia National Guard?s 148th Air Ambulance arrived Monday and flew nonstop from sunup to sundown. State Police and sheriffs? departments operated rescue boats. Civilian search-and-rescue teams from out of state, and as far away as Canada, responded on their own. FEMA also operated search-and-rescue teams. A volunteer squad from Exxon Mobil pulled out 1,500 survivors all by itself. One pilot said he sighted a Chinook helicopter from the Republic of Singapore Air Force; improbably, such a craft was temporarily based in Texas, and, like exotic fauna washed in by a storm, may have become part of the aerial ecosystem.
By Wednesday, August 31, as the media screamed for troops to deal with the over-hyped breakdown in public order, more than 100 helicopters were flying rescue missions. Air traffic was so heavy that one pilot said the city looked like a hornets? nest. Another, flying at night, compared helicopter ops to swarming fireflies. By the end of the week, crews had virtually run out of victims, and were shifting operations to dropping sandbags, evacuating the city, and assisting door-to-door searches by boat crews.
?As tragic as every death is, there were less than 1,000 in Louisiana,? Congressman Peter King, a New York Republican and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, told me after a trip to New Orleans. ?Every study beforehand said a hurricane of this kind would kill at least 10,000. Obviously, there were a lot of rescuers; obviously, first responders and the Coast Guard did many, many more rescues than has been reported.? The death toll in New Orleans will rise, but it will never come close to the ghoulish early estimates. That doesn?t absolve authorities from responsibility for some of the deaths; King says that his committee will be looking at the city and state role in failed evacuations and the breakdown of supply to survivors.
But the narrative of Katrina needs wholesale revision, and mainstream news organizations are starting to work on it. There were not 200 murders at the Superdome; there appear to have been exactly zero. Local authorities did not lose control there or at the Convention Center. The more than 30,000 residents at emergency shelters during the first week of Katrina were tired, hungry, miserable, and without proper sanitary facilities ? but were in no danger of dying. As for the rest of the city, help was rarely late, delayed, or inadequate. That?s the true story ? and there are tens of thousands of rescued people who will testify to it.
Mr. Dolinar (dolinar@verizon.net) is a retired reporter from Newsday.
Boston,
Is it just me or are you trying to inject some support for the government at this point?
I don’t think that your article is exactly on topic, though it is nice to hear about some positives during the situation.
Seriously.
[quote]Brad61 wrote:
“I don’t think anybody could have anticipated the breach of the levies”
George W. Bush
Bullshit!!!
Here’s a video clip that was released to the Associated Press. It shows a FEMA video-conference with FEMA, state officials, and President Bush via his ranch in Crawford, that occurred a day before the hurrican hit.
This video makes the slow federal response seem even more pathetic.[/quote]
Since when did the federal government become our keepers? I haven’t read the rest of this thread and avoided doing so until now because I am so furious that people expect to be ‘cared for’ and ‘nurtured’. Hello?!? Nursery school is not an option for adults.
If a huge disaster strikes your area, may I suggest that you MOVE AWAY? The people in the 9th ward and all over that area want someone to come in and put their lives back together again. Man, if that doesn’t sound like whiny children demanding help, I don’t know what does.
I am a Christian. Some parts of the Bible are not things I agree with, such as the ‘brother’s keeper’ nonsense.
Get a clue – MOVE AWAY! Quit waiting for bumbling bureaucrats and the poor American taxpayer to rebuild your lives.
GET OVER IT ALREADY!!
[quote]miniross wrote:
JeffR wrote:
Thanks for the love, my weenie liberal friends!!!
Ok, smart guys, please tell me what W. could have done with the ninteen hour heads up to stop the levees from breaking.
Please keep in mind that I’m going to slam you if your “solution” violates existing state and federal jurisdiction.
Oh, harris, thanks!!! If I cause you to take a bath more than once per annum, I’ve done a service to the planet.
JeffR
Bush is (regardless of political standpoint) the single most dumb person in charge of a country ever. He does no service to you as a nation.[/quote]
Didn’t Chamberlain send about 300,000 or so young British men into a trap, in northern France? They only escaped because Hitler wanted Britain has a functioning empire. He didn’t close the trap at Dunkirk, for that reason.
Then, wasn’t Saddam in charge of a country? Was he smarter than Bush? I think not – just a dumb thug.
Well, vroom, hopefully you’ll find this post by Tom Maguire more on topic:
When The Levee Breaks
MKau tackles “topping” versus “breaching” a levee, which puts him way ahead of the MSM ( http://www.slate.com/id/2136998/&#breach ):
[i]After Katrina, Bush said "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." In the video, Patterico points out ( http://patterico.com/2006/03/02/4279/la-times-dishonestly-portrays-contents-of-video-in-which-bush-is-warned-about-katrina/ ), Bush is warned by hurricane expert Max Mayfield that there's a chance the "levees will be topped." Topping is different than breaching, no? When a levee's "topped," or "overtopped," some water sloshes over it and into the city. Then the storm passes and that's it. When a levee's "breached," there's a hole in the levee and Lake Pontchartrain pours in the gap and keeps pouring in until the city is completely flooded.[/i]
Mickey’s thought is that the media is deliberately suppressing the specifics of the warning in order to hype the “Bush Lied” meme. Peter Baker and Spencer Hsu of the Friday WaPo illustrate that perfectly ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/02/AR2006030202130.html ):
[i]Three days after Hurricane Katrina wiped out most of New Orleans, President Bush appeared on television and said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." His staff has spent the past six months trying to take back, modify or explain away those 10 words.
The release of a pre-storm video showing officials warning Bush during a conference call that the hurricane approaching the Gulf Coast posed a dire threat to the city and its levees has revived a dispute the White House had hoped to put behind it:[b] Was the president misinformed, misspoken or misleading?[/b]
The video leaves little doubt that key people in government did anticipate that the levees might not hold. [/i]
Emphasis added, and gosh, may I have choice (d) - The President was spot on? Thanks. This story leaves little doubt that key editors at the Washington Post might not be doing their jobs.
For another perspective, i.e., a perspective that is either utterly ignorant or indifferent, here is CNN’s coverage of the warning to Bush about the imminent threat to New Orleans last fall ( CNN.com - Transcripts, tape show Bush, Brown warned on Katrina - Mar 2, 2006 ):
[i] Bush has been accused of showing poor leadership after the disaster, and for indicating, along with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, that no one could have anticipated that the flood protection system for New Orleans, Louisiana, would be breached.
However, transcripts from video conferences on August 28 and 29 show that National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield expressed concern that Katrina might push its storm surge over the city's levees and flood walls.
"I don't think anyone can tell you with confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not, but that's obviously a very, very great concern," Mayfield says in one.
In a September 1 television interview, Bush said, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," a statement Chertoff agreed with three days later.[/i]
Does the CNN reporter even realize tha there is a difference between “topping” and “breaching” a levee? I don’t know.
But here’s a smart guy who might be expected to make these fine distinctions - PKru himself ( http://select.nytimes.com/2006/03/03/opinion/03krugman.html?hp ):
Many people have now seen the video of the briefing Mr. Bush received before Hurricane Katrina struck. Much has been made of the revelation that Mr. Bush was dishonest when he claimed, a few days later, that nobody anticipated the breach of the levees.
On the flip side, let’s also give props to Scott Shane and David Kirkpatrick of the NY Times ( http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/02/national/nationalspecial/02katrina.html?_r=1&oref=slogin ), who did NOT mangle this story yesterday.
And a bonus - this bit from the briefing seems to be underplayed. Max Mayfield is speaking for the National Hurricane Center at an August 28 briefing ( http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/katrinatranscript0828partia.pdf ):
[i]"And the current track and the forecast we have now suggests that there will be minimal flooding in the city of New Orleans itself, but we've always said that the storm surge model is only accurate within about 20 percent.
If that track were to deviate just a little to the west it would -- it makes all the difference in the world. I do expect there will be some levees over top even out here in the western portions where the airport is."[/i]
MORE: The Captain has lots ( Captain's Quarters ; Captain's Quarters ), including some HKur coverage. And more excerpts from the fateful “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees” interview with Diane Sawyer is here ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/09/01/BL2005090100915.html ). Let’s clip this:
[i]"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached. And as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded. And now we are having to deal with it and will."[/i]
Finally, the White House issues a press release ( Briefing Room - The White House ) to “set the record straight”, but they skip right past this issue.
Here is some background on the levee failures and successes in New Orleans ( http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1137999658140350.xml ) - the distinction between topping and breaching is clear. lest there were skeptics.
CLARITY: Via Matt Drudge, from the AP:
[i]Clarification: Katrina-Video story
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) _ In a March 1 story, The Associated Press reported that federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees in New Orleans, citing confidential video footage of an Aug. 28 briefing among U.S. officials.
The Army Corps of Engineers considers a breach a hole developing in a levee rather than an overrun. The story should have made clear that Bush was warned about floodwaters overrunning the levees, rather than the levees breaking.
The day before the storm hit, Bush was told there were grave concerns that the levees could be overrun. It wasn't until the next morning, as the storm was hitting, that Michael Brown, then head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Bush had inquired about reports of breaches. Bush did not participate in that briefing.[/i]
A NOTE: Some commenters seem to think that because Bush was briefed about the possibility of breaches at other meetings, it is OK for the media to misrepresent the significance of the meeting on which they are reporting. FWIW, these commenters seem to be representatives of the self-invented reality community.
But let’s turn that logic around and imagine that Bush really did understand the difference between overtopping and breaching, even if his critics do not. Let’s also acknowledege that (a) Bush was speaking in a live interview, not delivering a legal brief, and (b) an accepted meaning of “anticipate” is “expect” ( Anticipate Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster ).
Would the media even have begun to offer up this latest “Bush lied” if he had said something ever so slightly different to Diana Sawyer:
“I don’t think anybody [expected] the breach of the levees - I know the National Hurricane Center predicted overtopping but not breaching. They did anticipate a serious storm.”
And a last thought - saying that Bush did not lie about this is different from saying that the Federal response to Katrina was A-OK.
[quote]grew7 wrote:
Kerry would have stopped Katrina before it even got to New Orleans.[/quote]
Good one!
One more small point for the “word games” argument. While it may in fact be that continuous overtopping could lead to a breach, that seems to reinforce the point that they are two different things, that not all overtops would result in breaches (or really that not even most overtops would result in breaches), and that certain other factors would be essential for overtopping to lead to a breach.
And, then, recall that it apparently wasn’t overtopping that actually did lead to the breaches in the NO levees: http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1134028141231650.xml
Vroom,
Two issues;
2.You’d also be remiss not to point this out from your last citation as well;
The storm surges produced by Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005, breached the levees protecting New Orleans in numerous places, flooding approximately 75 percent of the metropolitan area. Most of the levee failures were caused by overtopping, as the storm surge rose over the top of a levee and scoured out the base of the landward embankment or floodwall. Three major and costly breaches appear to have been caused by failure of the soils underlying the levees or failure of the earthen levee embankments themselves; in several places, levee foundations failed when water levels were below the tops of the levees. Transitions between levees of differing heights or materials proved to be weak points in the flood-protection system; a significant number of levee washouts occurred, for example, where the weaker of two adjacent materials was at a lower elevation.
Now, if you want some politically motivated rhetoric, and dead-horse beating, here you go.
You said you’d be remiss if you didn’t point out the following:
It appears that many of the levees breached by overtopping might have performed better if conceptually simple details, such as scour protection on the land side, had been added during or after original design and construction.
Wow! with that kind of foresight, you think they would’ve had somebody working on this ahead of time! Oh wait;
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/2315076.html?page=11&c=y
In 1998 Louisiana answered with the $14 billion Coast 2050, a 60-project program that rivaled the Everglades restoration in scope. Too long-range and expensive, said the White House Office of Management and Budget. The Corps responded with the $2 billion Louisiana Coastal Area plan, with five projects, which are still under review.
I wonder who we really should be blaming for this? Maybe whoever was President in '98? (Whack! Whack! Die horse! Die!)
Greetings to pox!!!
Just wanted to give you a hearty HELLO!!!
I read your lastest drivel about W. not responding to the crisis.
Found some more for you:
Katrina comes ashore in Lousiana on August 29th, 2005.
According to pox, Bush is “on vacation.”
Here he is at 9 A.M.,August 30th in SAN DIEGO addressing veterans from VJ day:
Oh, after saying hello, these are his next two paragraphs:
"This morning our hearts and prayers are with our fellow citizens along the Gulf Coast who have suffered so much from Hurricane Katrina. These are trying times for the people of these communities. We know that many are anxious to return to their homes. It’s not possible at this moment. Right now our priority is on saving lives, and we are still in the midst of search and rescue operations. I urge everyone in the affected areas to continue to follow instructions from state and local authorities.
The federal, state and local governments are working side-by-side to do all we can to help people get back on their feet, and we have got a lot of work to do. Our teams and equipment are in place and we’re beginning to move in the help that people need. Americans who wish to help can call 1-800-HELPNOW, or log on to RedCross.org, or get in touch with the Salvation Army. The good folks in Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama and other affected areas are going to need the help and compassion and prayers of our fellow citizens."
I know, pox won’t read it. However, it is always enjoyable having fun at his expense.
JeffR
Here we go:
This should do it, pox.
Here’s the Presidents’ directive AUGUST 28TH, ONE FULL DAY PRIOR TO LANDFALL.
"Statement on Federal Emergency Assistance for Louisiana
The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing.
The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the parishes of Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, Caldwell, Claiborne, Catahoula, Concordia, De Soto, East Baton Rouge, East Carroll, East Feliciana, Evangeline, Franklin, Grant, Jackson, LaSalle, Lincoln, Livingston, Madison, Morehouse, Natchitoches, Pointe Coupee, Ouachita, Rapides, Red River, Richland, Sabine, St. Helena, St. Landry, Tensas, Union, Vernon, Webster, West Carroll, West Feliciana, and Winn.
Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent Federal funding.
Representing FEMA, Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary for Emergency Preparedness and Response, Department of Homeland Security, named William Lokey as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected area."
I’m having fun at pox’s expense.
JeffR
[quote]lucasa wrote:
Vroom,
Two issues;
Lucasa, I’m not sure Bush is the one that needs to be assigned blame here. I’m complaining about the word games being played.
I think that any reasonable person would understand that an overflow situation during a hurricane, with respect to disaster preparedness, represents a dire threat. There is no real way to say you couldn’t anticipate a breach if you anticipate an overtopping in such a scenario.
These are soil based levees we are talking about here. Somebody should have figured that out – and I doubt that it is Bush that was hands on enough to do so. Why the experts didn’t clue in on this is the mystery I’d want to unravel.
As for motivation, I’m really just blasting on the people in here who are willing to play word games to exonerate Bush, but I doubt that will be believed.
Hey, there is plenty of blame to go around. Point it wherever you like. The issue you are raising wasn’t being discussed in this thread, though I’m sure it could be.
Really, the issue was should anybody have known a breach was a likely event. If overflow was expected, then I say SOMEBODY should have known this. Especially given that the levees were not designed to standards meant to counter this threat.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Take a break from worshipping the Holy Trinity of Hysteria, Sarcasm, and Arrogance to read Popular Mechanics overview of the response:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/2315076.html
[/quote]
You do know the editor Beb Chertoff of the PM article is related to the FEMA Chertoff…Don’t you?
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=66176
He was caught writing 9/11 propoganda also…
NEO-CON NEPOTISIM at it’s best!
[quote]vroom wrote:
…
Topping is generally a precursor to breaching, in a dirt environment… hello, McFly?[/quote]
That all depends on the depth and velocity of the water.
A little can spill over without ruining the levee but if it is up there for a while the levee will likely fail.
[quote]That all depends on the depth and velocity of the water.
A little can spill over without ruining the levee but if it is up there for a while the levee will likely fail. [/quote]
No shit Sherlock, your point?