BS: KatrinaGate

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Jul 06 - 08:44 PM

Yo, Leadfingers....

You be da man... And you can be in my band at the Getaway fir postin' the 600th post to this thread...

Yo, GUEST,

LIke how would we know if you are actually outta here??? But, none the less, don't let the door hit ya' on the way out...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jul 06 - 10:50 PM

Ah yes, typical bobert response when he has been nailed. (again)

Did not say I was "outta here", merely implied that figuratively speaking, you are.

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Jul 06 - 11:35 PM

The only folks nailed, GUEST, are you and yer Bushite plants here in Mudville...

But maybe, just maybe, you'd like to lucidate on just how I'm the one who has been nailed here??? Yeah, that oughtta be very entertainin', fir sure...

Oh yeah, Bushites never admit they screwed up... They always blame their failures on others....

Normal...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jul 06 - 02:57 AM

Bushites, Bushites, Bushites. Bobert is a broken record.

Got him self in a corner and that's all he has as a defense.

You still do not understand, and my never understand, that everybody that disagrees with you is not a Bush supporter, and enemy or a stupid idiot. They just dissagree with your hateful attempt of trying to blame everything on one man. Some things are his fault and othere are partially his fault and others are not his fault.

How would anything have turned out different if GWB had not been elected in 2002? Where were we headed back then? in a recession, gas prices going up, terrorists planning attacks in the US. It doesn't sound like a rosy picture.

Would Gore have done any better? I think he and Kerry would have stumbled down the same path.

Would either of them have magically evacuated everybody from NO? Would they have somehow made the levys hold? The big blow out was because of peat and sand under the steel. The steel did not go deep enough. A billion $ spent on making it higher would not have kept it from failing.

You just have an enormus chip on your shoulder. Rather than address individual issues you just yell Bushite, not in the real world etc. while somebody posts something like "this is 600" and he is #1 in your book.

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Jul 06 - 09:32 AM

First of all GUEST, I thought you said you were going away???

(But, Bobert, maybe this GUEST isn't the same GUEST who siad they were going away...)

Nah, it's the same GUEST...

But, really, GUEST, you seem to think that I'm the one in the corner??? Very curious perception as you and the rest of the Bush apologists to date haven't mounted any argument that counters the original positions I laid out 604 posts ago??? Yes, very curious...

Maybe you'd like to explain again exactly what corner you and yer pals think you've painted me into???

(Well, Bobert, FEMA was reorganized when the DHS was established...)

So??? Where did the resources go that used to be there for such situations??? Did they just go poof into thin air, 'er what??? Did the Democrats steal them??? Did a bad man sneak in at night and make off with them??? No, perhaps the green men came down in a space ship, made themselves invisable and made off with the dough???

This has always been about funding, GUEST and with the rubber stamp Republican Congress Bush has always gotten what he asked for and if yer aware of how things work, it is the executive branch that puts together the budget for Congress to approve... Just how many times has Congress bucked Bush on budgetary matters, GUEST???

No, it's you who isn't living in the real world...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jul 06 - 02:26 PM

"This has always been about funding, GUEST"

So explain how more funding would have prevented the disaster?

If the levy was 75 feet high would that have kept it from blowing out underneath? How much money would have made the local government evacuate like they should have?

"FEMA was reorganized when the DHS was established" Who caused this to happen?? Who bitched and moaned untill it happened?

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Jul 06 - 07:43 PM

The Bush administration cut funds for FEMA, slashed the money for the levees system at only 20% of what the Army Cerps of Engineers said was needed just to maintain the system... That 'bout sums it up...

Oh yeah, before you go on about how Bush increased the funding for FEMA to $6.6B, bottom line, the dough got siphened off for DHS and the Iraq War...

As for evacultion, GUEST, this was the hand that was delt Bush after 9/11... Instead of cutting brush back in Texas or taking more time away from the White House in the history of the presidency going back well over 200 years, he ***should*** have had his nose to the grinsdstone... That's what great, or even good, leaders do... But no, Bush went ahead partying and cutting brush hoping that nuthin' would happen to expose his weeknesses...

Then Katrina!!!

Hey, GUEST, you seem to be a fairly intellegent feller 'er felleress, so let me ask you a simple question... Had the terrorists hit New Orleans with a bomb that blew up the the Lake Pocigtraine dam, or some other similar terrorist event in New Orleans, do you really think that Bush had the safety of the American people covered???

Well, heck no he didn't because, as the CEO of the US he has put politics and vactioning ahead of anything else.. Might of fact, other than near bankrupting the country with his ill thought out tax cuts to his rich friends, the man ain't done jack...

Katrina has shown this so vividly...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 08 Jul 06 - 02:27 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4192-2004Jun24.html

Moore often resorts to speculative exaggeration that is either unfair or on point, again depending on your point of view. Early in the film he informs the audience that the president spent 42 percent of his tenure before 9/11 on vacation. This sets up a later image of a blank-looking Bush, just told that a second plane hit the New York towers, and Moore's rhetorical question: "Was he thinking he should have come to work more often?"

http://fahrenheit_fact.blogspot.com/2004/06/fahrenheit-fact-no-6-moore-distorts.html

how the "vacation days" were calculated:

It's obvious that these "vacation days" include weekends. (You can do the math: 250/x=42/100; x=595 days=1.63 years). Okay, 42% is a lot of vacation, but weekends account for 29% of our time. I'm sure that a lot of this "vacation" time is just Bush going to Camp David for the weekend. Can we really fault the President for going to Camp David on weekends? If you take out weekends, you get 42%-29%, or 13% of the time that Bush was on vacation. Okay, this is still a lot, although 13% looks a lot better than 42%. Over a year, 13% is about 6.76 weeks of the year--which is still much more than most of us. But we know that Bush's vacations are generally working vacations. For example, he has hosted visits from leaders like Putin, Fox, and many others there. This hardly seems like a real vacation. As Hitchens points out today, there are a lot of problems with Fahrenheit 9/11. It's pretty clear that Moore's "vacation time" allegation is one of them.

http://www.campusreportonline.net/main/printer_friendly.php?id=213

Moore blames the September 11th attacks on Bush by charging that in the wake of solid intelligence about terrorist plots the President just went fishing. Moore would have us believe that Bush vacationed more than he worked as the film claims that 42% of Bush's first 8 months as President were spent on vacation. What Moore fails to indicate is that the 42% figure, taken from a Washington Post story, includes: weekends, travel time, time at Camp David (a fully equipped Presidential headquarters), and time spent at his ranch where he planned a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and also met with Mexican President Vicente Fox. The 42% figure used in Moore's film was taken out of context; it was not vacation time but time spent out of the White House.

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 08 Jul 06 - 02:38 AM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5403958

If you read "The Washington Post" article, they said he spent 42 percent of his time away from the White House. They included in that 38 days that the president spent at Camp David, where, among other things, he met with Tony Blair and President Putin.

In fact, in one frame of the movie where Moore shows him "relaxing" at Camp David, if you look closely, you see Tony Blair next to him. So this was not time spent on vacation, which is the words that Moore uses.

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jul 06 - 03:24 AM

Brown blamed the poor federal response to Katrina partly on the absorption of FEMA into the Department of Homeland Security, which was focused on preventing terrorist attacks and neglected the threat of natural disasters. He urged that it be set up as a separate agency once again.

He said that if a terrorist bomb had breached one of the levees in New Orleans, the department would have instantly mobilized. But because the threat was from a natural disaster, the response from senior officials was less urgent.

(CBS/AP) President Bush on Sunday [August 28th] urged people living in the path of Hurricane Katrina to take the storm extremely seriously and to move to safer ground. "We cannot stress enough the danger this hurricane poses to Gulf Coast communities," said the president.

"We will do everything in our power to help the people and the communities affected by this storm," President Bush said as Katrina bore down on a stretch of coastline that includes New Orleans, a city sitting below sea level with 485,000 inhabitants. "I urge all citizens to put their own safety and the safety of their families first by moving to safe ground."

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 08 Jul 06 - 03:28 AM

Why Bush and senior administration officials apparently believed that New Orleans had been spared the worst effects of the hurricane for hours after the city was already flooded:

THE NEW YORK TIMES Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Katrina Misses New Orleans, Heavily Damages Mississippi

By Joseph B. Treaster 
and Kate Zernike

Hurricane Katrina pounded the Gulf Coast with devastating force at daybreak Monday, sparing New Orleans the catastrophic hit that had been feared but inundating parts of the city and heaping damage on neighboring Mississippi where it tossed boats, ripped away scores of roof tops and left many of the major coastal roadways impassable.

Packing 145-mph winds as it made landfall, Katrina left more than a million people in three states without power and submerged highways even hundreds of miles from the center of the storm.

Officials reported at least 35 deaths, with 30 deaths alone in Harrison County, Miss., which includes Gulfport and Biloxi. Emergency workers feared they would find more dead among people believed to be stranded under water and collapsed buildings.

While Katrina proved to be less fearsome than had been predicted, it was still potent enough to rank as one of the most punishing hurricanes ever to hit the United States. Insurance experts said that damage could exceed $9 billion, which would make it one of the costliest storms on record.

In New Orleans, most of the levees held but the storm breached one and flood waters rose to rooftops in one neighborhood. Katrina's howling winds stripped 15-foot sections off the roof of the Superdome, where as many as 10,000 evacuees were sheltered.

Some of the worst damage reports came from east of the historic city of New Orleans with an estimated 40,000 homes reported flooded in St. Bernard Parish. In Gulfport, Mississippi, the storm left three of five hospitals without working emergency rooms, beachfront homes wrecked and major stretches of Mississippi's coastal highway flooded and unpassable.

"It came on Mississippi like a ton of bricks," the state's governor, Haley Barbour, told a midday news conference. "It's a terrible storm."

President Bush promised extensive assistance for hurricane victims and the Federal Emergency Management Agency was expected to be working in the area for months, assessing damage to properties and allocating ultimately what will likely be billions of dollars in aide to homeowners and businesses.

In Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, the governors declared search and rescue their top priority, but said that high waters and strong winds were keeping them from that task, particularly in the hardest hit areas.

The governors sent out police and National Guard after reports of looting, and officials in some parts of Louisiana said they would impose a curfew.

Katrina was downgraded from Category 5 — the worst possible storm — to Category 4 as it hit land in eastern Louisiana just after 6 a.m., and in New Orleans, officials said the storm's slight shift to the east had spared them somewhat. The city is below sea level, and there had been predictions that the historic French Quarter would be under 18 or 20 feet of water.

Still, no one was finding much comfort here, with 100 mph winds and water surges of 15 feet. Officials said early in the day that more than 20 buildings had been toppled.

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jul 06 - 05:35 PM

"blew up the the Lake Pontchartrain dam" Where is that?

There is a spillway from the Mississippi river into the western end of the lake which is a tidal estuary that connects to the ocean via straits, canals and other lakes. When the water level in the Gulf rises it flows into the lake.

Flood gates to prevent the Gulf from flooding the lake and NO were proposed and money appropriated to build them but "activists" sued opposed them and the project which would have prevented the disaster eventually died.

You can find some non political scientific information here:
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/printerfriendly/science/185c893302839010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 08 Jul 06 - 07:01 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Pontchartrain

Raising and reinforcing the levees to resist a Category 5 hurricane might take 25 years to complete. Some estimates place the cost at $25 billion.

A hurricane in September, 1947 flooded the city, most of which is below sea level (and sinking). After the storm, hurricane-protection levees were built along Lake Pontchartrain's south shore to protect the city. When a storm surge of 10 feet (3 meters) from Hurricane Betsy left much of the city under water in 1965, the levees encircling the city and outlying parishes were raised to heights of 14 to 23 feet (4-7 meters). Due to cost concerns, the levees were built to protect against only a Category 3 hurricane.

Experts using computer modeling at Louisiana State University subsequent to Hurricane Katrina have concluded that the levees were never topped but rather faulty design, inadequation construction, or some combination of the two were responsible for the flooding of most of New Orleans.

Funding

Congress failed to fully fund an upgrade requested during the 1990s by the Army Corps of Engineers, and funding was cut in 2003-04 despite a 2001 study by the Federal Emergency Management Agency warning that a hurricane in New Orleans was one of the country's 3 most likely disasters.

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST,Woody
Date: 08 Jul 06 - 07:04 PM

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/18295762-44D7-4CA0-A409-5A94B240DC68.htm

Saturday 03 September 2005, 6:27 Makka Time, 3:27 GMT

US Senator David Vitter has said the toll from Hurricane Katrina could top 10,000 in Louisiana alone.

The announcement came on a day US troops poured into the Louisiana city of New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders to scare off looting gangs and enable rescuers to help thousands of people stranded by Hurricane Katrina.

Faced with a growing threat of anarchy after a natural disaster that may have killed thousands of people, the US military on Friday rushed in National Guard reinforcements.

Armed looters have had the run of this famed city of jazz musicians and French Quarter bars since Katrina pounded the US Gulf Coast on Monday, but they were warned not to push their luck.

"These troops are battle-tested. They have M-16s and are locked and loaded," Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said on Thursday night of one group of 300 National Guard troops being deployed here after recent duty in Iraq. "These troops know how to shoot and kill and I expect they will."

The post-Hurricane Katrina petroleum-supply outlook improved somewhat on Friday as US and European governments agreed to release more than 60 million barrels of oil and refined products from their emergency reserves.

The governments of 26 countries agreed to release the equivalent of two million barrels of oil per day from strategic reserves to cope with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Paris-based International Energy Agency said.

Most residents are desperate for an end to the violence and a crackdown on looters was ordered when it became clear the looting and gunfire were hurting relief efforts.

Bodies rotted away on busy streets, armed men opened fire on troops and rescue workers, and seriously ill people braved the floodwaters in wheelchairs to search for help.

Officials said the toll was certainly in the hundreds and probably in the thousands, but details remained sketchy.

"Call it biblical. Call it apocalyptic. Whatever you want to call it, take your pick," said 46-year-old Robert Lewis.

He was rescued as floodwaters invaded his home and endured two days of diabolical conditions at a shelter before finally being evacuated to Houston.

"There were bodies floating past my front door. I've never seen anything like that," he said, near tears from apparent emotional exhaustion.

Pentagon officials said an additional 4200 National Guard troops would be deployed over three days and that 3000 regular army soldiers may also be sent in to tackle the armed gangs that have looted stores across New Orleans.

"We will not tolerate lawlessness, or violence, or interference with the evacuation," Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said.

The reinforcements mean nearly 50,000 part-time National Guard and active-duty military personnel are being used in the biggest domestic relief and security effort in US history.

But the deployment has so far failed to guarantee an effective rescue plan and many of Katrina's victims are increasingly frustrated at being left to fend for themselves.

Under pressure from some Democrats for allegedly acting too slowly and for cutting federal funding for improvements to New Orleans' levees, US President George Bush was to visit the city on Friday.

The US Senate approved his request for $10.5 billion in emergency disaster relief late on Thursday, with billions more in aid seen passing Congress in coming weeks.

The help cannot come quick enough in New Orleans, known to those who love it as the Big Easy.

Flooded city hospitals had no electricity and critically ill patients were dying because they no longer had access to oxygen, insulin or other medicines.

Doctors worked around the clock to keep patients alive and evacuate them but logistical arrangements were chaotic and made worse by the violence. At one hospital, evacuation was called off when an armed man opened fire on doctors and soldiers.

Shelters set up to care for thousands of evacuees in New Orleans were still without food and water early on Friday and families slept near corpses and piles of human waste.

Lake Pontchartrain's muddy floodwaters still own New Orleans four days after bursting through the levees that once protected it, and now they are toxic with fuel, battery acid, gas, garbage and raw sewage.

Health experts warn outbreaks of disease could wreak havoc in the days and weeks ahead.

The misery belied New Orleans' romantic and carefree image, and instead left it looking more like a Third World trouble spot in the midst of a major refugee crisis.

Thousands of people were finally evacuated from the city on Thursday night and taken to the Astrodome stadium in Houston, about 563km west, but it quickly filled up and police turned away busloads of the evacuees to other shelters.

Katrina forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and shut refineries along the Gulf Coast shut, sending petrol prices at the pump soaring to new records of well over $3 a gallon in most parts of the country.

Bush urged Americans to conserve petrol to help overcome the crisis. "Don't buy gas if you don't need it."

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jul 06 - 08:45 PM

Why does the state that bobert lives in not have institutions for the mentally unfit?

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Jul 06 - 11:33 PM

It does, GUEST... I my first life as a scial worker I had many occasions to pay them a visit in the gov'mint car and collect another batch of folks purdy much like you to take back to ther comunity and try once again to get 'um to do and play nice...

So, with thisbarage of GUEST postings since I last checked in here is there any point out of these obvious cut 'n pastes that is supposed to be a rebuttal???

Back to Debating 101 for all of you's...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jul 06 - 11:50 PM

Still looking for Bobert's Lake Pontchartrain dam.

Still wondering how a 25 year job could have been completed in time to save NO even if it was started the day GWB took office.

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 08:43 AM

Danged, GUEST, ain't you figured out nuthin' about me yet??? I do throw out a little comic relief now and then just to ligthen stuff up... Everyone who has been paying attention know fully well that there's no dam.... I mean, we were all bimbarded with overhaeds of the area...

You need to lighten up and stick with the real stuff and leave my obvious *finnin'* alone...

And you know what the real issues are...

Bottom line, you say with 20/20 hindsight that it could take 25 years to make NO safer but bottom line, without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight yer guy only funded the maintainence of the levee sytem at 17% of what was the bare minumum according to the percieved needs at the time...

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 10:06 AM

Maybe he thought the chances of a another terrorist attack was greater than the chances of an unpresedented Cat 5 hitting just the way it did so he decided to spend more money on anti terrorism. The war is iraq is a part of the antiterrorism effort.

What would you have thought the odds were were? What decision would you have made not being able to see the future?

Funding was cut or at least not increased before GWB was in power. I suppose this is his fault too.

Your history conveniently begins on Jan 1 2001 which debilitates your ability to see things the way they are. As you would say "very obsessedwith details and missing the big piccure"

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Jul 06 - 12:00 PM

Oh, so you say that Bush was spending the money on first responders and things that would be required to evacuate an area after terrorists attack???

Is that yer final answer, GUEST???

Come on, lets get real here... Bush's own National Response Plan was aimed a both natural and terrorist disasters...

Seems the real disaster was that Bush was too busy carnking up the funding his new shiney war in Iraq to be bothered with covering up the rear... And Katrina out flanked him...

17% of the what was requested for maintinance of the levee system by the Corps of Engineers is all that Bush coughed up the year before Katrina...

Go back and check Bill Clinton's record on funding FEMA, GUEST, since it seems that you now are trying to play the, "Awwww shucks, well Clinton did some dumb stuff, too" defense... Well, sure Clinton did some dumb stuff... I have never said I liked Slick Willie one bit... I didn't vote for him and I'd never vote for his war-mongin' old lady...

But, Slick Wille's record of funding the Army Corp of Engineers sho nuff was as responsible as Bush's has been in the irresponsible department...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 12:11 AM

What are the amounts Bobert?

When you are caught with your ignorance showing you try to claim it was humor.

http://volokh.com/posts/1125804593.shtml

To refer to the funding decisions as "cuts" is slightly misleading. If the Army Corps of Engineers asked for additional funding and got some, but not all, of the increase they asked for, this is not a cut. And indeed, this would seem to be the situation. Overall funding for the Corps has increased every year under the Bushadministration by roughly $200 million per year; their budget rose from $4.1 billion in 2000 to $5.1 billion in 2005. Funding for flood control in the Mississippi and coastal regions (not counting emergency funding) has remained roughly constant at around $320 million per year. The Corps no doubt would prefer a budget twice this size (andsuch might be a good idea), but the fact that they have not received one does not mean that their budget has been "cut". The proper word would be "increased".

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 12:17 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/07/AR2005090702462_pf.html

In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times as large.

Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon.

For example, after a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia flunked a Corps cost-benefit analysis, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) tucked language into an emergency Iraq spending bill ordering the agency to redo its calculations. The Corps also spends tens of millions of dollars a year dredging little-used waterways such as the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, the Atchafalaya River and the Red River -- now known as the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway, in honor of the project's congressional godfather -- for barge traffic that is less than forecast.

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 12:22 AM

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/berlau200509080824.asp

Activists strike again:

The national Sierra Club was one of several environmental groups who sued the Army Corps of Engineers to stop a 1996 plan to raise and fortify Mississippi River levees.

The Army Corps was planning to upgrade 303 miles of levees along the river in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas. This was needed, a Corps spokesman told the Baton Rouge, La., newspaper The Advocate, because "a failure could wreak catastrophic consequences on Louisiana and Mississippi which the states would be decades in overcoming, if they overcame them at all."

But a suit filed by environmental groups at the U.S. District Court in New Orleans claimed the Corps had not looked at "the impact on bottomland hardwood wetlands." The lawsuit stated, "Bottomland hardwood forests must be protected and restored if the Louisiana black bear is to survive as a species, and if we are to ensure continued support for source population of all birds breeding in the lower Mississippi River valley." In addition to the Sierra Club, other parties to the suit were the group American Rivers, the Mississippi River Basin Alliance, and the Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi Wildlife Federations.

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 12:26 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/07/AR2005090702462_pf.html

But overall, the Bush administration's funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton administration's for its past five years. Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the chief of the Corps, has said that in any event, more money would not have prevented the drowning of the city, since its levees were designed to protect against a Category 3 storm, and the levees that failed were already completed projects. Strock has also said that the marsh-restoration project would not have done much to diminish Katrina's storm surge, which passed east of the coastal wetlands.

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 04:46 PM

From an article written by Michael Schere entitled "Anatomy of an unnatural disaster" who was writting after an extensive interview of Eric Tolbert, a former top disaster official in the Bush administration:

"FEMA is not the only agency that found itself bled of required funding by White House decisions after the terrorist attacks off Swept. 11. Shortly after the atatcks, the Army Corps of Engineeers found itself facing deep cuts in funding for the largest flood control and drainage program in the New Orleans area. In the first full budget year after the attacks, the Bush administartion funded the Southeast Lousiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA, at only 20 percemt of the Corps' request of $100 million. IN fiscal year 2004, the White House funding came in at 17 percent of the request."

Wow, GUEST... Tthis is the way a former top Bush disaster guy sees it???

Danged...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 05:26 PM

Yes that is the way I see it too but are saying that more funding would have prevented the disaster?

Here is what would have prevented the disaster:

Building the levees to with stand a cat 5 starting about 20 years earlier and/or the flood gates that were appropriated.

Evacuating NO before the storm hit.

Now it seems to me that you are claiming GWB should have prevented the disaster but he did not because he did not value the lives and property in NO as much as he does in say New York.

There was two whole days before the storm hit. Everybody knew it was going to hit and how bad it would be during that time. Bush warned people and told them to leave. What did the local authorities do during those two precious days? They flip flopped around and caused those deaths.

How would it have turned out if there were no war in Iraq?

How would it have turned out if FEMA were never fooled with?

Would the levees have been built up to withstand the storm?

Would the locals have evacuated NO?

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 07:41 PM

bobert, you poor ignorant shit - FEMA means 'Federal Emergency Management Agency' - It does nothing UNTIL there is an emergency - like after the Hurricane, earthquake, flood happens.

What is so difficult about 'managing an emergency'? It has to happen first!

There is nothing to do before hand and I still think you are a 'puton artist'. But now you have taken on the appearance of a pathetic individual, lost in your own cloud of moldy stuff from the stash box.

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 10:07 PM

Gettin' a little testy, ain't we, GUEST??? Why you gotta be that way, anyway??? Yer just'a poor looser, I reckon...

So you say that FEMA don't do "nuthing UNTIL there is an emergency"...

Like maybe you'd like to revisit the time line, pal...

According to Congressionl hearing testimony, FEMA chief was in touch with the White House two full days before Katrina hit telling tham from everything he knew that Katrina was going to be the big one...

This should have at least gotten someone's attention... It'd be like me calling you up, GUEST, and telling you I was gonna come over to yer house with an ugly stick... If you knew that I knew where you were living I doubt very seriously that you'd just go on watchin' the Price-Is-Right reruns without any concern...

I mean, lets get real here... You accuse me of not dealing with reality??? What a joke...

You say that the federal governemnt, being warned that a major hurrican was going to kit a majot population center in 48 hours had no responsibility to do anything??? Is that now yer position???

Talk about ignorance, pal... If I ever want to know what you look like all I'll have to do is look up "ignorance" in Webster's and yer piccure oughtta be right there with a big red bow 'round it...

But while we're on the topic of ignmorance and time lines how 'bout telling the Peanut Gallery when the orders were given by Michale Chertoff to FEMA, and other agencies, to mobilize...

Yeah, tell 'um that...

And here's the real challenge fir ya... Se if can answer that question without calling me an ignorant "sh*t" or blaming Bill Clinton...

I will say one thing: you are certainly a piece of work, GUEST...

BTW, do you really believe any of this stuff you write since it seems to have no factual basis and is so far removed from reality that it's borderline comical...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 09:54 AM

Simply tell me what the Feds were to do 2 days before?

The head of the Hurricane center directly contacted the State and Local officials, "the first responders", and the latter two sat on their hands.

FEMA = 'emergency management', can't manage until the emergency takes place. i.e., Hurricane, flood, earthquake. Why about this is not understandable?

Or, do you want an agency such as FEMA to roll everything into the area to be devastated, prior to the strike, so they also can be blown away?

You are correct about one thing - I am "a piece of work", one that knows what he is talking about.

No more slams from either side, okay? Simply and briefly respond to my inquiries.

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 10:24 AM

No, GUEST, you tell me what the feds were supposed to do...Hey, the National Response Plan was wriiten and to be implimented by yer guys... (Not a slam...)

BTW, you still haven't gotten 'round to the "time Line" question of when Chertoff ordered mobilization... (Not a slam...)

Gotta go... Later... (Not a slam...)

Bobert (Not a slam...)

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 10:36 AM

bobert - no, you tell me what the Feds didn't do as you are the person saying they were wrong, not me.

Again, stop trying to turn this around when you can't respond.
(not a slam, just a fact)

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 12:49 PM

Can you answer any of these easy questions?

If Bush had provided more funding would it have prevented the disaster?

If there was no war in Iraq, would the disaster have been prevented?

Would the disaster have been prevented if FEMA was never fooled with?

Would building the levees to with stand a cat 5 starting about 20 years earlier and/or the flood gates that were appropriated have prevented the disaster?

Would the evacuation of NO before the storm hit have prevented the disaster?

In short, what would have prevented this disaster?

Bobert is not concerned about the disaster itself, what caused it, how it could have been prevented and how to prevent the next one. He is only concerned with making political hay out of it to discredit GWB.

Shure FEMA is screwed up. Shure FEMA did not respond AFTER the disaster as well as they would have if it was left alone.

Sure GWB appointed incompetent people. Chertof still looks incompetent to me.

This does not mean that GWB is responsible for the disaster but only for some problems in the aftermath of the disaster. It seems to me with bullets flying, inaccurate TV coverage, inaccurate newspaper coverage and looting and other criminal activities going on that a "fog of war" descended on the rescue effort. If the city had been evacuated the rescue effort would have been immensely reduced.

The local authorities could have prevented most of the suffering and loss of life if they had evacuated during the two days before Katrina hit.

GWB warned them of the magnitude of the storm and told people to move to to safer ground. Should he have said "do not listen to your local authorities and get out"? Would that have helped the people that had no way to get out? Should GWB have sent the military to over ride the local authorities and organize an evacuation? Invoked military law?

The loss of property could not have been prevented because the levees were not up to the task. It would have taken an effort that began 20 years or more before the disaster to prevent the flooding. Even if the levees were built higher, the 17th street canal levee would have failed anyway because the steel did not go deep enough into the peat and sand below. Flood gates might have prevented the flooding.

So Bobert, are you about disaster prevention or you about Monday morning quarterbacking, political finger pointing and name calling?

And because the place still in in no shape to withstand a similar storm, you are preparing to use any future disasters as a weapon rather that trying to come up with something constructive?

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 06:16 PM

Looks like Katrinagate is a flop just like Medigate.

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 09:42 PM

Question #1... No, Bush could not have prevented the disaster... That is rather obvious...

Question #2... Yes, in taking money from where ever he could find it to fund the War in Iarq, icluding funds that Congress had earmarked for FEMA, Bush, in essence, was not covering up the rear...

Question #3... See answer to question #1... The disaster was going to be a disaster irrwegardless of the Bush administartion's inablity to respond...

Question #4... Most likely... I think most engineers would agree with this assesssment... But keep in mind that the SELA had not seen this kind of underfundining for maintenance of the existing levees... Bill Clinton funded the maintenance at close to 100% of the Army Corps of Engineers request... Bush's funding was between 17% and 20% of requested funds... Now, here's where we part ways, GUEST... Had Bush had more monet available for domestic spending programs there is a chance, perhaps even a good chance that if the Army Corps of Engineer had recieve the levels of funding that it had requested under Clinton that there is, at least a chance, that the leeves wouldn't have been breeched... If you, GUEST, are an engineer, as the folks who are hired by the Army Corps of Engineers are, may they need you to come in and tell them why the $100M they requested in 2003 was wrong and where they had misplaced the decimel point... All I know is that these folks, who are slide rule kinda folks requested $100M to maintian the system and Buish sent um' $17M to $20M??? You can do the math...

Qusetion #5... No, again, GUEST, the disater was Hurricne Katrina... You won't find me saying that Bush 'caused the hurricne... But the reponse on the Bush administration showed that while Bush was long on talk (i.e. "It's my job to protect the American people..") when the chips were down we found that the Bush administration hadn't done the heavy lifting in setting policies, procedures and funding in place to protect the American people from either a natural or terrorist driven disaster... Yeah, Katrina exposed the Bush administration as one long on talk but short on walk...

Question #6... Again, nuthin' would have prevented Katrina from coming a shore but a fully funded FEMA, be a cabinet level department ot not, would have greatly cut the human loses if for no other reason than a fully funded FEMA, with an operational National Reponse Plan would have mobilized 3 days earlier than it did and that would have made a bif difference in the evacuation... Remeber, the Natioal Response Plan, which incidently failed under Katrina, called for mobilization from either natural ot terrorist situations...

Now as to GUEST's observations about me as person... Hey, when the chips are down and it is Monday morning quarterbacking it's comes down to folks payin' attention to detail... And it comes down to doing what you say... And it come down to the heavy lifting that is required to be successfull...

With that said, yes, as someone who has has always had by back and flanks covered, I know what it takes to be successfull... I have been successfull in life for all the rerasons that George Bush has been a failure...

Had I been in his position on 9/11 I would have take a very different path... When Bush turned a massive police axction ito some kind of absatract war against abstract enemeies he set the United States on a course for failure... Since then he has taken gobs of money that could have been used to help Americans to fight these rediculously unwinnable wars and funded these expensive and very problematic occupations...

Why did he do these things??? Well, not becuase he thought it was the right thing to do but because his handlers felt that there was nuthin' better than as "hot war" to keep his part ion power so it could pillage and rape the US treasury and American workers... This has long been the goal of the Republican Party and Bush doesn't get the glory of winning the battle... Certainlu his daddy and Reagan got the ball well down field and with the help of folks who, God bless 'um, think that gay marriage, abortion and flag burning are the three most important issues on the planet, have used these hot wars and hot button social issues to tay in power whilst fleecing the middle class and chipping away at the New Deal...

Yeah, had I'd been running the business---which it is-- I would have done an infinately better job because, first of all, screw politics when it comes to getting things done right... Yeah sure, it's fun to mess with the Bushites (not a slam...) here in Mudville but I have a history of working with folks who might fall into that category... I don't see "Bushite" in y real world... I have always beena community activist and you dance with the folks who come to the dance...

Hey, I'm not a GUEST... I'm transparent and my work over the last coup,e of decades in Leesburg, Va. ain't no secret and it's forced my to work with Bushites and not make nuthin' of it...

But, yeah, I wouldn't have made 9/11 a politcal thing to us for power to steal back promises made by empolyers or promises made by the New Deal...

I would have rolled up my sleeve and doen the heavy lifting... That would have meant funding the home stuff that needed to be funded and maybe not gotten re-elected but going out knowin' that I had done the right thing...

Bush didn't do that... He stole from our domestic programs, left our country more vulnerable than before 9/11 and Katrine is "Exhibit A"...

No Monday morin' quarterback, here, GUEST... I have a transparent history of walkin' the walk...

Just heard today from someone that the current mayor of Leesburg, Kristine Umstead said some very flattering things in a Town Council sessionc about my service to the Leesburg community while I was there...

Bush blew it...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 10:27 PM

bobert, you is a wonderful person - I know - 'cause you tell me so.

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Jul 06 - 11:12 PM

Bite me...

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 09:52 AM

Bobert you need to run for some sort of office so you can make a difference in our government the right way. It looks like you have the stuff. There are too many rabble rousers and not enough real people willing to step up to the plate and enter government. Hell if you get elected, make it to Washington and start making sense, I might even vote for you.

I do not Monday morning quarterback. I sort through the facts and form an opinion, When I see others trying to filter out some facts in order to get to the conclusion they want and trying to foist that opinion on others as "I see things that normal people do not", I feel compelled to say so.

I don't expect you to change your opinion, just to say that the Katrina disaster was not GWB's fault but partially his fault. And that only problems with the aftermath, due to the failure of others, were his fault

First of all to name it Katrinagate is an attempt to make it look like it was planed out like the Watergate break ins. That in itself is a distortion.

I don't see how any amount of money given to Army Core of Engineers could have made the levees Katrina proof due to the time frame and things that were not known like steel sheeting not going deep enough. The flood gates might have saved the destruction and loss of life and the money was there. However people that knew better blocked their construction for ecological reasons. I wonder if the ecology suffered worse because they were not built?

The war did have a deleterious effect because the local authorities did not do their job and evacuate. If they had done their job the rescue would have been insignificant.

So we can't go to war because a local government might screw up and need to be bailed out?

Suppose North Korea invaded South Korea. Should we have to check up on the competence and preparedness of every state and city in the US before we send troops?

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 11:33 AM

Nah, GUEST, on runninh' for office... I've been approcahed a couple times but I'm way tyoo busy for that... My business partner has been on town council for the last 4 years and has just finished her term the end of last month and it was like getting released from prison...

I like my involvement with the local Main Street program just fine...

Now, back to why the "gate' after Katrina... When 9/11 hit the Bush adminstration did majoe reshuffling of policies and departments... Yes, part of the reshuffling came as a result of the the Dem proposal for the DHS but the reshuffling of funding, orgainization and policy was done primarily within the Bush adminsitration...


If you'll recall, right after 9/11 there was a lot of talk about the need to shore up first ressponders for dealing with disasters... The National Response Plan was written by the Bush administartion, not Congress and it dealt with scenerios, be them created by bad men or nature, where an area was so overwhelmed by a disaster that the federal governemnt would mobilize...

Then we stared hearing from mayors and governors that the Bush adminstartion was lolli-gaggin' on funding the verioua first response organizations... Might of fact, the National Coucil of Governors complained of the lasck of adequate funding for these programs and departments...

It's easy to say that the state and local governements should have plans and resources to deal with their own problems but reality is, they can't... The federal governemnt, under Bush, has allready shifted more finacial burden on the states over the last 6 years allready and there is a breaking point for those governemnts... That's why there was a National Response Plan to begin with...But if there aren't the federal dollars being invested to impliment such a plan then the plan becomes an accident waiting to happen...

...and thus: Katrinagate...

The Bush adnministration was not properly funding it's own plan...

As for whether or not a fully funded Army Corp's of Engineers maintenance program would have lessened the damage, there really isn't any wholesale agreement among engineers. An engineer, Henter Johnston, of Johston and Associates, for example says "It the Army Corps capabilities for the SELA program had been fully funded, there is no question that Jefferson Parish and New Orleans would be in much better position to remove the water on the streets once the pump satrts working."

But we do know that Bush choze to fund these maintenance programs at 20% and less...

... which, as America's CEO, ha has the constitutiona right to do...

Where the gate comes in is that Bush knew that he was very, very thin on not only funding the componets necessary to impliment the NRP but also on maintaining the levees, all the while going around the country boasting about it being his "job to protect the American people..."

Had he funded them properly then he could have made this claim...

...but he didn't...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 01:17 PM

Bobert:

Was the Katrina disaster planed out?

How often does any branch of government or state or city get everything they ask for? Can you give me an example?

I remember making things for government agencies just to use up the money they had not spent yet, leftover money, so they could ask for more for the next year.

The SELA program began in 1996 and with 32 projects completed to date the Program is projected for completion by the year-end of 2007.

2007 is a little late for Katrina.

What "plans and resources" did the local government lack except grey matter?

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Jul 06 - 08:05 PM

Well, yeah, GUEST, it is common for governmental agencies to take a budget and add an extra 1O to 15 percent to it knowin' that it's gonna be cut by, ahhhh, 10 or 15 percent... This is almost S.O.P. in not only government but in the private sector, as well...

But an 83% cut??? I mean, let's get real here... You can't possibly believe that the Corps only needed $17M to maintain the levee and kew that they would have to request $100M to get the $17M???

Was the disaster planned out??? LOL... No, Bush may have usurped a lot of power since 9/11 but makin' hurricans ain't in the scope of what he can or cannot do... But the response to the disaster did bring one thing into focus: Bush has been spending way too much time and tax payers money conducting his wars of choice and not paying enough attention to the nuts and bolts of really protecting the American people...

And, not to get too far off course here, but this isn't entirely Bush's fault in that our political system is so driven by money and our leaders are too busy chasin' bucks to stay in power than doing a good job once there... Yeah, since 2000 it has gotten much worse... Bushm in order to maintain his power has had to raise one heck of a lot of money and has spent more time politicin' that any president in history... Yeah, lots of those trips where Bush apologists say Bush is on the job are nuthin' more than fund raising trips...

But with that said, Bush is the CEO and he was AWOL (too busy playing politics and not enought playing manager...) when the heavy lifting was needed to get the National Reponse Plan funded and workable... Especially after 9/11...

Do you realize there was supposed to be mock disaster run-through in Louisana well prior to Katrina but that the federal funds didn't come thru???

That's what I mean...

The boy was just too focused on fund raising, keeping the American people entertained with a new and shiny war, politicing for the '04 election and not enough time at the office doing what he called the "hard work"...

But in the '04 election we heard over and over the phrase "It's my job to protect the American people"... You know, almost as if he believed that he had done the heavy lifting to make that claim... But we now see that he hadn't done the "hard work"... This "protect the American people" was just another slick ad-man phrase that had come outta Karl Rove's office that had absolutley nuthin' to do with reality...

And that is why this is a scandal...

Yeah, Bush may escape the truth of Katrina for awhile but historian will get it right... There's just too much evidence to escape... And when they take on Katrina there won't be a revisionist alive with the capabilities to sugar-coat the major blunders by Bush and his inner circle in regards to the preparedness of the Bush administartion to protect the American people from a catastrophy, man made or not....

And to this very day the Bush administartion continues to sandbag and hope that Katrina will just fade away but it won't...

And, BTW, GUEST, you still haven't gotten around to the time line question of when Chertoff ordered mobilization...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST,Old Guy uncloaking
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 02:06 AM

You're the expert on when Chertoff did what.

I think that when Bush was saying he is going to protect the American people, he was talking about terrorist attacks. We haven't had any more so he has done that so far.

This hurricane jumped up and bit him in the ass while he was focusing on terrorism. Everything he does is political anyway. One party or the other is bitching no matter what he does.

I am not in love with GWB. I don't like most of his policies. But I think Kerry would have been a worse disaster. The next crop of candidates looks just as bad. All they do is try to figure out which campaign promises will get them elected. But how can anybody get elected without party backing?

I wish we could get rid of political parties completely so our they can make decisions based on what is best rather than what their party wants. It's like two rival gangs trying to dominate each other and the American people are in the crossfire.

As long as you agree that not all of the blame falls on Bush, we are somewhat in agreement.

Those locals down there fooled around when they could have been getting people out. Excuses like can't find a bus driver don't fly. In an emergency I or just about anybody can drive a bus. I drove a standard size school bus around once when I was a kid.

I have talked to contractors who are hesitant to go there and do any work. The problem is who pays and when. The insurance companies are screwing around with folks. That said, they should have had flood insurance.

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 09:28 AM

Familiarize yourself with the National Reponse Plan, Old Guy...

So what if the terrorists had blown the hack outta New Orleans or poisined its water??? Bush wasn't prepared either way...

And, BTW, how much money would it take for the closest city to you to be prepared for a massive disaster??? If yer in doubt call that city's mayor and then attend a couple budget hearings for a dose of reality...

You are not living in the real world...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 09:33 PM

If If If If. What if a flea farts in Patagonia and it creates a hurricane that wipes out your town? Are you ready with a plan?

Ifs are not in the real world. A hurricane bearing down on the gulf coast is for real. Bush telling them to get out is real. The fact that they did not get out is real.

"terrorists had blowing the heck outta New Orleans or poisined its water" is not for real. It is an if.

There are an infinite number of ifs which the national response plan could not handle.

What you need to come to grips with is what did happen.

And why do I need to memorize the national response plan? I got my own plans. Get the hell out of town when a hurricane is approaching and help as many others as I can.

You never know when a terrorist attack will happen and prevention is the best way to handle them. However the LIBs, Anarchists, Democrats and socialists are doing everything they can to keep the administration from finding and stopping terrorist cells. Mainly because they don't like GWB. They didn't want him to be elected but he got elected anyway. Now all they want to do is tear him down. Spending too much on this, not enough on that, he choked on something, he looks dumb. They are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats that didn't get a their way and now they are going to misbehave to get attention.

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 10:37 PM

Ahhhh, GUEST, you aren't living in the real world either...

Tellin' folks to get out ain't a plan...

You need a dose of reality, too... How 'bout attending the next budget hearing in yer town for a good dose of reality... You are so far removedd from the real world that yer comments, if they don't echo those of some many ohter completely ignorant people, would be laughable...

Unfortuataely there are way too many folks in cyber world who never had to live in the real world...

Like I said, go attend ther next budget hearing at the closest town or city to you and then come back with yer simplistic, bumper sticker arguments...

(No slam, just fact...)

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 09:25 AM

Evidently Tellin' folks to get out was the emergency plans in NO. Did they follow their own plans?

You think they don't have to because the Federal government is there to take over their job when their incompetence shows.

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Jul 06 - 09:34 AM

LOL, Guest...

Yer back to all these elaborate plans that cash strapped cities are supposed to somehow find that extra cash to have in place... Do you have any idea in dollar amounts what an evacutaion plan would require a major population center to come up with???

A plan would involve hundreds of contracts with various venders that the furnish all kinds of basic needs... It wiuld involve an entire deperatment with l;awyers, procurement specialists, clerical forks, etc...

Now go tell yer mayor that you think he oer she should organize and fund such an effort and get ready to be laughed out of his or her office...

Thus... the logic of a FEMA...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 12:58 AM

Ain't nobody laughing but you Bobert. It shows you know very little except expertise in smear campaigns.

How's this for cash strapped?:

In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times as large.

Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon.

For example, after a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia flunked a Corps cost-benefit analysis, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) tucked language into an emergency Iraq spending bill ordering the agency to redo its calculations. The Corps also spends tens of millions of dollars a year dredging little-used waterways such as the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, the Atchafalaya River and the Red River -- now known as the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway, in honor of the project's congressional godfather -- for barge traffic that is less than forecast.

Now laugh that off and go jump back in your barrel like a rodeo clown.

Here is a link to thier emergency plan page.

http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:yVKnPGIo37UJ:www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx%3Fportal%3D46+new+orleans+evacuation+plans&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2&lr=lang_en

The New Orleans City Assisted Evacuation Plan
Purpose
The purpose of the City Assisted Evacuation Plan (CAEP) is to help citizens who want to evacuate during an emergency, but lack the capability to self-evacuate. The CAEP is not intended to replace the individual�s personal responsibility in preparing their own evacuation. It is meant to be an evacuation method of last resort and only for those citizens who have no other means or, have physical limitations that prohibit self evacuation.
Synopsis
The general concept of the CAEP is that the city utilizes its facilities, manpower and other resources to provide assistance to citizens who cannot self-evacuate during the declaration of an emergency. The City of New Orleans, Office of Homeland Security and Public Safety, will have the overall command and responsibility for execution of the CAEP. The plan is designed to get all citizens and visitors out of the city prior to the tropical storm winds of a hurricane or during any other emergency that requires total evacuation of the city. This includes citizens without transportation and persons in need of medical resources (NMR). The plan uses the Morial Convention Center (MCC), Union Passenger Terminal (UPT) and Louis Armstrong Airport (MSY) as debarkation points for an emergency evacuation. The plan requires evacuation by air, rail and ground transportation to be fully effective. The goal is to have the CAEP completed in a 36 hour time period beginning at the issuance of evacuation orders by the governor and the mayor. The first 12 hours of the period being preparatory to implant security at the processing and staging centers and to acquire transportation resources. The City will have the overall responsibility for getting the citizens from pre-identified pickup locations to the registration centers and debarkation points. The State, supported by external entities, will have the responsibility for moving the persons from the threat area and into shelters. When the threat has passed and re-entry is authorized, this process will be reversed. The CAEP is activated by notifying all the partner governmental and non-governmental entities that an evacuation has been ordered and the facilities, transportation and emergency response personnel should execute their component of the plan. The city will establish evacuee processing and staging centers at local hotels, the MCC and the UPT. The Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, in conjunction with other State Departments (DOTD, DSS, DHH, LSP), will activate their plans developed to transport and shelter evacuees. This synopsis does not detail all aspects of the CAEP, but is meant to provide a quick overview of the general concept. The attached flow charts and the individual operations plans describe the movements at each facility.
2
Activation
The CAEP is activated upon orders from the Mayor and in concurrence with the Governor following the declaration of an emergency. The Mayor�s declaration of anemergency must be followed by a specific order to the Director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness (OEP) to launch the CAEP. The Director of OEP also serves as the EOC Coordinator in the New Orleans Emergency Operations Center (EOC). It is assumed that in a potential hurricane event that the EOC will be activated well in advance of the actual declaration of an emergency as officials track the storm. The EOC Coordinator then directs the Operations Section Chief to initiate the CAEP by notifying the components of the EOC tasked with launching the plan. The Operations Section Chief, upon receiving the order to launch the CAEP, will use the components of the Operations Section and prepared check lists to ensure that all of the required internal and external entities necessary to execute the CAEP have been notified that the plan has been initiated: These organizations include the following:-
Local Government Agencies
New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Public Safety
New Orleans Office of Emergency Preparedness
New Orleans Police Department (NOPD)
New Orleans Fire Department (NOFD)
New Orleans Mayor�s Office of Technology (MOT)
New Orleans Emergency Medical Services (EMS)
New Orleans Health Department (NOHD)
New Orleans Council on Aging (NOCA)
Other Orleans Parish Departments
Jefferson Parish OEP
Plaquemines Parish OEP
St. Bernard Parish OEP
Port Authority
Harbor Police
State Agencies
Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (LOHSEP)
Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (LOTD)
Louisiana Department of Social Services (LDSS)
Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (LDHH)
Louisiana National Guard (LNG)
Louisiana State Police (LSP)
Non Government Operated Entities
AMTRAK
Morial Convention Center (MCC) (owned by the State)
Union Passenger Terminal (UPT) (owned by the City)
Louis Armstrong Airport (MSY)
Regional Transit Authority (RTA)
Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA)
American Red Cross (ARC)
New Orleans Hotel and Lodging Association (NOHLA)
Lakefront Airport (LA)
Citizens Emergency Response Team (CERT)
It is expected that the State agencies above will make the necessary notifications to the
appropriate Federal agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Transportation
(DOT) and the Department of Defense (DOD).
Components of the EOC tasked with making notifications that the CAEP has been
launched will monitor the development of that particular component of the plan and keep
the Operations Section Chief advised accordingly.

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 08:47 PM

Rodeo clown, GUEST??? Seems as if the truce on no slammin' has come to an abrupt end...

But nevermind yer attempt to drive a stake thru my heart as a voice who doesn't buyninto yer reviasionist thinking in regards to yer hero's absolute and utter failures in dealing with Katrina...

Yes, it's nice to say that towns and cities have "evacuation plans" but a plan without resources plus 89 cents will get you a 12 ounce cup of coffee at Pete's Quik-Stop...

Heck, I operated a business for 20 years in a flood plain and know that "evacuation plans" are all over the place but...

... lets get real hear, GUEST...

This is the real world an' not some rodeo clown world of yers...

Look what happened after Katrina... The Red Croos almost went bust spendin' all it's reserves... The American people sent millions of bucks to try to help the evacuation and resettlement... And this with a "evaculation plan" in place???

Hey, GUEST, you seem to be a right interllegent feller 'er felleress... Had the Red Cross not stepped up, had communities like Baton Rouge and Houston not stepped up, had the American people not stepped up the so-called "evacuation plan, was nuthin' more than some college kids term paper...

Let nme give you an example of how things work in the real world... Take Dulles Airport in NoVa. and just snow removal... Do you realize that Dulles has dozens of private contractors who leave snow removal equipement at Dulles all winter long??? Do you realize that Du7lles pays these private contractors even if not the first flake of snow falls???

This is waht ****real**** plans are about... Contracts, and lots of 'um, BTW... Now that is just snow removal at one airport...

Take any large city and tell the mayor that he is going to have to have the contractors in place to evacuate and relocate it's citizens...

Yeah, this is what I mean... We ain't talkin' about some college kids term paper here but real and *****funded***** plans...

No city in America is in that position... New Orleans is the proof...

Now back to the National Response Plan fir a minute... The folks who wrote it recognized exactly what I have been saying here and that is that some catastrohies are bigger than a local, or even a state governemnts, irregardless of how many unfunded plans they have in the filing cabinet, can deal with...

So, yeah, you can continue to come up with yer "rodeo clown" insults against me but when this day is done, you and I know both know that was a bad move on yer part... (No slam...)

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 11:36 PM

So a plan is not really a plan and no one can be blamed for not following their plan unless Bush is some what related to the plan.

Then it becomes a **REAL** plan.

All right now, you tell me how the Federal Government could have evacuated new Orleans.

And Bush is not my hero any more than Nagin is youre hero. You know that buy you keep repeating it to be irritating.

Subject: RE: BS: KatrinaGate...
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Jul 06 - 09:42 AM

No, GUEST, a plan becomes a plan when contracts for services are in place... Like it or not, that's reality, my friend...

And Bush could have left the funding levels in place for FEMA rather than use FEMA as a slush fund for DHS and the Iraq occupation... That would have been a good start...