You can put to rest the conspiracy-theory rumblings of some leftwingers that "Bush budget cuts" for levee improvements and a study of upgrading New Orleans' levees are to blame for levees breaking and New Orleans being flooded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

I have seen just as many supporters of Bush blaming him as "leftwingers".

Here are some comments from the last few years about the steady depletion in Washington of funding to improve NO levee systems:

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to this Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness:

The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which remains about 20% incomplete due to lack of funds, said Al Naomi, project manager. That project consists of building up levees and protection for pumping stations on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles and Jefferson parishes.

The Lake Pontchartrain project is slated to receive $3.9 million in the president's 2005 budget. Naomi said about $20 million is needed.

"The longer we wait without funding, the more we sink," he said. "I've got at least six levee construction contracts that need to be done to raise the levee protection back to where it should be (because of settling). Right now I owe my contractors about $5 million. And we're going to have to pay them interest."

That June, with the 2004 hurricane seasion starting, the Corps' Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don’t get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can’t stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn’t that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can’t raise them."

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

The 2004 hurricane season, as you probably recall, was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane- and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs.

yes, funding was reduced from what the Army Corps of Engineers wanted - but Bush increased overall funding for the Corps of Engineers whereas his predecessor had slashed it.

Bureacratic agencies always want more than they get.

And the bottom line is the levee that failed HAD ALREADY BEEN UPGRADED, so the budget cuts played ZERO ROLE in the current disaster.

Surely, cutting funds for the ACoE for levee systems HELPED the situation.

From the DHS website:

In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort. The new Department will also prioritize the important issue of citizen preparedness. Educating America's families on how best to prepare their homes for a disaster and tips for citizens on how to respond in a crisis will be given special attention at DHS.

From this viewpoint after the disaster, money spent on reinforcing the levees from Category 3 to Category 5 would seem a bargain, especially following all the outrageous pork in the recent highway bill. Apparently , overall funding increases didn't avoid Lake George. How can one say otherwise when speaking of life and death ?

Hate to disagree, but how can you have it both ways? The Army Corps engineer you quote says the decreases/delays had no impact. Those in the region say different and the press has obviously been documenting these facts.
Are infrastructure agencies just boondoogles with frivolous requests?
Are requests to be dismissed just because the costs of improvements is high?
And I mentioned specific, long term funding, not "overall" funding, since they are also involved in Iraq and that means their costs increase.
Pres. Clinton was not the one who argued in favor of the cuts in the 90s-- that came from the leadership of Newt Gingrich and Congress.
But it was Pres. Bush who called for the most recent round of cuts, especially in the NO area.
Don't you think several elected/appointed officials in D.C. and NO need to be held ACCOUNTABLE for decisions which led to gross mismanagement and incompetence?

> And the bottom line is the levee that failed HAD ALREADY BEEN UPGRADED, so the budget cuts played ZERO ROLE in the current disaster.

Thank goodness the levee didn't have as many holes as your logic. The levee HAD ALREADY BEEN UPGRADED 36 years ago, therefore it never needs to be upgraded again? I'm glad you're not my auto mechanic! "We changed the oil back in 1972. Therefore, lack of oil changes couldn't possibly be the reason your car's having problems now!"

The upgrades in '69 were adequate for the problems the city was facing in '69. The city has sunk quite a bit since then, the coastline has eroded, making the city more vulnerable to flooding - the situation was changed. Upgrading the levees in 1969 was the correct response then, but as decades passed, more work was needed, and Bush cut the budget for that work.

But there's plenty more to blame Bush for. We knew a hurricane was coming. We knew that there was a chance it would hit New Orleans, and we knew that if it did, disaster would ensue. Why didn't Bush prepare? Why wasn't the guard mobilized three days in advance and not three days afterwards? And you can't blame LA's governor for that one - Bill Richardson offered the NM Guard's services before the storm hit, but Washington didn't approve their out-of-state move until Thursday.

And on top of lack of preparation, there was the immediate response. Everyone else in America was fixed on the disaster. Except Bush - he was still on vacation, monkeying around with a guitar and making jokes. And Condi Rice went on vacation AFTER the hurricane hit! While dead bodies were floating through the streets, was she coordinating international aid? No, she was in New York, blowing a thousand dollars on shoes!

I realize that Bush is your guy, and you have to defend him no matter what, but admit it: he fucked up. Big-time, as Cheney would say. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people died in Katrina's aftermath because of a huge leadership vacuum. Any competent leader would have made preparations before the storm, and anyone but the most self-absorbed, heartless, arrogant, out-of-touch prick on Earth would have rushed to the scene and mustered every bit of aid available.

Say what you will about Clinton, if this had happened on his watch, he'd be bailing out water with a bucket if that's what it took to help. The moment the wind stopped blowing, he'd be there talking to the victims, promising aid, and actually delivering it.

But with Bush, it's a dangerous combination. He's every bit as aloof and out of touch as his father, but at least his father was smart. The son is massively incompetent on top of it. That combination has cost plenty of our soldiers their lives, and now it's costing New Orleans residents theirs.

The levee was upgraded recently, shroeder. Your post begins with a flat-out lie.

As the NYT story that I linked to says:

Shea Penland, director of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of New Orleans, said that was particularly surprising because the break was "along a section that was just upgraded."

I raised the same point, that the broken section of levee was recently upgraded, on a leftist blog site. The blogger quickly resorted to an ad hominen attack accusing me of spinning. It is amazing to me how virulent the hatred of Bush is among those on the extreme left, and how it prompts them to abandon objectivity.

Noting that some funding was not specifically allotted further begs the question as to whether any appropriations in the last two years would have been in time to change anything anyway - with a project this big, and standard bureaucratic delay, the answer would be "no".

And of course the question is further begged, almost to death at this point, as to why no state funds were appropriated for any upgrades.

Just remember those buses - and the human toll to this levee upgrade talk quickly fades to irrelevance.

Regards,
NSM

In schroeder's defense, he probably wasn't lying. More likely, in his partisan haste to blame Bush he didn't pay close enough attention to differentiate between the recent upgrading of the levee and the 1969 levee raise.

I must admit though that I got a good chuckle out of his Clinton what-if scenario.

I agree, for the most part, that the levee project was never ambitious enough for a Cat 5 hurricane -- but what does it mean when even the less ambitious plan is not adequately funded -- though a bill appropriates over $100M for a REPUBLICAN (Alaska) pork project to build a bridge to an uninhabited island?

Emergency was declared prior to the hurricane hitting. It was DHS/FEMA's job, as declared by fed govt, prior to the hurricane. The buck-passing to local govt is just buck-passing.

FEMA can do a lot, still, when directed to. It was directed to do a LOT, in Florida in an election year:

http://tinyurl.com/d65zg

Now, not only is FEMA in DHS now, with DHS taking responsibility for all major natural disasters, now, but FEMA has been forced to outsource for years. At least for some areas (not Florida in an election year!).

So for NOLA, the principal planning duties are not left to local govt, but to a private contractor hired by DHS/FEMA.

How did that work out in NOLA? A contract was made, and half a million dollars paid.

"IEM, Inc., the Baton Rouge-based emergency management and homeland security consultant, will lead the development of a catastrophic hurricane disaster plan for Southeast Louisiana and the City of New Orleans under a more than half a million dollar contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)."

Result was disaster, of course. We're ALL screwed like the Iraqis, because the contracts are going to Bush donors, with little or no accountability.

Just read it!
Source: http://tinyurl.com/b2rvj

Bill, with all due respect, your analysis only serves to heap more coals on Bush's head. If it is true that the levee had been known to be inadequate for years in advance, then there is even less justification for the president's slow response.

But according to Bush, "No one knew that the levee was going to break." He said that on Thursday. According to your argument, it was already common knowledge that the levee was no match for a storm like Katrina.

The National Weather Service warned of a Category Five hurricane on Saturday. The president continued to vacation for three days after that. He had been warned of the potential for flooding by Sunday at the latest.

If he isn't to blame for the levee break, then he gets even more blame for the response.

"Cold hard facts."

Bill, you know that these people don't need any facts when they have their emotions. I mean it's not like they take facts and draw conclusions from those facts. They would much rather formulate conclussions based on their "emotions and feelings" and then build some facts to support those conclusions that they have already drawn from their emotions.

That right there is the intellectual description of liberalism. That's it. Pretty sad isn't it?

I guess my comment has been subjected to deletion since I called your Fuhrer a "tinpot dictator". So much for Freedom of Speech?

It only highlights the fact that you, right-wingers, are totally in favor of a dictatorship...

Let's remember that Katrina's eyewall MISSED New Orleans.

The ICC breach which flooded the eastern part of the city and likely caused the greatest number of deaths was unavoidable with protection designed only for a category 3 storm, since the storm surge here was large.

On the Lake Pontchartrain side which flooded the central part of New Orleans, however, it has become clear that ONLY the recently upgraded sections failed. While nearby older 12 foot levees escaped unscathed, brand new 14-15 foot high floodwalls failed in a storm surge of only 6-8 FEET!

This is borne out by the closest working tide gauge significantly farther east and in higher winds at Slidell showing a peak of 9 feet.

Clearly, shoddy construction methods were used here, possibly due to budget cuts. On the other hand, had the levee not been recently downgraded, we most likely wouldn't have a flood in downtown New Orleans.

Current damages are, as should be expected for a New Orleans levee breach going to run >$100 billion. The official corps cost estimate to raise the levees to protect against a category 5 storm is $2-2.5 billion. The official corps probability of a direct hit by a category 4 or greater storm is 1 in 200 per year (this has GOT to be way low, but it's the official number). Putting these numbers togther gives a payback time of 2-2.5 / 100 * 200 = 4-5 years. When they talk about category 5 protection being too expensive, they mean it would take 4-5 years to pay for itself.

The failure of the newly upgraded levee wall is understandable as the job wasn't finished.
Here
Here
Wikipedia
However, the levee failures appear to have occurred on areas of levee that had already been funded, but not hardened or reinforced. The main breach, on the 17th St. Canal was of a concrete wall levee constructed in the last two years.

"Levees would have been higher, levees would have been bigger, there would have been other pumps put in, I'm not saying it would have been totally alleviated but it would have been less than the damage that we have got now." Mike Parker, former Mississippi congressman who headed the Corps from 2001 to 2002"

Personally I don't blame Bush for the failure to respond. He already declared the area disaster area. He expected FEMA to respond as once a area is declared a diaster area, FEMA is responsible. It didn't. Mike Brown was a Bush political appointee whose previous experience was running Arabian Horse Shows.

The money was cut so the levees that were newly constructed were not hardened. The response was inadequate. Why? Because the management of FEMA is a guy who was fired for incompentence at running Arabian Horse shows.

When you put an incompetent political hack in charge of an organization like FEMA these are the results you get.

Personally I don't blame Bush for the failure to respond...Mike Brown was a Bush political appointee whose previous experience was running Arabian Horse Shows.

Bush appointed him knowing his background. Bush is responsible for monitoring the effectiveness or lack thereof, of his employees.

Bush continued vacationing, and did nothing decisive to deal with the hurricane's aftermath, until days later.

When you put an incompetent political hack in charge of an organization like FEMA these are the results you get.

Now let's all see if the head of FEMA gets fired.

Or if he gets given a medal of freedom.

Personally I don't blame Bush for the failure to respond...Mike Brown was a Bush political appointee whose previous experience was running Arabian Horse Shows.

Bush appointed him knowing his background. Bush is responsible for monitoring the effectiveness or lack thereof, of his employees.

Bush continued vacationing, and did nothing decisive to deal with the hurricane's aftermath, until days later.

When you put an incompetent political hack in charge of an organization like FEMA these are the results you get.

Now let's all see if the head of FEMA gets fired.

Or if he gets given a medal of freedom.

If conservatives and Republicans really believe in personal accountability, they will now begin to hold Bush responsible for his job record.

If bush appointed an incompetent guy to head up FEMA, then he definitely has to shoulder some of the blame. What I hate is the fact that each side is trying to blame the other. We have the "Blame Bush" and "Defend Bush" camps duking it out. It make for some good entertainment, but that's all it is. Nagin and Blanco also have to share in the blame. And maybe this tragedy will wake us up. Suppose this had been a terrorist attack?

How can a terrorist attack us with a hurricane?

Breach vs. Collapse

Let's get the facts straight as this topic is discussed and debated.
The hurricane disaster model for New Orleans included a hurricane strike accompanied by several levee breaches. The fact that any hurricane at or above a Cat3,striking NewOrleans, was likely to cause excessive flooding made a mandatory evacuation the only real option.

A levee "breach" is a hole that develops, and typically can be repaired with sandbags and a piece of heavy construction equipment. A 10 or 15 foot hole or gap, if you will.

What really happened, was there was a "Collapse" of a levee. I have read that it was as little as a 200 foot section or as much as a 350 foot section that collapsed.

When the president said they didn't know the levee would collapse, he was referring to the projections and models that had been developed over the years. Local, State and Federal agencies knew breaches would occur causing excessive flooding, over a period of time. What they had never anticipated was a complete collapse of such a long section of levee, which, as we can all see, caused a rapid catastrophic flooding of New Orleans.

So before doing what our media does, far to often, and mislead the masses, let's make sure we know what it is we are talking about. A complete Collapse.

President Bush is not a Levee engineer and neither are many of us, as the term "breach" is being used as a broad and general term to cover and leaking at a levee.

The "planned-for" breaches in the model were enough of a problem to elicit a mandatory evacuation of the city, and it was modeled on a Cat3 hurricane with accompanying breaches.

As Katrina pushed toward the gulf coast, blowing as high as a Cat5, why wasn't there a 100% complete and exhaustive evacuation?

The City of NewOrleans had conducted an evacuation for Ivan, the excuses for not following the plan, are only that, excuses.

There have been plenty of democratic and repulbican presidents and legislative bodies in the past 36 years since Camille. Anyone of them could have put an action into place to prevent the tragedy we have seen with Katrina whether it was improved levees or at the very least better evacuation procedures. I believe the ultimate responsibility is with the local and state government that failed for 36 years to get this issue into the public lights or government assistance in preparing this state as it should to avoid Katrina's disaster.