New Orleans Ladder's Editilla: Say It Ain't So, Joe!

[Louisiana1976]

~“The truth of the matter,” Biden said, “is for someone who lost their home, it is Katrina. For some in this shelter, it is Katrina.”

“Folks, we understand. We have a sense of what you're going through,” he said. “We know we can't make everything right. But we know we're going to do everything we can...
to make it all right.

<snip>

Since we don't have the luxury of time on our side, let's make sure these fibbers get only one term for theirs.

I find it grotesquely ironic to have Never heard Brad Pitt utter those cursed words, as if Brad Pitt (the unabashedly liberal actor) knows why New Orleans flooded, and yet from our highest elected supposedly progressive officials we get more of the same galling Natural Disaster Misnomer: Katrina did it.

Oh Snap! Sorry Joe, all this time we thought it was the Corps of Engineers that flooded our City and killed over 12oo people with Bad Levees. Hell, they even Admitted to this in open Federal court and several studies --including their own.

I understand that it is easy for most people to consider any flood as "their Katrina", without considering the Civil Engineering of their disasters. Take the '08 floods in Iowa for example.

<snip>

But I cannot accept this Public Relations Medicine Show from The Man Who Could Be President. He should know better.

<snip>

more...http://noladder.blogspot.com/

and here: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/09/biden-to-ga-flood-victims-we-dont-want-another-katrinalike-government-response.html

[maglatinavi]

1. Louisianna

What is your point? It was Katrina ... and the mismanageament and arrogancy of Bush and his cohorts. What are you doing in a democrat thread??? Gee wheez!:kick: :kick: :kick: :nuke: you!!!

[Louisiana1976]

3. Editilla's point which I agree with is that the levees broke due to having been

built and maintained poorly by the Army Corps of Engineers which makes the Federal Flood a MANMADE disaster for which the federal government is liable. Which, by the way, is not a Republican idea, but how the flood actually happened.

But the Bush Administration did everything it could to shirk this liability and blow the New Orleanians off and Editilla is rightfully angry that it looks to him that so far the current administration has also put down this flood as due to "Katrina"-- a merely natural disaster.

[Louisiana1976]

4. P.S. And you ask what I'm doing in a democrat thread?

I want to add that those who have been the worst enemies of New Orleans are Republicans.

Examples: Illinois Rep. Dennis Hastert said New Orleans should be bulldozed.
Iowa Rep. Steve King said his "best vote" was against "Katrina relief."
Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo (the anti-immigration Nazi) and Idaho Sen. Larry Craig (Bathroom larry with the wide stance) both said Louisiana couldn;t be trusted with reconstruction money due to corrupption.

[New Orleans Ladder]

6. Katrina Fibbing

Thank you, Louisiana 1976, for hanging this post here on the Democratic Underground. I appreciate the agreement on what is arguably a subtle point, to wit: Katrina Shorthand.
The fact that our own Vice President is being such an self-aggrandizing ignorant penis is EXACTLY the reason this conversation should be happening in such an august progressive venue as this.

Biden is Wrong to dance his Medicine Show on the backs of New Orleans Man Made Disaster. When he refers to Katrina he is calling up smeared and inaccurate images of New Orleans to Frame his own political agenda. Such hubris is not just an insult to the survivors of both catastrophes but a defecation on the memories of the deaths too, which (in the case of GA) may be attributable to Engineering more than Nature. How will we know what has gone down those rivers, because right off the Bat our government is hawking another story: Katrina? Whenever there is such catastrophic flooding it is high statistical probability that the Corps of Engineers is somewhere nearby.

It was not Katrina which flooded the New Orleans and that is a fact. Now, I want someone to tell me WHO DOESN'T manage the flood control systems in GA from Lake Lanier all the way to the Gulf. I want someone to tell me WHO DID NOT build and maintain these civil engineering systems to manage Georgia's water for Atlanta, as well as AL and FL. Who? Who the HELL has everyone been fighting with between those three states FOR DECADES?
Ah, that would be the US Army Corps of Engineers, the same outfit who built our flood control structures in New Orleans --which failed in 56 locations, 3 of which failed catastrophically, below design spec, at Half Load and accounted for 80% of the flooding-- due to "easily avoidable engineering mistakes".
These are facts noted in the ILIT study, the Corps own studies and admitted by the Corps in open federal court. Indeed, culpability for flaws in the design, construction, and maintenance of the federal levees was accepted by Lt. General Carl A. Strock in sworn testimony before Congress.

So, "groan", Louisiana, you can drink the Cool Aid but not me. It is wrong to bullshit The People in times of disaster no matter what your partisan bias, and since I voted for them I consider it incumbent upon me to call them out. Biden's ignorance of what caused the flood of New Orleans is Utter Bull Shit. I don't accept it either. If he is that goddamn stupid then he doesn't deserve my vote again. Democrats like him are the ones who allowed Boy George to steal the election in 2000 anyway. They should have stepped up to the plate then and they didn't. I watched it all, glued to the TV. I couldn't believe it. They fucking blew it. So don't ask me to trust them any farther than I can throw a Frisbee. Obama could easily lose his next election due to such Bourgeois Nievete.

"Waiting For Hope", while I am a fan of Alternet, that article was published before any of the aforementioned studies had even begun to unravel the Corps of Engineers Lies as to what caused our levee failures. At the time the Corps was still shoveling PR that the levees had over topped which turned out to be a Ball Faced Lie. Subsequently, legal testimony has revealed that the Corps did indeed know they had built those flood walls wrong with substandard soil and materials engineering. They knew this when they were doing it. It wasn't Congressional Funding. It was engineering corruption in the New Orleans District of the USACE which crucified that major American city.
Nothing you have cited has anything to do with those Basic Engineering Failures. They had assured the city over the decades that their structures would survive Cat 3. What we got when Katrina missed the city was a weak Cat 2. I was there and saw it with my own lyin'eyes.
No, no one who is not a geotechnical engineer could understand the threat which the Corps had hung around our necks, because the Corps was telling everyone their structures were sound.
They weren't sound. The sound you heard is the nation's heart breaking like a child lied to.

Regarding the Hurricane Pam scenario, it might depress you to learned that the author of that Computer Model, Dr. Ivor Van Heerden, was fired this year by LSU as a direct result of his criticisms of the Corps of Engineers failures. Then the director of that Hurricane Center resigned in protest. Now, LSU has completely "realigned" the State's Hurricane Center. This is the room where they make the real decisions when the storms are coming. They must have accurate information so they fired the man who did Hurricane Pam? Go Figure...Go Fish.

This is the reason that taking issue with the flippant use of Katrina Shorthand is not some simple semantic point, but a battle against Public Relations Myth Making by Big Water Industry interests, and the Obama Administration. Do you realize how much money it will cost to address our malfunctioning national civil engineering outfit and "Make It Right"??? That would seriously take away from their other more pet projects like bailing out Wall Street and enriching Big Health Insurance.
Biden knows better.

So what happened in Georgia? Was it Katrina?
I beg to differ.
Sinn Féin,

[waiting for hope]

7. Thanks - I was a resident of

Metairie from 1989 to 2002, and this was the chatter we were hearing from family after the storm - sorry to be misinformed. I did read about Dr. Ivor Van Heerden - there was a compelling article from Southern Studies:

VOICES: Expert fired who warned levees would burst

The whole system needs to be overhauled, but as you pointed out, the other pet projects come first. I experienced the flood on 1995 - lost everything - due to the fact that the pumping stations couldn't handle to rain .. they have known for quite some time what would happen if a major storm were to hit, and yet they still do nothing.

[Louisiana1976]

9. Editilla--You're welcome for me hanging your post here.

And here's a warm welcome to DU!

This site needs more posters on New Orleans and the Federal Flood because they need a lot more attention then they've been getting from bloggers as well as this administration and the mainstream media. So I'm looking forward to seeing more posts of yours here.

I personally (as an angry, frustrated, upset Democrat who voted for Obama and finds it funny that another poster here actually thought I was a Repub) view the need to improve New Orleans' levees as well as seeing her rebuilt and restoring Louisiana's coastline as a bi-partisan issue and not one the Repubs should have knee-jerk reactions against because they'd rather spend the needed money on overseas wars and the other things Repubs prefer to spend money on.

And I was aware that Ivor Von Heerden had been fired--that was a disgrace and I wouldn't be surprised if politics were behind it.

Now for Georgia--I hadn't been as familiar with that flooding situation as I should be. Now that you mention the ACE's being involved in flood control in the area, I agree that the flooding there has the makings of a second manmade federal flood--not "Katrina." I think the MSM should look into this so it isn't blown off as a natural disaster and trivialized. Because as we've seen with New Orleans there's a big difference between being treated as a natural disaster and being rightly seen as being manmade.

Sinn Fein,
Louisiana

[Schema Thing]

2. groan.

what a stupid, stupid, virulently stupid take on Biden's words.

[waiting for hope]

5. Here - it's a simple Google ...

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

Why the Levee Broke

So, as dollars were cut from the Corp's program to continue repairs and preparations, FEMA does a little simulation called Pam:

During the summer of 2004, FEMA ran a disaster simulation exercise in which a fictional hurricane named Pam hit the New Orleans area. The purpose of the Pam simulation was to help FEMA and local authorities in hurricane-prone areas to prepare for future disasters.

In the FEMA simulation, Pam hit New Orleans with sustained winds of 120 mph, dumping up to 20 inches of rain in parts of southeast Louisiana and creating a storm surge that topped levees in the New Orleans area. More than one million residents evacuated and Hurricane Pam destroyed 500,000-600,000 buildings. Emergency officials from 50 parish, state, federal and volunteer organizations participated in the five-day exercise held at the Louisiana State Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge.

~Snip~ Long list of things that should have been done but were not ...

Clearly, none of FEMA's Pam simulation action plan's preparedness tasks had been implemented prior to Hurricane Katrina's devastating strike.

Ironically, a FEMA press release issued after the conclusion of the Hurricane Pam simulation exercise on July 23, 2004, contained the following statement from Colonel Michael L. Brown, Deputy Director for Emergency Preparedness, Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness: "Hurricane planning in Louisiana will continue," stated Colonel Brown, "Over the next 60 days, we will polish the action plans developed during the Hurricane Pam exercise. We have also determined where to focus our efforts in the future."

FEMA's 'Pam' Simulation Foretold Katrina Disaster

And Biden is saying that it was Katrina .. beg to differ Joe, it was our own government.

[Cartoonist]

8. Katrina is just the name

I think you are misunderstanding Joe's remarks. Katrina is just the name of the disaster, not the who, what, where, and why.

“We know we can't make everything right. But we know we're going to do everything we can..."
-
Jump on Joe for that, too while you're at it, since you have no real compassion or understanding and just want to grind an axe.

[New Orleans Ladder]

10. Compassion is a double-edged sword

Ok, in the post I did jump on Biden for that too. You have never heard Brad Pitt ever utter such heinous misnomer because he is well aware of what caused the flood walls to fail right beside his extremely cool and highly successful project rebuilding homes devastated by Corps malfeasance in the lower 9nth ward, "Make It Right". You should see them. You need to open your eyes and see this situation for what it is, to wit: a political football. That is wrong and I am not the one playing it. Hey Joe Biden is playing this game with peoples' compassion.

So, Hey Joe is going to steal that Healthy Brand of "Make It Right" as well to hump up his own political goals of (yet again) letting the country know that they are not the Bush Administration's response to Katrina? I got that in spades. Come on, that is straight out of the PT Barnham School of Shameless Self Promotion (from which I graduated Summa Come On'ya as you so petulantly note).
If the Obama Administration were getting to the bottom of the Corps of Engineers I could believe Biden's sentiments, but they are not dealing with our nation's disintegrating civil engineering.

After counting 15 dead bodies in that first week after the levees failed in New Orleans, after watching about half a dozen deaths with no way to do anything about it, after defending my own life at the point of a sword in the midst of absolute civil mayhem, I have plenty of compassion for the victims of Georgia's flooding. This is NOT their "Hurricane Katrina". This isn't even their "Hurricane Ike".
What I don't have is any more patience for horse shit political stupidity regarding our nation's crumbling infrastructure. Get a clue, this isn't just about New Orleans. There are levees in 57% of the country 45 out of 50 States. This matters to everyone.
Compassion dictates that you Don't Look Elsewhere for the Causes of Suffering.

What the fuck is Hey Joe going to "Make It Right"? Doesn't that imply someone has "Made It Wrong"? Stop trying to blame everything on Bush. George Bush (may he roast in HELL) did not build the failed flood walls in New Orleans and he did not formulate the Corps of Engineers' water policies for GA, AL and FL. He did hold a fire sale for our disaster response and turned the USACE into an even worse Brothel Lobby than it was already.

2 distinctly separate things happened in New Orleans in 2005: The Weather Event and The Flood,and 2 different things are happening in Georgia today. It is very important to our survival as a nation to understand the causes of the latter since we can't really affect the former.
Worthless words are worthless words and that is Shit Compassion --which is No Compassion at all.