Hmm... couldn't be anticipated?
A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken...
In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late.
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/interna ... 55,00.htmlAnd then there's this:
When did this calamity happen? It hasn't—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.
http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/ ... index.htmlGiven that the requirements for hurricane/flood relief- emergency housing, medical supplies, emergency power, water purification and so on- are similar to what would be required in the event of a bioterror attack, it would make a lot of sense for DHS to have pre-positioned resources for quick deployment in an emergency.
Declaring an emergency in advance is not a bad idea, since a hurricane is one of the very few disasters which gives advance warning, but using that lead time to get personnel and supplies loaded up and ready to go is a better one. DHS has held drills and simulations of "dirty bomb" and bioattack scenarios for training purposes; perhaps it might have occurred to someone that having hardware and people appropriate for disaster relief mustered, equipped and ready to sail or fly in advance would, even if Katrina had suddenly dissipated without making landfall, have been an excellent drill/test/exercise.
Instead, what we appear to have gotten for all the dough sunk into establishing what is supposed to be a central coordinating agency for coping with national emergencies is an ad hoc, muddle-through-somehow-after-the-shit-has-hit-the-fan response.
One wonders if this could possibly be linked to the fact that the current head of FEMA is a lawyer whose last job was running the International Arabian Horse Association (into the ground) and whose only known experience with emergency preparedness or disaster relief was a municipal-level job some thirty years ago:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases ... 203-6.htmlIt's possible for a CEO to be an utter shvazool and still be successful provided that he has the knack of hiring real professionals for critical tasks
and taking their expertise seriously. Unfortunately the current administration has established more of a history of placing cronyism and ideological and personal loyalty above professionalism in making these decisions (
vide Gen. Eric Shinseki).
Give the loons at GLP a little time and they'll settle down to squabbling over whether the hurricane was caused by Planet X, incoming meteors, HAARP or chemtrails. What's much more significant is the fact that even the talking heads at the reliably pro-administration CNN- at least some of the ones who have been at the scene- have been calling "bullshit" on gummint spin.
And the Good Grey Times- our reputed newspaper of record- has been weighing in, and not in terms comforting to the PTB:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/opinion/02fri1.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/opini ... le_popularEven David Brooks, one of the most stuffedest shirts in the world, is writing about how floods
expose the underlying power structures, the injustices, the patterns of corruption and the unacknowledged inequalities.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/opini ... le_popularAnd, just in case anyone wants to dismiss criticism of Federal response to this horror as the frothings of us America-hating latte-drinking liberals, check out the far-right Washington Times on the subject:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20 ... -2051r.htmAnd even the thoroughly reactionary Manchester Union Leader has written
GOVERNMENT authorities have responded inadequately to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, which is all the more reason for private citizens to band together and do what they can to help.
and
There was plenty of forewarning for this disaster. New Orleans’ vulnerability was no secret. Katrina was polite enough to telegraph days ahead and tell everyone when and where she was coming. State, local and federal officials have no excuse for being so unprepared.
Of course, winger publications are and will be primarily concerned with deflecting blame away from Dear Leader onto subordinates and other, preferably Democratic, politicians, but there's no mistaking it:
This is an accountability moment, and being an apologist for the status quo ante is likely to be a mighty lonely gig for the forseeable future.