alot of New Orleans (and the deep south, for that matter) are like the Third World...
I remember a trip my dad took us on through the south to visit civil war battle fields...to keep from dying of boredom during the long drives, my brother and I kept score of who had the most outhouses on our respective sides of the road.
.................
From the NY Times
The Pentagon late Tuesday ordered five Navy ships and eight maritime rescue teams to the Gulf Coast to bolster relief operations as worsening conditions overwhelmed the initial response.
One Navy amphibious assault ship, the Bataan, with six Sea Stallion and Sea Hawk helicopters that could be used for search and rescue missions, was en route from Texas. Four other vessels from Norfolk were expected to sail within 24 hours and take four days to reach the gulf, said Mike Kucharek, a spokesman for the Northern Command.
...
"The biggest challenge is getting enough resources - especially helicopters and small boats - to the area for the rescue work we have to do," said Lt. Gene Maestas, a Coast Guard spokesman in Washington. He said the Coast Guard had scores of small craft with outboard motors, but they were reaching the region at a frustratingly slow pace.
...
Pentagon officials asserted that deployment of thousands of National Guard members from the gulf states to Iraq and Afghanistan had not affected relief efforts. But on Tuesday the two hardest-hit states, Louisiana and Mississippi, which each have more than 3,000 National Guard troops in Iraq, requested military specialists and equipment from other states, ranging from military police and engineers to helicopters and five-ton, high-wheeled trucks that can traverse the flood waters.
President Bush announced Tuesday that he would cut short his extended summer vacation and fly to Washington to begin work on Wednesday with a task force that will coordinate the work of 14 federal agencies involved in the relief effort.
......................
With National Guard troops being stretched to the limit in Iraq and Afghanistan, shortages in the US <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/30/AR2005083002162.html>for domestic disastors such as Katrina come as no surprise.
Mississippi has about 40 percent of its Guard force deployed or preparing to deploy and has called up all remaining Guard units for hurricane relief, [Lt. Andy] Thaggard said.
Mississippi has requested troops and aircraft from about eight other states -- including military police and engineers from Alabama, helicopters and crews from Arkansas and Georgia, and aircraft-maintenance experts from Connecticut, who are filling in for a Mississippi maintenance unit that is heading to the Middle East.
In Alabama, all the major Guard units activated for the disaster have already served in Iraq, and some still have contingents there, said Alabama Guard spokesman Norman Arnold.
Recruiting and retention problems are worsening the strain on Guard forces in hurricane-ravaged states. Alabama's Army National Guard has a strength of 11,000 troops -- or 78 percent of the authorized number. "We're just losing too many out the back door," Arnold said.
.......................................
Bush took New Orleans disaster funds and used them for the Iraq war and for his tax cuts
by John in DC - 8/30/2005 09:57:00 PM
An amazing late-breaking article from Editor & Publisher <http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313>. Bottom line: Experts knew this was coming, and all the preparations ground to a halt because Bush stole New Orleans' disaster preparation money so he could use it for his Iraq debacle:
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.
...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."
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 a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.
On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: It appears that the money has been moved in the presidents budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose thats the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees cant be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.
Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' project manager Al 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 dont get the money fast enough to raise them, then we cant stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isnt that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we cant raise them."...
About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount. But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said.
The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late.
