Originally posted by John bull 1
If anyone can find an online copy of this 5 part article entitled "Washing Away" I'd really like it.

Remarkably, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune in 2002 published "Washing Away," a series of articles that predicted catastrophe if a major hurricane hit and levees were breached. Inland areas already were suffering deeper flooding more often from storms, the paper reported. Tropical Storm Frances in 1998, for instance, pushed a storm surge into St. Charles Parish that covered U.S. 90 for a week. The series noted that the sinking coast had "emergency managers fretting that low points will be cut off during an evacuation -- including Interstate 10, which drops 12 feet below sea level" at one point in New Orleans. Television images captured that reality last week.

www.newsobserver.com...

DANIEL ZWERDLING: I'm trying to picture tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people trapped in these traffic jams as the hurricane is hitting the City and the water level is starting to rise. What would happen to them?

JOE SUHAYDA:They would be washed away and there would be really no way for the help, there is public help emergency services people to get to them to help them.

DANIEL ZWERDLING: And on top of those worries: scientists say that the threat to New Orleans keeps getting bigger.

New Orleans has always had a huge natural shield that helps protect it from storms: there are miles and miles of wetlands, between the city and the Gulf of Mexico. When a hurricane blows over them, it loses some of its power. But as we reported a couple of weeks ago, this shield is breaking apart.

And here's the irony: the wetlands are disappearing because of the levees. The very levees that were supposed to protect New Orleans. They stopped the Mississippi River from flooding, but it turns out that they also triggered an environmental chain reaction, which is starving the wetlands to death.

Scientists say if this shield keeps crumbling over the next few decades, then it won't take a giant storm to cause a disaster. A much weaker, more common kind of hurricane could devastate New Orleans.

New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen. The city lies below sea level, in a bowl bordered by levees that fend off Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River to the south and west. And because of a damning confluence of factors, the city is sinking further, putting it at increasing flood risk after even minor storms. The low-lying Mississippi Delta, which buffers the city from the gulf, is also rapidly disappearing. A year from now another 25 to 30 square miles of delta marsh-an area the size of Manhattan-will have vanished. An acre disappears every 24 minutes. Each loss gives a storm surge a clearer path to wash over the delta and pour into the bowl, trapping one million people inside and another million in surrounding communities. Extensive evacuation would be impossible because the surging water would cut off the few escape routes. Scientists at Louisiana State University (L.S.U.), who have modeled hundreds of possible storm tracks on advanced computers, predict that more than 100,000 people could die. The body bags wouldn't go very far.

It's only a matter of time before South Louisiana takes a direct hit from a major hurricane. Billions have been spent to protect us, but we grow more vulnerable every day.

As FEMA weathers a storm of Bush administration policy and budget changes, protection from natural hazards may be trumped by “homeland security”

... In June, Pleasant Mann, a 16-year FEMA veteran who heads the agency's government employee union, wrote members of Congress to warn of the agency's decay. "Over the past three-and-one-half years, FEMA has gone from being a model agency to being one where funds are being misspent, employee morale has fallen, and our nation's emergency management capability is being eroded," he wrote. "Our professional staff are being systematically replaced by politically connected novices and contractors."

Last year, FEMA spent $250,000 to conduct an eight-day hurricane drill for a mock killer storm hitting New Orleans. Some 250 emergency officials attended. Many of the scenarios now playing out, including a helicopter evacuation of the Superdome, were discussed in that drill for a fictional storm named Pam.

This year, the group was to design a plan to fix such unresolved problems as evacuating sick and injured people from the Superdome and housing tens of thousands of stranded citizens.

Funding for that planning was cut, said Tolbert, the former FEMA disaster response director.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune wrote three years ago, "It's only a matter of time before south Louisiana takes a direct hit from a major hurricane. Billions have been spent to protect us, but we grow more vulnerable every day." We look at the lack of infrastructure preparedness in the Big Easy. [includes rush transcript]

What information and technology is currently available to help us understand the risks associated with hurricanes? What resources may be available in the future to the research and emergency management community?
"Risk Assessment of Natural and Technological Hazards: A look at Calcasieu Parish," John C. Pine, Associate Professor, Institute for Environmental Studies, LSU

"Remote Sensing and Emergency Management for Coastal Environmental Disasters," Oscar KI. Huh, Ph.D. Coastal Studies Institute, LSU, Baton Rouge, LA

"Weather Information for Emergency Management'" Kevin Robbins, Director, Southern Regional Climate Center, LSU, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

How can we examine the impact of hurricanes on the Louisiana natural environment and on chemical process operations in Louisiana?
"Real time forecasting of Hurricane Winds and Flooding," Vibhas Aravamuthan, Joseph N. Suhayda, Natural Systems Engineering Laboratory, Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute, LSU

"Real Time Flood Modeling Due To The Severe Rainfall During A Hurricane: The West Fork of the Calcasieu River, Calcasieu and Beauregard Parishes, Louisiana," Hassan S. Mashriqui, Engineering Director, Natural Systems Modeling Group, CCEER, John C. Pine, Associate Professor, Institute for Environmental Studies, Doug Albert, Graduate Student, Geography Department, LSU

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Jefferson Parish President Tim Coulon traveled to Washington, D.C. last week to stump for continued funding for a raft of flood control projects now endangered by budget cuts. The Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Projects are already under way but its budgets have been trimmed as federal funds are reapportioned for homeland defense initiatives. The most visible project will put two new drainage canals beneath Napoleon and S. Claiborne avenues in the Broadmoor area. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans are responsible for the project, with the corps providing 75% of the funding. Nagin and Coulon asked congressional leaders and the corps to provide $15 million in federal funds to complete this and other area SELA projects.

The cuts mean a long list of backlogged drainage and hurricane protection projects totaling $150 million would continue to sit on the shelf because the Corps has no money to award new contracts.

The House of Representatives wants to cut the New Orleans district budget 21 percent to $272.4 million in 2006, down from $343.5 million in 2005. The House figure is about $20 million lower than the president's suggested $290.7 million budget.

Officials at the Army Corps of Engineers knew it for years, and emergency managers and hurricane experts issued dire warnings: The hurricane levees surrounding the New Orleans area were built to withstand only a relatively weak Category 3 hurricane -- not anything like Hurricane Katrina, a Category 4 mega-storm.

...The problem was, in fact, solvable. It's possible to engineer protections for the New Orleans area against Category 4 and 5 storm surges, which can top 20 feet: raising and fortifying levees, building gates to control water flow into the lake. That would cost $2.5 billion, according to Army Corps estimates.

But it never happened because of two problems, Suhayda said: a lack of political will to tackle an enormous and costly problem when competition for federal resources is intense; and what he called a "bureaucratic mentality" at the Army Corps that focused on incremental upgrades of existing structures.

1. DISASTER PREPAREDNESS FUNDING CUT BY BUSH ADMINISTRATION
Federal Government Has Neglected Disaster Preparedness, Left Enormous Vulnerabilities. Disaster and emergency experts have warned for years that governments, especially the federal government, have put so much stress on disaster response that they have neglected policies to minimize a disaster's impact in advance. Robert Hartwig, chief economist for the Insurance Information Institute, said It's going to be very evident that there were an enormous number of vulnerabilities that weren't addressed. There's going to be a lot of finger-pointing. [Newhouse News Service, 8/31/05]

Disaster Mitigation Programs Slashed Since 2001. Since 2001, key federal disaster mitigation programs, developed over many years, have been slashed and tossed aside. FEMAs Project Impact, a model mitigation program created by the Clinton administration, has been canceled outright. Federal funding of post-disaster mitigation efforts designed to protect people and property from the next disaster has been cut in half, and now communities across the country must compete for pre-disaster mitigation dollars. [ Baltimore City Paper, 9/29/04 ]

Ø In 2003 White House Slashed Mitigation Programs In Half. In 2003, Congress approved a White House proposal to cut FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) in half. Previously, the federal government was committed to invest 15 percent of the recovery costs of a given disaster in mitigating future problems. Under the Bush formula, the feds now cough up only 7.5 percent. Such post-disaster mitigation efforts, specialists say, are a crucial way of minimizing future losses. [ Gambit Weekly, 9/28/04 ]

Bush Continuing To Propose Cuts To Army Corps of Engineers. The Army Corps of Engineers will be cut in 2006. Bushs 2005 budget proposal called for a 13 percent reduction in the Army Corps of Engineers budget, down to $4 billion from $4.6 billion in fiscal 2004. [Associated Press, 2/6/05; Congressional Quarterly Online, 2/3/04]

Under Bush, FEMA Reverted To Pre-Clinton Status As One Of The Worst Agencies. Former President Clinton appointed James L. Witt to take over FEMA after its poor response to Hurricane Andrew. Witt adopted recommendations and FEMA was described as an agency reborn: transformed itself from what many considered to be the worst federal agency to among the best. But FEMA under the Bush administration has destroyed carefully constructed efforts.
After the 9/11 attacks the agencys inspector general in 2003 criticized portions of FEMAs response, citing difficulties in delivering timely and effective mortgage and rental assistance to those in need. [ USA Today, 6/1/2005 ]

2. STATES FORCED TO CARRY MORE OF THE BURDEN

States Expected To Shoulder More Of The Burden In Emergency Management With Fewer Funds. The federal focus on terrorism preparedness has left states with an increased responsibility to provide support for natural disasters and emergencies, noted a report released by the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) this summer. State budget shortfalls have given emergency management programs less to work with, at a time when more is expected of them. In fiscal year 2004, the average budget for a state emergency management agency was $40.8 million, a 23 percent reduction from fiscal year 2003. [ Gambit Weekly, 9/28/04 ]

Bush Tried to Cut Federal Percentage of Large-Scale Natural Disaster Preparedness. The administration made a failed attempt to cut the federal percentage of large-scale natural disaster preparedness expenditures. Since the 1990s, the federal government has paid 75 percent of such costs, with states and municipalities funding the other 25 percent. The White House's attempt to reduce the federal contribution to 50 percent was defeated in Congress. [ Gambit Weekly, 9/28/04 ]

3. BUSH CRIPPLED HURRICANE PREPAREDNESS IN LOUISIANA

Bush Opposed Necessary Funding For Hurricane Preparedness In Louisiana. The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. Ultimately a deal was struck to steer $540 million to the state over four years. The total coast of coastal repair work is estimated to be $14 billion. In its budget, the Bush administration also had proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need. [Newhouse News Service, 8/31/05]

Republican Budget Cut New Orleans Army Corps Of Engineers Funding By A Record $71.2 Million. In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding. It would be the largest single-year funding loss ever for the New Orleans district, Corps officials said. I've been here over 30 years and I've never seen this level of reduction, said Al Naomi, project manager for the New Orleans district. The cuts mean major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms.
Money is so tight the New Orleans district instituted a hiring freeze. The freeze is the first of its kind in about 10 years, said Marcia Demma, chief of the Corps' Programs Management Branch. [New Orleans City Business, 6/6/05]

Landrieu Called Bushs Funding Priorities Shortsided. Landrieu said the Bush Administration is not making Corps of Engineers funding a priority. I think it's extremely shortsighted, Landrieu said. When the Corps of Engineers'
budget is cut, Louisiana bleeds. These projects are literally life-and-death projects to the people of south Louisiana and they are (of) vital economic interest to the entire nation. [New Orleans City Business, 6/6/05]

Emergency Preparedness Director Furious With Project Cuts. A study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now. Terry Tullier, the New Orleans emergency preparedness director, said he was furious but not surprised to hear that study had been cut from the Bush budget. Im all for the war effort, but every time I think about the $87 billion being spent on rebuilding Iraq, I ask: What about us?
he said. Somehow we need to make a stronger case that this is not Des Moines, Iowa, that we are so critical that if it hits the fan in New Orleans, everything this side of the Rockies will feel the economic shock waves. [Times-Picayune, 9/22/04; New Orleans City Business, 6/6/05]

Flood Protection Projects Put On Hold Because Of Republicans 2006 Budget.
One of the hardest-hit areas of the New Orleans district's budget is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project. SELA's budget is being drained from $36.5 million awarded in 2005 to $10.4 million suggested for
2006 by the House of Representatives and the president. The Army Corps of Engineers in New Orleans has identified $35 million in projects to build and improve levees, floodwalls and pumping stations in St. Bernard, Orleans, Jefferson and St. Charles parishes. Those projects in a line item where funding is scheduled to be cut from $5.7 million this year to $2.9 million in 2006. We don't have the money to put the work in the field, and that's the problem, Naomi said. [New Orleans City Business, 6/6/05]

Ø Senator Landrieu Urged Action After SELA Budget Slashed. Louisianas congressional delegation assured local officials they would seek significant increases for SELA. We could have lost 100,000 lives had Hurricane Ivan hit the mouth of the (Mississippi) River before it turned, said Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., alluding to last years storm that largely spared Louisiana but devastated parts of Alabama and Florida. God has been good, but one of these days a hurricane is going to come and, if we dont get projects . . .
finished, were sitting ducks, she said. [Times-Picayune, 3/11/05]

4. NATIONAL GUARD AND COAST GUARD UNDERFUNDED AND OVERSTRETCHED

LOUISIANA GUARD WARNED OF EQUIPMENT SHORTAGES BEFORE KATRINA

Louisiana National Guard Said Before Katrina That It Needed Equipment Back
>From Iraq If It Is To Respond To A Natural Disaster. The National Guard
needs that equipment back home to support the homeland security mission, said Lt. Colonel Pete Schneider with the LA National Guard. You've got combatant commanders over there who need it they say they need it, they don't want to lose what they have, and we certainly understand that it's a matter of us educating that combatant commander, we need it back here as well, Col. Schneider said. [ABC 26 WGNO, 8/1/05]

NATIONAL GUARD STRETCHED THIN, UNABLE TO FULFILL DUTIES AT HOME

Mississippi National Guard Concerned About Strain of War In Iraq: Officials Say We Need Our People To Respond To Katrina. Missing the personnel is the big thing in this particular event. We need our people, said Lt. Andy Thaggard, a spokesman for the Mississippi National Guard, which has a brigade of more than 4,000 troops in central Iraq. Louisiana also has about 3,000 Guard troops in Baghdad. [Washington Post, 8/31/05]

Iraq Has Left National Guard Units At Home Short Of Equipment. Already suffering from manpower shortages, the National Guards overstretched forces are being confronted with another problem: not enough equipment to supply Guard troops at home. To fully equip troops in Iraq, the Pentagon has stripped local Guard units of about 24,000 pieces of equipment. That has left Guard units at home, already seriously short of gear. [Detroit Free Press, 6/13/05]

Governors Say Long Deployments Leaving Their States Vulnerable. [S]tate officials think continued deployments will have an effect on people who sign up for or remain in the Minnesota National Guard. At a National Governor's Association meeting...some governors criticized the burden of repeated deployment, saying that the troops' absence leaves their states unprotected against things like natural disasters. Officials in Idaho and Montana have said they are unprepared if forest fires hit their states this summer. [AP, 8/10/05]

5. COAST GUARDS RESPONSIBILITIES INCREASING WITHOUT ADEQUATE FUNDS

Coast Guard Gave Congress List of $919 Million in Unfunded Priorities. The Coast Guard has given Congress a $919 million wish list of programs and hardware not funded in the Bush Administration's fiscal 2006 budget request.
For the first time, the Coast Guard has sent Congressional representatives an unfunded priorities list - a tally of needed items not included in the fiscal 2006 request. The list includes an additional $637 million for the service's Deepwater recapitalization program; $11.6 million for helicopter repairs; $4 million to increase aviation maritime patrol hours, and $59 million to renovate shore stations. [Journal of Commerce Online, 5/11/05]

Coast Guard Faced With Helicopter Problems. The head of the US Coast Guard told Congress his equipment is failing at unacceptable rates. Despite increases in spending on maintenance, the agency's older large craft -- called cutters -- experience equipment failures capable of ruining a mission almost 50 percent of the time, according to Coast Guard officials. Further, the agency's HH-65 helicopters suffered a rate of 329 mishaps per 100,000 flight hours in 2004, way over the Federal Aviation Administration's acceptable standard of 1 mishap per 100,000 hours. [UPI, 6/10/05; USA Today, 7/6/05]

Commandant Says Coast Guard Short On Resources. Coast Guard Commandant Adm.
Thomas H. Collins said, Do we have more business than we have resources?
Yes. The Coast Guard has put the cost of implementing safety regulations laid out by Congress at $7.3 billion over the next ten years. The Bush administration only asked for $46 million for aid to the ports in the 2005 budget. [Budget of the United States, www.omb.gov ttp://www.omb.gov> ; House Approps Cmte Transcript, 3/31/04; Washington Post, 4/2/03; Boston Globe, 6/30/04]

In late May, the New Orleans district of the Army Corps of Engineers formally notified Washington that hurricane storm surges could knock out two of the big pumping stations that must operate night and day even under normal conditions to keep the city dry.

Also, the Corps said, several levees had settled and would soon need to be raised. And it reminded Washington that an ambitious flood-control study proposed four years before remained just that — a written proposal never put into action for lack of funding.

New Orleans is sinking.
And its main buffer from a hurricane, the protective Mississippi River delta, is quickly eroding away, leaving the historic city perilously close to disaster.
So vulnerable, in fact, that earlier this year the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked the potential damage to New Orleans as among the three likeliest, most castastrophic disasters facing this country.
The other two? A massive earthquake in San Francisco, and, almost prophetically, a terrorist attack on New York City.
The New Orleans hurricane scenario may be the deadliest of all.
In the face of an approaching storm, scientists say, the city's less-than-adequate evacuation routes would strand 250,000 people or more, and probably kill one of 10 left behind as the city drowned under 20 feet of water. Thousands of refugees could land in Houston.

Before residents had ever heard the words "Hurricane Katrina," the New Orleans TIMES-PICAYUNE ran a story warning residents: If you stay behind during a big storm, you'll be on your own!

Editors at TIMES-PICAYUNE on Monday called for every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency to be fired. In an open letter to President Bush, the paper said: "Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That's to the government's shame."

But the TIMES-PICAYUNE published a story on July 24, 2005 stating: City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give a historically blunt message: "In the event of a major hurricane, you're on your own."

Staff writer Bruce Nolan reported some 7 weeks before Katrina: "In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm's way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation."

"In the video, made by the anti-poverty agency Total Community Action, they urge those people to make arrangements now by finding their own ways to leave the city in the event of an evacuation.

"You're responsible for your safety, and you should be responsible for the person next to you," Wilkins said in an interview. "If you have some room to get that person out of town, the Red Cross will have a space for that person outside the area. We can help you."

Nagin said late Saturday that he's having his legal staff look into whether he can order a mandatory evacuation of the city, a step he's been hesitant to do because of potential liability on the part of the city for closing hotels and other businesses.
The Times-Picayune Agust 28, 2005 edition

A British Columbia mapping company says it has the technology to predict the kind of devastation that a natural disaster could wreak upon a city and its population.

The technology is being used around the world, and could save lives if implemented in a disaster preparedness program, according to the company.

Using information from aerial photos or satellite imagery, Vancouver-based Aero Geometrics creates topographic maps and 3-dimensional imagery, illustrating what can happen to an area in a worst-case disaster scenario.

A computer model of Miami, Fla. shows how quickly a major flood would swallow the city's downtown core.

"Virtually all of Miami would be gone in no time," company president Tim Daly told CTV Vancouver.

Six months ago, the company made a presentation in Biloxi, Miss., yet no one there took the bait.

"They didn't have the wisdom to say, yeah, we could have used that," said Daly, adding that his technology would also have helped New Orleans.

"We could easily simulate breaking the levee and watching the water flood in, and where it would go."

Aero Geometrics' clients include governments, mining and forestry sectors -- and even the U.S. army, which the company advises as to what terrain soldiers could expect to tread upon in Baghdad.

(more)

It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those i[nside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV "storm teams" warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.

But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however—the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.

The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level—more than eight feet below in places—so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

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.