News Intelligence Analysis
From American Progress
Here's the Story of a Hurricane
In
2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked a major
hurricane strike on New Orleans as "among the three
likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country,"
directly behind a terrorist strike on New York City. Yesterday,
disaster struck. One of the
strongest
storms in recorded history rocked the Gulf Coast, bringing
145
mph winds and floods of up to 20
feet. One million residents were evacuated;
at least 65
are confirmed dead. Tens of thousands of homes were completely
submerged. Mississippi's governor reported "catastrophic
damage on all levels." Downtown New Orleans buildings
were "imploding,"
a fire chief said. Oil surged past
$70 a barrel. New Orleanians were grimly asking each
other, "So,
where did you used to live?" (To donate to Red Cross
disaster relief, click here
or call 1-800-HELP-NOW). While it happened, President Bush decided
to ... continue his vacation, stopping by the Pueblo
El Mirage RV and Golf Resort in El Mirage, California, to
hawk his Medicare drug benefit plan. On Sunday, President Bush
said, "I want to thank all the folks at the federal level
and the state level and the local level who
have taken this storm seriously. Hes not one of them. Below,
the Progress Report presents "How Not to Prepare for a Massive
Hurricane," by President Bush, congressional conservatives,
and their corporate special interest allies.
SLASH SPENDING ON HURRICANE PREPAREDNESS IN NEW ORLEANS:
Two months ago, President Bush took an ax to budget funds that
would have helped New Orleans prepare for such a disaster. The
New Orleans branch of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suffered
a "record
$71.2 million" reduction in federal funding, a 44.2
percent reduction from its 2001 levels. Reports at the time
said that thanks to the cuts, "major hurricane and
flood protection projects will
not be awarded to local engineering firms. ... Also,
a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category
5 hurricane has been shelved for now." (Too bad Louisiana
isn't a swing state. In the aftermath of Hurricane Frances --
and the run-up to the 2004 election -- the Bush administration
awarded
$31 million in disaster relief to Florida residents who didn't
even experience hurricane damage.)
DESTROY NATURAL HURRICANE PROTECTIONS: The Gulf Coast wetlands
form a "natural
buffer that helps protect New Orleans from storms,"
slowing hurricanes down as they approach from sea. When he came
into office, President Bush pledged to uphold the "no
net loss" wetland policy his father initiated. He didn't
keep his word. Bush rolled
back tough wetland policies set by the Clinton administration,
ordering federal agencies "to stop
protecting as many as 20 million acres of wetlands and an
untold number of waterways nationwide." Last year, four
environmental groups issued a joint report showing that administration
policies had allowed "developers to drain
thousands of acres of wetlands." The result? New Orleans
may be in even greater danger: "Studies show that if the
wetlands keep vanishing over the next few decades, then you won't
need a giant storm to devastate New Orleans -- a
much weaker, more common kind of hurricane could destroy the
city too."
GUT THE AGENCY TASKED WITH DEVELOPING HURRICANE RESPONSES:
Forward-thinking federal plans with titles like "Issues
and Options in Flood Hazards Management," "Floods:
A National Policy Concern," and "A Framework for Flood
Hazards Management" would be particularly valuable in a
time of increasingly intense hurricanes. Unfortunately, the agency
that used
to produce them -- the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA)
-- was gutted
by Gingrich conservatives several years ago. As Chris Mooney
(who presciently warned of the need to bulk up hurricane defenses
in New Orleans last
May) noted yesterday, "If we ever return to science-based
policymaking based
on professionalism and expertise, rather than ideology, an
office like OTA would be very useful in studying how best to
save a city like New Orleans -- and how Congress might consider
appropriating money to achieve this end."
SEND OUR FIRST RESPONDERS TO FIGHT A WAR OF CHOICE: National
Guard and Reserve soldiers are typically on the front lines responding
to disasters like Katrina -- that is, if they're not fighting
in Iraq. Roughly 35
percent of Louisiana's National Guard is currently deployed in
Iraq, where guardsmen and women make up about four of every
10 soldiers. Additionally, "Dozens of high water vehicles,
humvees, refuelers and generators" used by the Louisiana
Guard are also tied up abroad. "The National Guard needs
that equipment back home to support the homeland security mission," Louisiana
National Guard Lt. Colonel Pete Schneider told reporters earlier
this month. "Recruitment
is down dramatically, mostly because prospective recruits
are worried about deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan or another
country," the AP reported recently. "I used to be able
to get about eight people a month," said National Guard
1st Sgt. Derick Young, a New Orleans recruiter. "Now, I'm
lucky if I can get one."
HELP FUEL GLOBAL WARMING:
Severe weather occurrences like hurricanes and heat waves already
take hundreds of lives and cause millions in damages each year.
As the Progress Report has noted,
data increasingly suggest that human-induced global warming is
making these phenomena more dangerous and extreme than ever.
"The hurricane that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed
Katrina by the National Weather Service," science author
Ross Gelbspan writes. "Its
real name is global warming." AP reported recently on
a Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis that shows that
"major storms spinning in both the Atlantic and the Pacific
... have increased
in duration and intensity by about 50 percent" since
the 1970s, trends that are "closely linked to increases
in the average temperatures of the ocean surface and also correspond
to increases in global average atmospheric temperatures during
the same period." Yet just last week, as Katrina was gathering
steam and looming over the Gulf, the Bush administration released
new CAFE standards that actually encourage
automakers to produce bigger, less fuel efficient vehicles,
while preventing
states from taking strong, progressive action to reverse
global warming.
Bush Asks Not
Speaking
to a nation that was in the midst of confronting monumental challenges
such as poverty and war, President John F. Kennedy said in his
1961 inaugural address, "My fellow Americans: ask not what
your country can do for you -- ask
what you can do for your country ... ask of us here the same
high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you."
Speaking from the Rose Garden to a nation that is simultaneously
fighting a war and dealing with perhaps the greatest
natural disaster in U.S. history, President George W. Bush
failed to issue any such call for sacrifice. The New York Times
writes in an editorial, "Sacrifices may be necessary to
make sure that all these things happen in an orderly, efficient
way. But this
administration has never been one to counsel sacrifice."
BUSH COULD SACRIFICE TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY: Marshall
Loeb, editor of Money and Fortune magazines, writes, "The
President could show that he, too, is prepared to sacrifice for
Katrina's victims, perhaps by rolling back some of his planned
tax cuts. The nation can ill afford to pay for a war, tax reductions
and this disaster recovery at the same time." But Bush has
given no indications he will back off his ideological agenda
of more
tax cuts which primarily
benefit the wealthy. Pete Peterson, former secretary
of Commerce under Nixon, wrote, "After 9/11, [the administration]
faced a choice between tax cuts and getting serious about the
extensive measures needed to protect this nation against further
terrorist attacks. They
chose tax cuts." And again, as the Iraq war commenced,
Bush faced a similar choice. But catering to the arguments of
conservative ideologues like Tom DeLay, who argued, "Nothing
is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes,"
Bush again failed to call for sacrifice and instead chose tax
cuts. Despite the devastating
economic impact of Katrina, conservatives are already positioning
themselves for a vote next Tuesday on the next priority item:
repealing
the estate tax -- a tax paid by the wealthiest one percent
of Americans who inherit at least $1.5 million.
BUSH COULD CALL FOR CONSERVATION: The president
of American Petroleum Institute, Red Cavaney, said, "The
impact of this devastating storm on oil and natural gas operations
will be significant and protracted.... Let us understand: This
is not an easy thing." His solution? "Right now
would be a good time for everybody to sort of ramp up your energy
conservation," Cavaney said, even offering energy-saving
tips which could help increase fuel efficiency. AAA
is also urging motorists to drive less and conserve fuel.
President Bush had an opportunity yesterday to publicly elevate
the need for energy conservation, but failed to make the call
for sacrifice. Bush implored citizens to "understand
this storm has disrupted the capacity to make gasoline and distribute
gasoline" but offered no suggestions as to how Americans
should cope with the crisis. He should take his cue from
Gov. Mike Easley of North Carolina, who said recently, "I am asking
all North Carolinians to conserve gas."
IF YOU ASK, THEY WILL RESPOND:
Shortly after the attacks of 9/11, Sen. John McCain complained, "After
9/11, people wanted to serve and they were told to go shopping
or get on an airplane.... That's not the answer they wanted
to hear. This is an opportunity to serve." Americans have
demonstrated time and again that, in the face of tragedy, they
will respond with true compassion. Already, the Red
Cross has announced that it has collected $21 million in donations
for the victims of Katrina, "a
figure comparable to the response for tsunami victims following
the devastation in Asia earlier this year." "The
outpouring of support has been amazing," said Kara Bunte,
a spokeswoman for the Red Cross. "People
are now starting to see the images on TV and want to help."
Americans also responded with amazing compassion in the two months
following 9/11, providing approximately 1.6
million blood donations and contributing over $1.3 million to
charities and relief agencies. Americans can and will do
more to sacrifice; they simply need a president who will ask.
Hurricane
Katrina will likely be the worst natural disaster in our nation's
history. If indeed thousands have perished, as New Orleans Mayor
Ray Nagin predicted yesterday, it will also be the deadliest
natural disaster in the United States in at least a century,
since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. And as one Louisiana
paper put it, "No
one can say they didn't see it coming." There have been
"decades
of repeated warnings about a breach of levees or failure
of drainage systems that protect New Orleans from the Mississippi
River and Lake Pontchartrain." It's "inappropriate
to 'blame' anyone for a natural disaster," the Washington
Post rightly observes. "But given how frequently the impact
of this one was predicted, and given the scale of the economic
and human catastrophe that has resulted, it
is certainly fair to ask questions about disaster preparations."
Below, a few of those questions:
WHERE WERE THE PLANS FOR EMERGENCY
DISASTER RELIEF?: The response to Hurricane Katrina "is
exposing
serious failures by government leaders and crisis planners
before Katrina's arrival and flawed execution by relief agencies
as the disaster unfolded," the Wall Street Journal reports
this morning. Communication failures have been widespread, local
officials "found they lacked
critical equipment and materials to use in repairs if levees
breached," and even "basic emergency management"
has been lacking. For instance, former FEMA chief James
Lee Witt told reporters yesterday that "in the 1990s, in
planning for a New Orleans nightmare scenario, the federal government
figured it would pre-deploy
nearby ships with pumps to remove water from the below-sea-level
city and have hospital ships nearby." Now federal officials
say a hospital ship won't
leave its port in Baltimore until tomorrow, and isn't expected
to arrive for seven
days. "These things need to be planned and prepared
for; it
just doesn't look like it was," Witt said. Other reporters
offered a chilling, first-hand perspective: "[A] striking
feature of the situation there was the scant presence of civil
authority. We did see police controlling some intersections but
we saw no military authority and no Red Cross or other health
authority. It did not appear that any disaster center had been
established by the authorities to communicate with the public.
There appeared to be very
little, if any, response yet to the enormous challenge of
housing, feeding and supporting a devastated population."
WHY WAS GULF COAST DISASTER PREPARATION
SUCH A LOW PRIORITY?: The planning failures were not limited
to the short-term emergency response. As Louisiana Rep. Bobby
Jindal (R), one of three members of Congress whose homes
were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, said yesterday: "If
we had been investing resources in restoring our coast, it wouldn't
have prevented the storm but the barrier islands would have absorbed
some of the tidal surge." Unfortunately, the resources were
not invested -- either in coastal restoration or the levees -- despite
years of pleas. On June 8, 2004, the emergency management chief
for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, complained about a lack of funding
for the levees, a long stretch of which had sunk by four feet:
"It appears that the money has been moved in the president's
budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I
suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that
the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we
can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."
The money never came through, and last year, the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers "essentially
stopped major work" on the levee system that has now
been breached. "It was the first such stoppage in 37 years."
Additionally, federal flood control spending for southeastern
Louisiana was "chopped
from $69 million in 2001 to $36.5 million in 2005,"
Knight-Ridder reports, even as "federal hurricane protection
for the Lake Pontchartrain vicinity in the Army Corps of Engineers'
budget dropped from $14.25 million in 2002 to $5.7 million this
year." The cuts were strenuously opposed by Louisiana representatives,
who "urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream
of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed
by the White House."
WHY WERE FEMA'S PREPAREDNESS MISSIONS DISMANTLED?: "The
advent of the Bush administration in January 2001 signaled the
beginning of the end for FEMA," one expert writes. In particular,
the White House targeted the agency's "mitigation"
programs -- "the measures taken in advance to minimize the
damage caused by natural disasters" -- which emergency specialists
consider "a crucial
part of the strategy to save lives and cut recovery costs."
Shortly after coming into office, "key federal disaster
mitigation programs, developed over many years, [were] slashed
and tossed aside." FEMA's Project Impact, "a model
mitigation program created by the Clinton administration," was
canceled outright by the Bush administration on February 28,
2001 -- ironically, the very
same day of the 6.8 magnitude Nisqually earthquake in Washington
state, which provided one of the "best examples of the impact
the program had" in protecting people. Indeed, FEMA employees
were officially "directed not to become involved in disaster
preparedness functions, since a new directorate (yet to be established)
will have that mission."
WHY WERE INEXPERIENCED POLITICAL APPOINTEES PICKED TO HEAD FEMA?:
Since taking office, President Bush "has appointed, in succession, his
2000
campaign manager and an Oklahoma
lawyer whose only emergency management experience prior to
joining FEMA was as an assistant city manager." According
to one emergency expert, these officials "showed little
interest in its work or in the missions pursued by the departed
[former FEMA chief James Lee Witt]," who led emergency management
in Arkansas and "reoriented FEMA from civil defense preparations
to a focus on natural disaster preparedness and disaster mitigation."
Indeed, Washington Monthly editor Daniel Franklin yesterday noted,
"The difficulties of coordination seem to indicate we've
returned to the bad old days where the FEMA administrator
position is given away on the basis of political favor, rather
than hard experience."
"The
devastation is greater than our worst fears," declared
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco. Two days after Hurricane Katrina
tore through the Gulf Coast region, elected officials and
aid workers are beginning to assess the totality of the damage
done by the storm. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said up to
80
deaths have been reported in Harrison County alone; some
estimate the number is closer to 110.
Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu reported that at
least 50 to 100 people were dead in New Orleans. Nearly 80
percent of New Orleans is submerged under water, with some
sections of the city experiencing standing water as deep as 20
feet. Approximately 3
million residents along the Gulf Coast remain without power,
and tens of thousands have no phone service. Residents who returned
to their homes in parts
of three states -- Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama -- were
without safe drinking water, had limited shelter and food,
faced the threat
of looting and downed power lines, and had poor access to
medical care. Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway said, "This
is our tsunami."
THE
SUPERDOME FACES WORSENING CONDITIONS: As of Wednesday
morning, the Superdome in New Orleans housed approximately 20,000
to 30,000 stranded civilians. Conditions deteriorated as
the population inside the dome grew. Bathrooms
were filthy, urinals were backed up, electricity was out,
air conditioning was not available, and part
of the roof collapsed. Scores of sick
patients from nearby evacuated hospitals were moved into the
Superdome, where four individuals later died. Yet despite
an environment that the Washington Post termed a "festering
hellhole," many in the Superdome were more than happy
to have a refuge from the chaos erupting outside. National
Guard soldiers did their best to accommodate the massive
crowd. But with the increased threats of flooding putting the
city of New Orleans at greater risk, Gov. Blanco ordered
the evacuation
of the dome within the next two days.
HOW TO HELP: Charities
and the federal government are launching what aid agencies predict
could be "the
longest and costliest relief effort in U.S. history."
Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA), is urging those who want to help to make cash donations.
Cash donations "allow
volunteer agencies to issue cash vouchers to victims so they
can meet their needs. Cash donations also allow agencies
to avoid the labor-intensive need to store, sort, pack and distribute
donated goods. Donated money prevents, too, the prohibitive cost
of air or sea transportation that donated goods require."
Here
is the list of agencies that FEMA is directing people to contact
(if you decide to give to a different charity, beware
of scams).
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Directory of a Disaster