When the levees broke..The Big UnEasy cover-up

I have always said it wasn't Katrina, it was the Army Corp of Engineers that caused the flooding and deaths in New Orleans after Katrina hit the gulf. Lots of scientists and just regular folk agreed with me.

What makes this whole thing worse and downright fucking nauseating is that the Army Corp of Engineers rebuilt the levee's as fucked up as the first set. I wrote about that bullshittery here in May of 2007. It's from a National Geographic piece that exposed the Army Corp of Engineers construction of the...cough..new levees. The Nat Geo piece is quite extensive, or was as I haven't checked to see if they still include all the interviews with scientists and aerial footage of the flaw's in those new and improved levees.

Harry Shearer also agrees with me on many of the points I have made above. Harry made a film about the cover-up. It will show one night, tomorrow night. From the film's website:

In his feature-length documentary, The Big Uneasy, humorist and New Orleans resident Harry Shearer gets the inside story of a disaster that could have been prevented from the people who were there. As we near the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Shearer speaks to the investigators who poked through the muck as the water receded and a whistle-blower from the Army Corps of Engineers, revealing that some of the same flawed methods responsible for the levee failure during Katrina are being used to rebuild the system expected to protect the New Orleans from future peril.

The Big Uneasy is laced with computer imagery that takes you inside the structures that failed so catastrophically, and boasts never–before–seen video of the moments when New Orleans began to flood and the painstaking investigations that followed. The Big Uneasy marks the beginning of the end of five years of ignorance about what happened to one of our nation’s most treasured cities — and serves as a stark reminder that the same agency that failed to protect New Orleans still exists in other cities across America.

It's government at it's worst folks..pure and simple. And New Orleans is still at risk...but who cares...not the Army Corp of Engineers evidently, and dare I say it....the federal government, which includes the culpable parties known as the House of Representatives and the Senate and finally state and local governments and agency's.

If you wish to see the documentary, the theaters and showtimes can be found on this page at the films website.

I wish I could see it but my neck of the woods is run by rightwing nutters and the film isn't showing anywhere near me..closest is two hours away in L.A. I can't wait for the DVD to become available.

Oh, and read the MotherJones piece I link to above by David Corn which highlights much of what the movie exposes. It's sure to get you angry..at least if you have a pulse and care about people, it should. I still don't get why folks aren't up in arms about this fuckery the Army Corp of Engineers pulled...not once...but fucking twice on the City of New Orleans.

The Independent Levee Investigation Team Report (links to which are on the film's website) is very enlightening and depressing.From the Executive Summary of what went wrong in New Orleans:

In the end, it is concluded that many things went wrong with the New Orleans flood protection system during Hurricane Katrina, and that the resulting catastrophe had it roots in three main causes: (1) a major natural disaster (the Hurricane itself), (2) the poor performance of the flood protection system, due to localized engineering failures, questionable judgments, errors, etc. involved in the detailed design, construction,  operation and maintenance of the system, and (3) more global “organizational” and  institutional problems associated with the governmental and local organizations  responsible for the design, construction, operation, maintenance and funding of the  overall flood protection system.

Below is a very short trailer of the documentary.

It started with a photograph

From ProPublica:

It was three days after the levees broke: Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005 — in my limited view, the day things completely fell apart in New Orleans.

The desperation was mounting. The cavalry wasn’t coming, it seemed. We were in it alone.

As we drove up Religious Street, just past the Saulet Apartments, we saw a dicey situation ahead. Police-issue Crown Victorias blocking the intersection. A parked bus and a wrecked limo. And a swarm of police officers in the street, guns drawn, facing the other direction.

Georgiev, a Macedonian national who has spent much of his life covering wars, went into gung-ho mode. He took a right — toward the lake — on Race Street. Then left at the next block, St. Thomas Street. Then left again on Richard. And suddenly, we were right in the middle of chaos.

We saw a man, clad in a white T-shirt, down on the pavement, hands behind his back, not moving. We were both sure he was dead. A lot of agitated police officers hovered around.

It seemed no one noticed, though we were less than 50 feet away. Georgiev shot off a few frames, then started to drive away. As he passed through the intersection, the cops yelled at us to stop. Some had their guns raised. I shouted to stop, and Georgiev did, not as quickly as I would have.

A few cops rushed over and stuck their guns in our faces. I said I worked for the Picayune. I was told to shut up and get out.

They threw us up against a cinderblock wall and frisked us. There was a lot of cursing, and one of the officers mentioned a shootout.

One of the cops grabbed the notebook out of my shorts. They also snatched one of Georgiev’s cameras.

Lying in the weeds

A few months ago, I reached out to Georgiev, who lives in Macedonia, and he sent me two photos of the incident. A closer look at them reveals that there seem to be two guys on the ground, not one. Georgiev’s second shot shows a human form in the street, next to one of the police cars, wearing a red shirt and hidden behind weeds.

As it happens, the existence of a second person squares with the only official account of the incident I’ve been able to get thus far. That account came from Anthony Cannatella, a semiretired deputy chief with 42 years on the force who during Katrina was the commander of the 6th District, where the incident happened.

Cannatella — to his credit, one of the only officers who will talk about any of this — was one of the cops who responded, though I didn’t see him that day. As Katrina descended, Cannatella says he told “his guys” this: “We’re gonna do basic police work until someone comes and relieves us.”

Read the rest of the article here.  There are federal grand juries investigating the actions of the NOLA PD after Katrina. How they shot first and never asked questions later. In my heart, I know there were police officers that did the right thing..just as there are police officers who did not. How anyone will be able to separate them, years later, is the $50,000.00 question.

But you really can't put a price on a human life.

Katrina-lest we forget..

The fourth anniversary of Katrina making landfall was today, Saturday. The horror stories are still fresh in my mind, and most likely will visit me during the night when I sleep tonight.

The gulf coast still has not recovered. The people of the gulf coast still have not recovered.

The Big O says he will go to NOLA sometime this year. He marked the anniversary by talking briefly about the horror of Katrina on his weekly address. He mentioned how his administration is trying to retool the programs that were designed to help the survivors of Katrina. Eleven members of his administration have gone to the region.

He then changed the subject and talked about the H1N1 flu virus.

Lest we forget, the toll on human life following Katrina's landfall was:

1,836 confirmed deaths, Between 135 and 705 never found and presumed dead depending on which report you read/believe.

The vast majority of the missing and presumed dead are African-American.

We should never forget the ravages of the gulf coast and what it did to the people of the region after Katrina hit land. We can never let it happen again folks..no matter what it takes..we can never let any part of our citizenry go through what the folks of NOLA experienced with regard to our government's actions and handling of the crisis.

I got family in Houma LA

I have been glued to my internet watching streaming video from one of Louisiana's tv stations since yesterday afternoon. 

Its extended famliy, one of my son's closest friends, his wife and two babies are residents of the NOLA area. His house survived Katrina and was in fact used as a medical unit for months afterward. 

They left yesterday, going opposite of the storm to the safety of a hotel the next state over. Fernie is a good man, although I still think of him as a kid. ;)

I talked to him a few minutes ago, and he is still on the road, the youngest baby hollering his fool head off in the background. 

I told him what I know, and what the tv station is saying...its still not sure how big or where Gustav will land. 

And I know Fernie is worried, he got through the first one, but is it gonna hit his home and office this time? 

Fuck I hope not...I am praying it won't. 

Meanwhile, bus companies that were contracted to haul po' folks out of the area are NOT living up to their contracts. Sending only a couple hundred bus's when they are liable for 700.

Such bullshittery. Its fucking maddening. 

Another goodie from Steve at Bring it On.

Thank you SteveO ;)

Katrina made landfall today...

Three years ago it was the beginning of the horror that still manifests itself today in the gulf region. The Angry Black Bitch has a worthy post up about this topic as well.

Katrina however, was merely the conduit. Katrina showed us that the levees were fallible and the Bush Administration was worthless.

A noble cause still needs donations to help rebuild the NOLA area. Please consider sending them a few bucks if your able, I have done so in the past and will today to commemorate this horror that still affects hundreds of thousands of human beings. The Musicians Village fund still wants to make it right for people affected...help them if you can. Click the graphic to donate.

A thought-provoking post..

This is a great post about the bullshit that is the United States of America, although it starts out on a different issue..that of Timor. A short blurb:
Is the US a failed state? The thought came to my mind three times in one day, so it is begging for a response.

First, the issue of "failed states" was raised by Alan Narin, journalist and long-time human rights activist on behalf of the people of East Timor. In response to a question about the recent assassination attempt against the Timorese president, Narin said[3]:

Some are saying Timor is a failed state, that here the international community has been pouring all this money into Timor, and all they get out of it is chaos. I think those comments distort the situation.

*snip*

Then Narin turns the lens on the United States:

But if you're going to judge other states by that standard, you would have to say that, say, Australia or Indonesia or the US are much more of a failed state than Timor is, because those are countries that have been killing civilians overseas.


And the evidence on the second point is glaring. The US government failed dramatically in preparing for and responding to Hurricane Katrina. Years after Katrina, New Orleans remains a disaster area, due in great part to failures of the state.


GDAEman has some good stuff up on his blog..and I would like to suggest if you have a minute or three you check him out. I like his name and what it signifies too :) If you do drop by his humble abode..let me know.

Artwork by The Worried Shrimp

Voices from the Gulf....

Tomorrow is the day Katrina hit. Here is a new video that shows how very little has changed for the residents of the gulf coast and NOLA specifically. There are still tens of thousands that can't come home. 30,000 families are scattered across the country in FEMA apartments, 13,000 are in trailers, and hardly any of the 77,000 rental units destroyed in New Orleans have been rebuilt.

Sign the petition

Urge the United States Senate to pass Senator Dodd's Gulf Coast Recovery Bill of 2007 (S1668) to assist the Gulf Coast region in rebuilding the infrastructure lost after the Katrina and Rita disasters.

Passage of this bill is an important step towards returning the Gulf Coast residents to their homes.

These are good, hard-working people that our government has forgotten..

DO NOT LET THEM BE FORGOTTEN.

Tags: NOLA, Katrina, Brave New Films, Voices from the Gulf

August 29, 2005

The day Katrina hit the coast. The day normal life ended on the gulf coast of our United States. The day BushCo fell down on the job and all hell began to break loose. The day BushCo’s biggest domestic fuck-up began. Need I say more? nah..

Obama is unveiling his plan for fixing the region today. All or most of the Democratic candidates for President will be streaming into NOLA to point their fickle fingers of fate at BushCo and how crappy a job he and his cadre are doing. The NYT has a writeup of Obama’s grandiose plan to fix the region and the agency’s that deal with this kind of catastrophy. A small wisp of it:

The Gulf Coast restoration, Mr. Obama said, has been weighed down by red tape that has kept billions of dollars from reaching Louisiana communities. As president, he said, he would streamline the bureaucracy, strengthen law enforcement to curb a rise in crime and immediately close the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet in order to restore wetlands to protect against storms. Mr. Obama also said that he would seek to lessen the influence of politics in the Federal Emergency Management Agency by giving its director a fixed term, similar to the structure of the Federal Bureau of Investigatio n. The FEMA director would serve a six-year term, under Mr. Obama’s plan, and report directly to the president.

Doesn’t the head of FEMA report to the President now? He is also planning other big moves, ones that probably need to be made..such as opening a DEA office down there. My, that is all well and good, but I read recently the prisons are over-crowded already pal. Another snip of what he is planning to say:

“Let New Orleans be the place where we strengthen those bonds of trust, where a city rises up on a new foundation that can be broken by no storm,” Mr. Obama is planning to say Sunday, according to remarks provided by his aides. “Let New Orleans become the example of what America can do when we come together, not a symbol for what we couldn’t do.”

Man, he sure is good with the rhetoric isn’t he? But no where in the article do I see how he plans to pay for his great plans..Isn’t that just as important as what you plan to do? One should note that two years after the flood, only 40% of the FEMA money has reached the area. Just fixing that bullshit will go along way to fixing the region.

Tags: Katrina, NOLA, FEMA, Obama

Crossposted at Bring it On!

New Orleans' Rebuilt Levees "Riddled With Flaws"

From National Geographic:

Almost a year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers declared that it had restored New Orleans' levees and floodwalls to pre-Hurricane Katrina strength.

But the system is actually riddled with flaws, and a storm even weaker than Katrina could breach the levees if it hit this year, say leading experts who have investigated the system.

The unwelcome news comes as residents gird for what is predicted to be a "very active" Atlantic hurricane season, and as residents are still slowly rebuilding their homes and lives after Katrina.

During a recent inspection of the levee system with National Geographic magazine, engineering professor Bob Bea of the University of California, Berkeley, found multiple weak spots.

The most serious flaws turned up in the rebuilt levees along the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet ship channel.

The channel's levees had failed in more than 20 places when Katrina's storm surge pounded them, leading to devastating flooding in the Louisiana city's Lower Ninth Ward and in St. Bernard Parish, which borders the city to the southeast.

Bea found several areas where rainstorms have already eroded the newly rebuilt levees, particularly where they consist of a core of sandy and muddy soils topped with a cap of Mississippi clay.

"It's like icing on the top of angel food cake," Bea said. "These levees will not be here if you put a Katrina surge against them."

Bea also found that decade-old gaps remain in the floodwalls lining the Orleans Avenue Canal. And hurricane-damaged sections of the walls along the London Avenue and 17th Street Canals have not been repaired or replaced.

Even more troubling, water appears to be seeping under the stout new floodwall erected along the Industrial Canal to protect the Lower Ninth Ward.

(See an interactive map of the weak spots).Watch a video of University of California–Berkeley engineering professor Bob Bea flying over the levees and discussing the defects.

Ain't that some shit my dear reader?

To read the rest of the National Geographic article click here for page two. It will make you sick perhaps..or make you cry. But you should be pissed no matter how you slice it.

Crossposted at Bring It On!

tags: Katrina, NOLA, Levees, Army Corp of Engineers