Funding cuts led way to lesser levees By Andrew Martin and and Andrew Zajac Washington bureau WASHINGTON -- Despite continuous warnings that a catastrophic hurricane could hit New Orleans, the Bush administration and Congress in recent years have repeatedly cut funding for hurricane preparation and flood control. The cuts have delayed construction of levees around the city and stymied an ambitious project to improve drainage in New Orleans' neighborhoods. For instance, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers requested $27 million for this fiscal year to pay for hurricane protection projects around Lake Pontchartrain. The Bush administration countered with $3.9 million, and Congress eventually provided $5.7 million, according to figures provided by the office of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.). Because of the budget cuts, which were caused in part by the rising costs of the war in Iraq, the corps delayed seven contracts that included enlarging the levees, according to corps documents. Much of the devastation in New Orleans was caused by breaches in the levees, which sent water from Lake Pontchartrain pouring into the city. Since much of the city is below sea level, the levee walls acted like the walls of a bowl that filled until as much as 80 percent of the city was under water. Similarly, the Army Corps requested $78 million for this fiscal year for projects that would improve draining and prevent flooding in New Orleans. The Bush administration's budget provided $30 million for the projects, and Congress ultimately approved $36.5 million, according to Landrieu's office. "I'm not saying it wouldn't still be flooded, but I do feel that if it had been totally funded, there would be less flooding than you have," said Michael Parker, a former Republican Mississippi congressman who headed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from October 2001 until March 2002, when he was ousted after publicly criticizing a Bush administration proposal to cut the corps' budget. A corps plan to shore up the levees began in 1965 and was supposed to be finished in 10 years but remains incomplete. "They've never put enough money in to complete it," Parker said. He complained that the corps' budget has been regularly targeted by the White House because public works projects are perceived as pork and aren't considered "sexy." "Go talk to the people who are suffering in New Orleans," Parker said. "Ask them, `Do they think it's pork?' " Joseph Suhayda, an emeritus engineering professor at Louisiana State University who has worked for the Army Corps of Engineers, said the corps simply didn't have enough money to build the levees as high as the designs called for. "The fact that they weren't that high was a result of lack of funding," he said, noting that part of the levee at the 17th Street Canal--where one of the breaches occurred--was 4 feet lower than the rest. "I think they could have significantly reduced the impact if they had those projects funded. If you need to spend $20 million and you spend $4 or $5 million, something's got to give." Officials for the Army Corps of Engineers declined to comment on the reasons for the budget cutbacks. Fred Caver, who retired in June as the corps' deputy director of civil works, said there is always competition for funding and "you're never going to get everything you want." But he said a reluctance to invest in unglamorous public works projects and especially heavy demands on the budget, from the war in Iraq and entitlement programs, have added to the difficulty in securing funding for corps projects. Scott Milburn, a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, declined to comment about the specific allegations regarding funding for hurricane-related projects in Louisiana. However, he said, "The president signed into law a $100 million increase for the corps for the current fiscal year compared to the previous year's level." Historically, New Orleans has built bigger and more ambitious levees every time the city floods, Suhayda said. "They would live with the conditions that they had until there was an event," he said. The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 prompted a major upgrade to the levees around New Orleans, he said. The levees were upgraded again to handle a Category 3 storm after Hurricane Betsy hit New Orleans in 1965. In the years since then, local officials have warned that a catastrophic storm was inevitable and sought more funding to improve the area's hurricane preparedness to handle larger storms. In July 2004, for instance, federal, state and local officials staged a simulation in which a "Hurricane Pam" slammed into New Orleans with 120 m.p.h. winds and created havoc that was eerily similar to that of Hurricane Katrina, including widespread building damage and death. "Since 1995, we've been replaying these scenarios out in various degrees. As we got together to do these, the people in the parishes would say, `Make them as bad as possible so we can get some attention,' " said Suhayda, who participated in the Hurricane Pam exercises. "Unfortunately, our way for dealing with these disasters is after the fact," he said..... http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-050831corps-story,1,2364215.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Yep, this was all predicted LONG ago. Here's an article from the Oct. 2001 Scientific American, which sounds like today's headlines: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=00060286-CB58-1315-8B5883414B7F0000 So what happened to the "massive reengineering" that was being done by the Army Corps of Engineers? The project to reinforce the levees was underway when the budget was cut by 80% to provide funds for Iraq and the "War on Terror". The administration was warned about the dire consequences of a breach of the levees, but as this would require an understanding of SCIENCE, it didn't quite fit with the administration's "faith-based" worldview. Gee, I wonder if LA and MS are going to be "Red States" next time around?
New Orleans is 12' below sea level. They should be denied any FEMA reconstruction funds unless they relocate the city.
BS, that city hass major historical and cultural value, and the dollars pumped into the economy from tourism alone has more than made up for any FEMA funds they will need. Move the city and lose it's significant value. It isn't like we just found out today that the city is below sea level. It should have been, and could have been properly protected.
I've read that the cost of the levee is $100 million per vertical foot. I seriously doubt that this entire cost is recovered through flood insurance premiums. All infrastructure is designed to a certain probability event, usually the misnamed "100-year" flood. Nature will inevitably overwhelm any effort to tame it. Designing for the 1000-year event would be cost prohibitive, and it would still fail someday. Building levees along the entire length of the Mississippi just pushes the flooding problem further downstream, making it worse when they invariably fail. The 1993 floods illustrate this perfectly. Moreover, natural floodplains provide many important ecological functions. We should stop building in them.
As far as the National Guard,does anyone know exactly how many are in Iraq now? I've heard people complaining about the lack of a response of the National Guard in New Orleans and it got me wondering if too many of them have been called up to duty in Iraq to the point where they are too "thin" to respond to the New Orleans situation in the way they would like?
I've heard (but can't verify) that upwards of 80% of the LA Guard are not in the US. Same for the MS and AL Guard. As I said, unverified. But I think if the Guard was here where they are supposed to be, then the situation might not be so grim. It's not just manpower; it's trucks, heliocopters, M.A.S.H. units, kitchens, tents, supplies.
I think one doesn't see things because all eyes are on the "big story", which is New Orleans, simply because of the scale. Little old Waveland, MS only gets a side glance - not that many people there by comparison. But it is devastated and has needs just like New Orleans. The infastructure of the hardest hit states has either been used up or is in such a state of disrepair that the state can't respond. Hence FEMA. And Mississippi is the poorest state so it doesn't have the wherewithall to deal with a disaster like this. I don't know that any state does. Hence FEMA.
