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increase 1776
Joined: 07 Oct 2000
Posts: 3097
Location: Bizzaro World |
 Mon Aug 29, 2005 12:55 am
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Thanks for the links Et. |
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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
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Mon Aug 29, 2005 4:22 am
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Bush refused to fund New Orleans flood and Hurricane protection last February......
Bush budget not expected to diminish New Orleans district's $65M
New Orleans CityBusiness, Feb 7, 2005 by Deon Roberts
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4200/is_20050207/ai_n10176537
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has identified millions of dollars in flood and hurricane protection projects in the New Orleans district.
Chances are, though, most projects will not be funded in the president's 2006 fiscal year budget to be released today.
In general, funding for construction has been on a downward trend for the past several years, said Marcia Demma, chief of the New Orleans Corps' programs management branch.
In 2001, the New Orleans district spent $147 million on construction projects. When fiscal year 2005 wraps up Sept. 30, the Corps expects to have spent $82 million, a 44.2 percent reduction from 2001 expenditures.
Demma said NOC expects its construction budget to be slashed again this year, which means local construction companies won't receive work from the Corps and residents won't see any new hurricane protection projects.
Demma said she couldn't say exactly how much construction funding will be cut until the president's budget is released today. But it's down, she said.
The New Orleans district has at least $65 million in projects in need of fiscal year 2005 funding. In fiscal year 2006, the need more than doubles to at least $150 million. |
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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
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Mon Aug 29, 2005 4:26 am
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US GOVERNMENT WAS WARNED BY EXPERTS
FLASHBACK TO OCTOBER 11, 2004..
Direct hurricane hit could drown city of New Orleans, experts say
By Paul Nussbaum, KRT Campus
Published: Monday, October 11, 2004
NEW ORLEANS - From a helicopter above the Gulf of Mexico, Col. Peter Rowan could see that his first line of defense had been breached.
Where Breton and the Chandeleur Islands had been, only pale green water now sparkled in the sun. Hurricane Ivan had pummeled the sand and grass barriers two weeks earlier, washing away much of them - and the hurricane protection they provide for New Orleans.
"It looks like it's pretty much all gone," said Rowan, commander of the New Orleans district of the Army Corps of Engineers.
The second line of defense is vanishing, too. Wetlands, which absorb much of the storm surge of approaching hurricanes, are disappearing at the rate of 28,000 acres a year, bringing the sea that much closer to the city.
So New Orleans, tucked below sea level between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, is in growing danger of drowning. A direct hit by a very powerful hurricane could swamp its levees and leave as much as 20 feet of chemical-laden, snake-infested water trapped in the man-made bowl.
More than 25,000 people could die, emergency officials predict. That would make it the deadliest disaster in U.S. history, with many more fatalities than the San Francisco earthquake, the great Chicago fire, and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks combined.
"It's only a matter of time," said Terry C. Tullier, city director of emergency preparedness.
"Ivan just missed us by a hairsbreadth," he said. "The thing that keeps me awake at night is the 100,000 people who couldn't leave."
After Ivan slipped past 175 miles to the east, the 600,000 residents who evacuated last month returned, knowing they might need to flee again: The hurricane season lasts through November, and forecasters believe the Atlantic region has entered an active cycle that could last 15 to 30 years.
The root of the problem is location. New Orleans is hemmed in by 300-square-mile Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi to the south and west.
Built on newly deposited alluvial soil, the city has been sinking ever since its founding in 1718. Draining land for development has made it sink even faster. And sea levels are rising.
To protect the city from floods, the river and lake have been lined with levees, grass-covered walls as high as 18 feet. The levees keep the Mississippi in its channel, but they have exacerbated the loss of wetlands by cutting off the periodic flood of freshwater and sediment necessary for the wetlands' survival. And the levees would trap water in the city if they are overtopped in a big hurricane.
Hurricanes are part of life here, as much as beignets and beads, but most recent storms have spared New Orleans. Betsy (Category 3) hit in 1965, leaving eight feet of water in some places. Camille (Category 5) in 1969 swept by 60 miles to the east. Andrew (also Category 5) in 1992 came within 100 miles. This year, it was Ivan.
The levees are designed to protect the city from a fast-moving Category 3 hurricane. A more powerful one, such as this year's Charley or Ivan (Category 4), or a slow Category 3 could send lake water surging over the levees.
The worst scenario would be a big hurricane arriving from the east, pushing a wall of water from the gulf into Lake Pontchartrain, then over the levees into the city.
There it would remain, submerging single-story houses and lapping at the eaves of two-story buildings.
"The Red Cross has estimated 25,000 to 100,000 would drown, and I don't think that is unrealistic," said Ivor van Heerden, director of Louisiana State University's Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes. About 300,000 of the area's 1.2 million people would not evacuate, he predicted, and many of those would be the most vulnerable - elderly, disabled, homeless, carless.
Rescuing 300,000 people trapped inside the flooded bowl would be a logistical nightmare, and officials have started enlisting private boat owners who could help a Dunkirk-style operation to ferry people out.
There are national implications, too, if New Orleans is hammered. About one-fourth of the nation's oil and natural-gas production is here, as is one-third of its seafood catch. Thousands of miles of oil and gas pipelines snake through the bayous and marshes. The region is home to the nation's largest port complex, moving 16 percent of its cargo.
Experts say it will take a combination of higher levees, new floodgates and restored wetlands to save New Orleans. And time is not an ally; hurricane-protection projects are moving slowly, even as the threat seems to grow each year.
"It's possible to protect New Orleans from a Category 5 hurricane," said Al Naomi, senior project manager for the Corps of Engineers. "But we've got to start."
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© 2004, The Philadelphia Inquirer. |
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linnea.bradbury
Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 20
Location: Plano, TX |
| Does anyone know about the Chem activity just before Katrina
Mon Aug 29, 2005 5:54 pm
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I have noticed major ct activity in the Dallas area. It is also notable how they decrease when BUsh returns to Crawford. Any comments or knowledge about chems and Katrina would be appreciated.
_________________
"May we preserve mother earth for ancestors yet to come...we've destroyed her beauty and denied the honor the creator has given each individual...the truth lies in our hands, all my relations..." |
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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
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Wed Aug 31, 2005 4:17 am
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Entire City may soon be underwater says New Orleans Mayor......
http://www.wdsu.com/weather/4917809/detail.html
Blackhawk helicopters not available.
Probably looking for Saddams weapons of mass destruction |
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