Ever since the Haiti earthquake happened, it has invited quite a few comparisons to the disaster brought about in New Orleans by the federal flood. There are even those in the mainstream media who have asked if this quake is going to turn out to be Obama's "Katrina."
This is not surprising because there are some similarities in the situations--for example, the slowness in rescuing and getting aid to the survivors--which reminds casual observers of the way New Orleanians had to wait a week for food, water and rescue after her levees failed. Also, these catastrophes are manmade--Haiti's because of shoddily-constructed buildings, New Orleans' because of poorly-built and maintained levees--both of which had been disasters waiting to happen.
Nearly four and a half years ago this nation experienced the two worst disasters of this past decade: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans' federal flood. Today many consider them old news, if not history, but they still are present in the lives of those who survived them.
A commenter @ Oyster's site recommended that we read pages 148-150 of the Judge's opinion (pdf alert) for some choice excerpts:
On page 148 of the 189 page pdf:
It is the Court's opinion that the negligence of the Corps, in this instance by failing to maintain the MRGO properly, was not policy, but insouciance, myopia and shortsightedness. For over forty years, the Corps was aware that the Reach II levee protecting Chalmette and the Lower Ninth Ward was going to be compromised by the continued deterioration of the MRGO, as has been exhaustively discussed in this opinion. The Corps had an opportunity to take a myriad of actions to alleviate this deterioration or rehabilitate this deterioration and failed to do so. Clearly the expression "talk is cheap" applies here.
In the event the gross negligence of the Corps in maintaining the MRGO would be regarded as policy, then the discretionary function exception would swallow the Federal Torts Claim Act leaving it an emasculated statute applying to automobile accidents where government employees are involved or medical malpractice where a government physician is involved. This was clearly not the intent of Congress.
Safety concerns are not a talisman in deciding whether to apply the discretionary function exception, but certainly are a very significant consideration. Here, there was no balancing or weighing of countervailing considerations. The failure to maintain the MRGO properly compromised the Reach 2 Levee and created a substantial risk of catastrophic loss of human life and private property due to this malfeasance. Nothing the Corps has introduced into evidence tips the balance in its favor.
On pages 149-150:
As to the second inquiry, here it is manifestly evident that the Corps had a duty not to negligently expose the levee system along Reach II to harm, and it is likewise quite evident that if that levee system were harmed that there was great risk or harm to both people and property. In answer to the third question, such duty was obviously breached as extensively set forth in the findings of fact and conclusions of law set forth herein. Clearly, as to the fourth question, the risk of harm was within the scope of protection afforded by the duty breached as levees are designed to protect persons and property. The fifth question is like-wise manifestly evident in that there were catastrophic damages that resulted from the breach. Therefore, this Court finds that the Corps of Engineers was negligent under the La. Civ. Code arts. 2315 and 2316 and is thus liable for damages arising from the destruction of the Reach 2 Levee.
The Judge damns the Army Corps of Engineers for its' malfeasance, negligence, breach, shortsightedness, and failure to properly maintain MRGO, which led to a breach of the levees. The vast majority of the damage in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina came from the Federal Flood, not the hurricane itself, which is why it has been next to impossible for homeowners to get the money needed to repair their homes.
Now the question becomes - will the federal government finally pay up for their negligence in protecting New Orleans?
Today Obama will be making an extremely short stop in New Orleans. Or what my favorite NOLA blogger calls a "tinkle-stop tour." In New Orleans, he'll be visiting a charter school and participating in a town hall meeting in the Lower 9th Ward.
In contrast, his next stop will be San Francisco, where he'll be spending four times as much time--16 hours. This has caused Harry Shearer to say,
Total elapsed time in SF: sixteen hours. They must have experienced a hell of a federal disaster there. Four times worse, you figure?
Often when people including those in government and the mainstream media who should know better refer to the events of 8/29, it is merely as "Katrina" or "Hurricane Katrina".
There were actually two catastrophes that happened that day: the storm, which passed to the east of New Orleans, devastating the Mississippi and eastern Louisiana Gulf Coasts, which was a NATURAL disaster, and the falling apart of New Orleans' federally-built and maintained levees, which was a MANMADE disaster due to poor engineering.
While the use of Katrina as shorthand to cover the two events is easy (I've even done that at times) it's misleading because of the implication that the flooding of New Orleans was a natural disaster. And this matters--more below the fold.
Here's why: Rep. King was recently interviewed by "The Hill."
THE HILL: What vote would you like to redo?
KING: I don't really go back and re-live that sort of thing. Some of the big votes that I've thought about, some of the jury's still out. And at this point, maybe I'd answer that question another way, probably the singular vote that stands out that went against the grain, and it turns out to be the best vote that I cast, was my "no" vote to the $51.5 billion to [Hurricane] Katrina. That probably was my best vote. But as far as doing something different again, I don't know.
I should be feeling better--after all, Obama did commemorate Katrina and the flood in his radio address this morning. To his credit he also brought up levees and coastal restoration. But only time will tell if these words will be backed up by action or be mere empty words.
I have been upset and feel as if I'm almost physically ill. I cannot help but flash back, see the scenes of rescues and of the afflicted at the Superdome and the Convention Center and think of how so many suffered during Katrina and the federal flood and are still suffering. And I can't help but wonder if Obama really cares about New Orleans. Because when I remember what happened during the flood and Katrina which turned the lives of so many upside down and think about the fact that Obama won't be going there (which he wasn't going to do anyway even if Ted Kennedy hadn't passed) I'm depressed.
And others are also turned off by the fact that Obama has paid so little attention to Louisiana and her problems and those of her neighbors in the Gulf Region--a wound which Obama's absence from Katrina observances has rubbed salt into. More below the fold...
The Times-Picayune pretty much says what I've been thinking ...
Dear Mr. President,
Tomorrow we will mark the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which claimed the lives of 1,400 Louisianians and nearly killed a great American city. We will miss having you in our midst.
We know you don't lack passion for our community and its recovery. Though you haven't been here as president, as a senator you visited five times after Katrina. We remember well the fervor of your speech at Tulane University on your last visit, a year and a half ago.
"I promise you that when I'm in the White House, I will commit myself every day to keeping up Washington's end of the bargain," you said then. "This will be a priority of my presidency. And I will make it clear to members of my administration that their responsibilities don't end in places like the 9th Ward; they begin in places like the 9th Ward."
We await the fulfillment of many of these promises. We are grateful for the federal aid that has flowed our way, including $14.7 billion in improvements to levees and drainage and other storm protection measures. And under your administration, the federal recovery bureaucracy has been eased, as even Republican officials here acknowledge.
But much remains to be done.
The wetlands and barrier islands that are the first defense of Louisiana's energy coast must be restored if we are to survive long term.
Flood protection on a massive scale, the ultimate rampart the Netherlands saw fit to build, should be our model as well, a vital safeguard against a Category 5 storm and its surge. Such a substantial commitment, you told our reporter this week, "remains a strong goal." For us and for the nation, it's a vital necessity.
The economic revitalization of a new medical facility to replace the destroyed Charity Hospital would give New Orleans a shot in the arm it desperately needs. We urge you to see to it that the stalled project moves forward.
Our community is resilient and hard-working. Together with volunteers from around the country, we are striving to make this a better place than it was before the storm, with renovated houses, vastly improved schools and a unique culture that's as vibrant as ever.
But there's no substitute for the focus, the energy, the commitment that a president alone can bestow. There's no substitute for you, as president, seeing our recovery and its halting progress with your own eyes, for taking time to walk in our shoes. So we ask you to bring your considerable intellect, your problem-solving ability, your influence to bear. When a president pays attention, so does the nation.
In the past week, we have hosted several of your Cabinet secretaries. We are grateful for their visits. We were especially impressed with Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan. On this, his third visit since his appointment, he brought his entire senior team with him and committed himself to "building back not just what was there, but building back better and stronger."
That was music to our ears. But it would be a sweeter sound coming from you and spoken on location.
(I can't say it much better than this, folks ... - promoted by ryan)
Where is the hope and change in New Orleans? When Barack Obama was a presidential candidate, he promised that he would:
"keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast" and take steps to prevent failures in emergency planning and response seen during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Specifically, Obama would ensure New Orleans has a levee and pumping system to protect the city against a 100-year storm by 2011, free up rebuilding funds that had been allocated but not released and to rebuild hospitals and schools.
This PBJ re-telling of the Harry Lee story has been highlight by Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo as another instance where Governor PBJ puts himself right in the middle of the story, not, as his aides claimed, hearing Lee recounting the story to another person on the phone in PBJ's presence. In light of all this, it is only natural to wonder if Governor PBJ embellished/lied about his role in getting Ford to donate some trucks to the relief effort:
To make it clear, Governor PBJ is claiming that he personally convinced Ford to donate 50 trucks to the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in St. Bernard Parish. Anyone out there to corroborate this? If so, scroll down to the bottom of the page for my contact information, or simply post a reply!
If it wasn't bad enough that Gov. Jindal got an "F" from both Republicans and Democrats for his style points the other night in his post-Obama Joint Session speech to Congress response (and I am being very kind), it turns out he has a problem with reinventing history.
Editor's Note: Even worse than admitting the story he told us all in the speech was false, Governor PBJ can't even admit it to us himself. He's left it to his Chief of Staff Timmy Teepell and Communications Director Melissa Sellers to clean up the mess he made. Oyster has nailed down yet another problem:
[Jindal spokeswoman Melissa Sellers] said the story Jindal told in his response to Obama actually took place some days later in Lee's office -- though still in Katrina's chaotic aftermath -- as Lee was "recounting" his frustrations with the bureaucracy to someone else on the telephone.
Indeed. But if Jindal was witnessing Sheriff Lee "recount" the story a week later, why would Jindal quote Lee as saying:
"before I knew it, [Lee] was yelling into the phone: 'Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!'
A friend who works for Color of Change emailed me about this petition that they are sending to Governor PBJ and AG Caldwell (and current US AG Mukasey and incoming US AG Holder):
Dear Governor Jindal and Attorney General Caldwell,
I just learned that in the weeks following Hurricane Katrina, racist vigilantes in Algiers Point attacked, and according to their own accounts, killed Black men seeking refuge from the floodwaters. I'm outraged to hear that New Orleans law enforcement officials have consistently refused to investigate these crimes, and acted to cover up their own complicity in the violence.
Based on evidence recently presented by A.C. Thompson in The Nation, it appears that while at least 11 Black men were shot or shot at, none of the white vigilantes have been brought to justice. And there's damning evidence that police officers allowed a man to die, and then burned his body to cover it up.
Louisiana-style justice has once again failed to protect and serve the state's Black citizens. State officials such as yourselves must act immediately to change this. I urge you to push for the identification of victims of these crimes, prosecution of the perpetrators, full cooperation with any federal inquiries, and aggressive investigations into the role of local law enforcement officials in committing and suppressing the exploration of these crimes.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
While Color of Change purports to be a voice for Black America, I highly recommend that all Americans and Louisianans sign this petition, because anyone's suspicious death deserves to be investigated.
I'd long heard stories about folks taking matters into their own hands during the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I know folks who went home days after Katrina's landfall, armed to the teeth, to protect their property from looters.
As a transplant to Louisiana, I'm sadly familiar with the state of race relations in this beautiful state. Suffice it to say that folks of both races are suspicious of the other race. There are exceptions, but in general, neither side really wants anything to do with the other. And it's sad, because until the working folks of Louisiana realize that they need to pull together, nothing is going to get better. Louisiana will continue to rank near the bottom of lists you really don't want to rank near the bottom of.
But this Nation article simply blows my mind. I mean, did Algiers Point move back to the Jim Crow South in the aftermath of Katrina (or perhaps, did they never even leave?), where white folks could hunt down black men, assault them, shoot them, and in some cases, kill them, and simply get away with it?
The only victims to tell their story thus far were interviewed by the reporter for The Nation:
The sudden eruption of gunfire horrified [Donnell] Herrington's companions--his cousin Marcel Alexander, then 17, and friend Chris Collins, then 18, who are also black. "I looked at Donnell and he had this big old hole in his neck," Alexander recalls. "I tried to help him up, and they started shooting again." Herrington says he was staggering to his feet when a second shotgun blast struck him from behind; the spray of lead pellets also caught Collins and Alexander. The buckshot peppered Alexander's back, arm and buttocks.
Herrington shouted at the other men to run and turned to face his attackers: three armed white males. Herrington says he hadn't even seen the men or their weapons before the shooting began. As Alexander and Collins fled, Herrington ran in the opposite direction, his hand pressed to the bleeding wound on his throat. Behind him, he says, the gunmen yelled, "Get him! Get that nigger!"
Not surprisingly, they were not the only victims:
[Charles] Thomas, the surgeon who treated Herrington, staffed one of the few functioning trauma centers in the area, located just outside the New Orleans city line, not far from Algiers Point, for a full month after the hurricane hit. "We saw a bunch of gunshot wounds," he tells me. "There were a lot of gunshot wounds that went unreported during that time." Though Thomas couldn't get into the specifics of the shooting incidents because of medical privacy laws, he says, "We saw a couple of other shotgun wounds, some handgun shootings and somebody who was shot with a high-velocity missile [an assault-rifle round]." The surgeon remembers handling "five or six nonfatal gunshot wounds" as well as three lethal gunshot cases.
In addition, state death records show that at least four people died in and around Algiers Point, a suspicious number, given that most Katrina fatalities were the result of drowning, and that the community never flooded. Neighborhood residents, black and white, remember seeing corpses lying out in the open that appeared to have been shot.
Here's the response of white folks in the Algiers Point militia:
[Wayne Janak] is equally blunt in Welcome to New Orleans, an hourlong documentary produced by the Danish video team, who captured Janak, beer in hand, gloating about hunting humans. Surrounded by a crowd of sunburned white Algiers Point locals at a barbeque held not long after the hurricane, he smiles and tells the camera, "It was great! It was like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, you shot it." A native of Chicago, Janak also boasts of becoming a true Southerner, saying, "I am no longer a Yankee. I earned my wings." A white woman standing next to him adds, "He understands the N-word now." In this neighborhood, she continues, "we take care of our own."
Janak, who says he'd been armed with two .38s and a shotgun, brags about keeping the bloody shirt worn by a shooting victim as a trophy. When "looters" showed up in the neighborhood, "they left full of buckshot," he brags, adding, "You know what? Algiers Point is not a pussy community."
What's been the response of the law enforcement community in New Orleans? Distressing, to say the least:
Under oath [Orleans Parish coroner Frank] Minyard proceeded to say something stunning. The NOPD, he testified, was only investigating three gunshot cases, all of them high-profile--the Danziger Bridge incident, in which police killed two civilians, and the shooting of Danny Brumfield, who was slain by a cop in front of the Convention Center. Minyard's statement buttressed information I'd gotten from NOPD sources who said the force has done little to prosecute people for assaults or murders committed in the wake of the storm.
I contacted the police department repeatedly over many months, providing the NOPD with specific questions about each incident discussed in this story. The department, through spokesman Robert Young, declined to comment on whether officers had investigated any of these crimes and would not discuss any other issues raised by this article.
I don't think we can count on the New Orleans Police Department to do anything about this, to be honest. They've struggling to keep the city safe, and Mayor Nagin just froze their ability to hire more police officers, due to the fiscal crisis the city is currently experiencing.
No, I think this ball is in the new District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro's court. He has the power to convene a special grand jury ... for 18 months, and let them investigate. And have them start with the incidents in Algiers Point. Hopefully, those 12 citizens, if such a grand jury is ever created, will prove to the good, upstanding citizens on Algiers Point that the law is blind when it comes to race ...
The witness shows me a home video he recorded shortly after the storm. On the tape, three white Algiers Point men discuss the incident. One says it might be a bad idea to talk candidly about the crime. Another dismisses the notion, claiming, "No jury would convict."
... just to show that fool that nobody is above the law.
He was eating cake while the citizens of New Orleans were drowning. Talk about being tone-deaf.
Such actions like this one display qualities one should NOT want in a President. When one of the nation's major cities is drowning, public displays like this by our nation's leaders are despicable. Both men in the photo ought to be ashamed.
I wish I could say that Hurricane Gustav refocused more national attention on Louisiana's issues including vanishing barrier reefs and wetlands as well as the following, which I learned about this morning from a fellow Kossack living in the NOLA area who had evacuated when Gustav was on the way. Maybe it did--for only a few minutes.
For to put it bluntly, even in the New Orleans area even though the MSM gave out of state observers the impression that the area had escaped unscathed or was only lightly damaged, residents still have a major mess to contend with--and FEMA still doesn't seem to have learned from Katrina and the flood. More below the fold....
and its survivors across the wide swath of Louisiana which has been tortured by the devastation he left behind. Saying in last night's speech that she stands behind our fellow citizens in the area would only have been right--especially were she to have called upon other Americans to donate to the Red Cross as has Obama. (Link below the fold).
Now for the "meat"--following is a poem I've written to commemorate the third anniversary of Katrina and the federal flood. It is in the voice of the mother of 8-year-old and 9-year-old boys who have a disabled grandmother. While it is fiction, it's based on things people actually went through during Katrina and flood and in the aftermath.
Yesterday we sat down with Athenae, who blogs at First-Draft, to discuss the awareness of issues related to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita among bloggers and delegates in Denver this week.
As she states, much of the coverage of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast has come from her fellow First-Draft blogger Scout, but to us that doesn't diminish her wonderful insight.
Thanks again to First-Draft for fighting to keep these issues in the national discussion.
Actor Danny Glover, who has been a ceaseless advocate for the recovery of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita addressed delegates from Louisiana this morning.
Mr. Glover is also the producer of the outstanding recent documentary on Hurricane Katrina, Trouble the Water.
For anybody who thought Louisiana would get a far better deal from BushCo under GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal than she did under Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco, they'd better think again. For Bush's pattern of abuse against Louisiana seems to transcend her politics. According to the Baton Rouge Advocate,
Bobby Jindal, angered over the increased costs that storm-wounded Louisiana must shoulder for construction of hurricane protection levees, asked Washington for more time - and a little fairness.
Under the latest war spending bill, Louisiana must kick in $1.8 billion by 2011 in order to activate $5.8 billion in federal funding needed to strengthen the New Orleans-area levee system.
Jindal said Louisiana's share for repairs to the 360-mile, federally maintained levee system, is higher post-Katrina, than before the storm. "It seems ridiculous," Jindal said, tersely.
§9(k) was created to award capital funds to public housing authorities affected by natural disasters. In the last several years, however, Congress has not allocated funds for disaster relief under § 9(k), which effectively bars Gulf Coast public housing authorities from accessing FEMA grant money when there is a pre-existing account at HUD.
Congressman Cazayoux stated:
"As we have seen too often, the biggest obstacle that Gulf Coast residents face is not the will to rebuild; it is red tape from the federal government. My bill provides a common-sense fix to HUD that improves FEMA's ability to directly assist public housing authorities trying to rebuild affordable and quality housing for those who need it. This measure is an important step in the long-term recovery of Louisiana and Mississippi."
Now before all y'all conservatives go crazy about a Democrat bashing the red tape of government ... this fits in quite well with the idea that most Democrats share that government ought to be efficient. It's not so much that it ought to be small, but efficient. For historical examples of this belief within the Democratic Party, I point y'all to then- Senator Harry Truman's "Truman Committee" during World War II, which saved American taxpayers some $15 billion in wasteful spending during the war.
Could you imagine the Bush Administration allowing a subcommittee of Congress to challenge the billing practices of KBR or Halliburton? If you can, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell ... please contact me.
And one more thing ... this is Congressman Cazayoux's first bill in the House, and it deals with helping people in a positive way. We elected another Congressman the same day to fill out the remainder of Governor PBJ's term - Congressman Scalise.
Pray tell, what was Congressman Scalise's first bill about? A resolution to express support for the designation of National D-Day Remembrance Day. That's all fine and dandy, but when you've got folks in your district struggling to rebuild their lives and their homes after Katrina, shouldn't your priority be to help make it easier for them to do so?
He was eating cake while the citizens of New Orleans were drowning. Talk about being tone-deaf. 
