Katrina - 25 years gestation period
If Dubya says Katrina was unprecedented he should have seen this posted on September 5th 2005
Guns, Germs & Steeled
Commentary from Dr. Stephen C. Nodvin
Unprecedented and Unexpected
September 5th, 2005
"Federal officials, one after another, falsely proclaimed this week that the destruction by Hurricane Katrina was “unprecedented” and “unexpected”. These assertions have been called into question by many. What is known for sure is that the incompetence of the federal government’s planning and response is what is unprecedented. As I stated earlier on this blog, I have known about the potential dangers of the New Orleans levee system for over 25 years. If I knew about these dangers, why didn’t the President, the head of Homeland Security, or certainly the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency know?"
read on ....
1 comment:
Interestingly, during the summer of 2004, CNN aired a story about the potential for disaster if a powerful hurricane were to hit New Orleans. The report was broadcast in the midst of that season's hurricane-fest in Florida. And the message was crystal clear: New Orleans may be under 10-20 feet of water for 6 months or longer if the levee system is overcome by a strong hurricane.
I watched that report on CNN. I knew the danger in the event of a strong hurricane, in spite of the fact that I'm neither a hurricane expert nor a resident of New Orleans.
In fact, even on the morning of August 29, 2005, as Hurricane Katrina barreled ashore, reporters on TV kept insisting that New Orleans had dodged a bullet because the storm had moved a bit to the east. They kept saying that New Orleans would get hit by the "easy" - or westerly - side of the storm. Well, it didn't take Rhodes Scholar to know that the backside of the storm is what New Orleans didn't need, namely because the northerly winds coming from the backside of the storm would push the water from Lake Pontchartrain right into the city. Sure enough, that's what happened.
There was no excuse for every level of government not to be prepared for what could happen that day.
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