Katrina, the worst Hurricane since Pam - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

samcol · 09-08-2005, 07:54 AM

Prisonplanet is the first site that I've seen reporting on this FEMA drill. Calling this disaster incompetence is almost giving FEMA too much benefit of the doubt. Not only was this the third worst disaster predicted by FEMA, they actually ran a drill where this EXACT scenario happened in the summer of 2004. Level 3 hurricane, levees giving way and the whole 9 yards.

Is this an agency that is even worth reforming?
http://www.ohsep.louisiana.gov/newsr...rripamends.htm

Quote:

Hurricane Pam Exercise Concludes

July 26, 2004

Courtesy of FEMA

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Hurricane Pam brought sustained winds of 120 mph, up to 20 inches of rain in parts of southeast Louisiana and storm surge that topped levees in the New Orleans area. More than one million residents evacuated and Hurricane Pam destroyed 500,000-600,000 buildings. Emergency officials from 50 parish, state, federal and volunteer organizations faced this scenario during a five-day exercise held this week at the State Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge.
The exercise used realistic weather and damage information developed by the National Weather Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the LSU Hurricane Center and other state and federal agencies to help officials develop joint response plans for a catastrophic hurricane in Louisiana.

"We made great progress this week in our preparedness efforts," said Ron Castleman, FEMA Regional Director. "Disaster response teams developed action plans in critical areas such as search and rescue, medical care, sheltering, temporary housing, school restoration and debris management. These plans are essential for quick response to a hurricane but will also help in other emergencies."

"Hurricane planning in Louisiana will continue," said Colonel Michael L. Brown, Deputy Director for Emergency Preparedness, Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. "Over the next 60 days, we will polish the action plans developed during the Hurricane Pam exercise. We have also determined where to focus our efforts in the future."

A partial summary of action plans follows:

Debris

The debris team estimates that a storm like Hurricane Pam would result in 30 million cubic yards of debris and 237,000 cubic yards of household hazardous waste
The team identified existing landfills that have available storage space and locations of hazardous waste disposal sites. The debris plan also outlines priorities for debris removal.
Sheltering

The interagency shelter group identified the need for about 1,000 shelters for a catastrophic disaster. The shelter team identified 784 shelters and has developed plans for locating the remaining shelters.
In a storm like Hurricane Pam, shelters will likely remain open for 100 days. The group identified the resources necessary to support 1000 shelters for 100 days. They planned for staff augmentation and how to include shelterees in shelter management.
State resources are adequate to operate shelters for the first 3-5 days. The group planned how federal and other resources will replenish supplies at shelters.
Search and Rescue

The search and rescue group developed a transportation plan for getting stranded residents out of harm's way.
Planners identified lead and support agencies for search and rescue and established a command structure that will include four areas with up to 800 searchers.
Medical

The medical care group reviewed and enhanced existing plans. The group determined how to implement existing immunization plans rapidly for tetanus, influenza and other diseases likely to be present after a major hurricane.
The group determined how to re-supply hospitals around the state that would face heavy patient loads.
The medical action plan includes patient movement details and identifies probable locations, such as state university campuses, where individuals would receive care and then be transported to hospitals, special needs shelters or regular shelters as necessary.
Schools

The school group determined that 13,000-15,000 teachers and administrators would be needed to support affected schools. The group acknowledged the role of local school boards and developed strategies for use by local school officials.
Staffing strategies include the use of displaced teachers, retired teachers, emergency certified teachers and others eligible for emergency certification. Displaced paraprofessionals would also be recruited to fill essential school positions.
The group discussed facility options for increasing student population at undamaged schools and prioritizing repairs to buildings with less damage to assist in normalizing operations
The school plan also calls for placement or development of temporary schools near temporary housing communities built for hurricane victims.
The Hurricane Pam scenario focused on 13 parishes in southeast Louisiana-Ascension, Assumption, Jefferson, Lafourche, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. James, St. John, St. Tammany Tangipahoa, Terrebonne. Representatives from outside the primary parishes participated since hurricane evacuation and sheltering involve communities throughout the state and into Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas.

On March 1, 2003, FEMA became part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. FEMA's continuing mission within the new department is to lead the effort to prepare the nation for all hazards and effectively manage federal response and recovery efforts following any national incident. FEMA also initiates proactive mitigation activities, trains first responders, and manages the National Flood Insurance Program and the U.S. Fire Administration.

How they could'nt have done a better job on an exact scenario they planned for as well as having advance notice of the coming disaster is beyond me.

aswo · 09-08-2005, 09:13 AM

Me too, especially with the news that they ran drills for this happening

pan6467 · 09-08-2005, 01:27 PM

What I don't understand are the reports that there's been water, diesel fuel, Carnival luxury liners, first response teams from Kansas City, Michigan, California, and all sorts of aid being offered and there and yet FEMA refuses to allow it to be dispensed and used.

I also see the saddest and worst part of this being the fucked up political jockeying. THERE ARE PEOPLE DYING AND 1000'S MORE SICK, HOMELESS AND FIGHTING TO STAY ALIVE AND OUR FUCKING POLITICIANS, RADIO SHOWS AND SO ON ARE POINTING FINGERS AT EVERYONE ELSE AND NOT DOING SHIT.

WTF??????????????? I guess when it comes down to it we are all political pawns.

Thucydides · 09-08-2005, 02:45 PM

I also find it disturbing that the current leader of FEMA is completely unqualified, and its of no suprise that he has a relationship with...YOU"VE GUESSED IT... George W. Bush.

loganmule · 09-08-2005, 09:23 PM

Let's not allow this to be reduced to Bush bashing. Personally, I think that there are lots of other more viable points to make in that regard...might make a good thread actually. Anyway, as is pointed out in this article, the Bush administration actually authorized more funding than did Clinton, but most of it ended up as pork, even by Louisiana's standards:

http://www.startribune.com/stories/125/5602732.html

Here's the text of the story:

Army's engineers spent millions on Louisiana projects labeled as pork
Michael Grunwald,* Washington Post
September 8, 2005 CORPS0908

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Before Hurricane Katrina breached a levee on the New Orleans Industrial Canal, the Army Corps of Engineers had launched a $748 million construction project at that very location. But the project had nothing to do with flood control. The Corps was building a massive new lock for the canal, an effort to accommodate steadily increasing barge traffic.
Except barge traffic on the canal has been steadily decreasing.
In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times larger.
Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon.
For example, after a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia flunked a Corps cost-benefit analysis, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., tucked language into an emergency Iraq spending bill ordering the agency to redo its calculations. The Corps also spends tens of millions of dollars a year dredging little-used waterways like the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, the Atchafalaya River and the Red River -- now known as the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway, in honor of the project's congressional godfather -- for barge traffic that turns out to be less than forecast.
Most controversial
The Industrial Canal lock is one of the agency's most controversial projects, sued by residents of a New Orleans low-income black neighborhood and cited by an alliance of environmentalists and taxpayer advocates as the fifth-worst current Corps boondoggle. In 1998, the Corps justified its plan to build a new lock -- rather than fix the old lock for a tiny fraction of the cost -- by predicting huge increases in barge traffic.
In fact, barge traffic on the canal had been plummeting since 1994, but the Corps left that data out of its study. And barges have continued to avoid the canal since the study was finished, even though they are visiting the port in increased numbers.
Pam Dashiell, president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, remembers holding a protest against the lock four years ago -- right where the levee broke last week. Now she's holed up with her family in a St. Louis hotel, and her neighborhood is underwater. "Our politicians never cared half as much about protecting us as they cared about pork," she said.
Wednesday, congressional defenders of the Corps said they hoped the fallout from Hurricane Katrina would pave the way for billions of dollars of additional spending on water projects. Steve Ellis, a Corps critic with Taxpayers for Common Sense, called their push "the legislative equivalent of looting."
Louisiana's politicians have requested much more money for New Orleans hurricane protection than the Bush administration has proposed or Congress has provided. In the last budget bill, Louisiana's delegation requested $27.1 million for shoring up levees around Lake Pontchartrain, the full amount the Corps had declared as its "project capability." Bush suggested $3.9 million, and Congress agreed to spend $5.7 million.
Administration officials also scaled back a long-term project to restore Louisiana's disappearing coastal marshes, which once provided a measure of natural hurricane protection for New Orleans. They ordered the Corps to stop work on a $14 billion plan and devise a $2 billion plan instead.
Levees only so strong
But overall, the Bush administration's funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton administration's for its past five years. Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the chief of the Corps, has said that in any event, more money would not have prevented the drowning of the city, since its levees were only designed to protect against a Category 3 storm. Strock also has said the marsh restoration project would not have done much to diminish Katrina's storm surge, which passed east of the coastal wetlands.
"The project manager for the Great Pyramids probably put in a request for 100 million shekels and only got 50 million," said John Paul Woodley Jr., the Bush administration official overseeing the Corps. "Flood protection is always a work in progress; on any given day, if you ask whether any community has all the protection it needs, the answer is almost always: Maybe, but maybe not."
The Corps had been studying the possibility of upgrading the New Orleans levees for a higher level of protection before Katrina hit, but Woodley said that study would not have been finished for years. Still, liberal bloggers, Democratic politicians and some Republican defenders of the Corps have linked the catastrophe to the underfunding of the agency.
"We've been hollering about funding for years, but everyone would say: There goes Louisiana again, asking for more money," said former Democratic senator John Breaux. "We've had some powerful people in powerful places, but we never got what we needed."

MrSmashy · 09-12-2005, 08:15 PM

Just think of how scary the fact that this senario was played out is.

I mean, if this is how they mess up a hurricane senario they've been planning for, just imagine what would happen in case of a sucessful major man-made disaster in a major american city. I mean, its a very unlikely senario, but its still there as a possibility.

If there is one good reason to hold anyone's feet to the fire on this one, it should be for that reason alone. To ensure that if something serious happens again, that the government is ready this time.

09-08-2005, 09:13 AM	#2 (permalink)
aswo Crazy	Me too, especially with the news that they ran drills for this happening __________________ People who love people

09-08-2005, 01:27 PM	#3 (permalink)
pan6467 Lennonite Priest Location: Mansfield, Ohio USA	What I don't understand are the reports that there's been water, diesel fuel, Carnival luxury liners, first response teams from Kansas City, Michigan, California, and all sorts of aid being offered and there and yet FEMA refuses to allow it to be dispensed and used. I also see the saddest and worst part of this being the fucked up political jockeying. THERE ARE PEOPLE DYING AND 1000'S MORE SICK, HOMELESS AND FIGHTING TO STAY ALIVE AND OUR FUCKING POLITICIANS, RADIO SHOWS AND SO ON ARE POINTING FINGERS AT EVERYONE ELSE AND NOT DOING SHIT. WTF??????????????? I guess when it comes down to it we are all political pawns. __________________ I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

09-08-2005, 02:45 PM	#4 (permalink)
Thucydides Upright	I also find it disturbing that the current leader of FEMA is completely unqualified, and its of no suprise that he has a relationship with...YOU"VE GUESSED IT... George W. Bush.

09-08-2005, 09:23 PM	#5 (permalink)
loganmule Junkie Location: midwest	Let's not allow this to be reduced to Bush bashing. Personally, I think that there are lots of other more viable points to make in that regard...might make a good thread actually. Anyway, as is pointed out in this article, the Bush administration actually authorized more funding than did Clinton, but most of it ended up as pork, even by Louisiana's standards: http://www.startribune.com/stories/125/5602732.html Here's the text of the story: Army's engineers spent millions on Louisiana projects labeled as pork Michael Grunwald,* Washington Post September 8, 2005 CORPS0908 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Before Hurricane Katrina breached a levee on the New Orleans Industrial Canal, the Army Corps of Engineers had launched a $748 million construction project at that very location. But the project had nothing to do with flood control. The Corps was building a massive new lock for the canal, an effort to accommodate steadily increasing barge traffic. Except barge traffic on the canal has been steadily decreasing. In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times larger. Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon. For example, after a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia flunked a Corps cost-benefit analysis, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., tucked language into an emergency Iraq spending bill ordering the agency to redo its calculations. The Corps also spends tens of millions of dollars a year dredging little-used waterways like the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, the Atchafalaya River and the Red River -- now known as the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway, in honor of the project's congressional godfather -- for barge traffic that turns out to be less than forecast. Most controversial The Industrial Canal lock is one of the agency's most controversial projects, sued by residents of a New Orleans low-income black neighborhood and cited by an alliance of environmentalists and taxpayer advocates as the fifth-worst current Corps boondoggle. In 1998, the Corps justified its plan to build a new lock -- rather than fix the old lock for a tiny fraction of the cost -- by predicting huge increases in barge traffic. In fact, barge traffic on the canal had been plummeting since 1994, but the Corps left that data out of its study. And barges have continued to avoid the canal since the study was finished, even though they are visiting the port in increased numbers. Pam Dashiell, president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, remembers holding a protest against the lock four years ago -- right where the levee broke last week. Now she's holed up with her family in a St. Louis hotel, and her neighborhood is underwater. "Our politicians never cared half as much about protecting us as they cared about pork," she said. Wednesday, congressional defenders of the Corps said they hoped the fallout from Hurricane Katrina would pave the way for billions of dollars of additional spending on water projects. Steve Ellis, a Corps critic with Taxpayers for Common Sense, called their push "the legislative equivalent of looting." Louisiana's politicians have requested much more money for New Orleans hurricane protection than the Bush administration has proposed or Congress has provided. In the last budget bill, Louisiana's delegation requested $27.1 million for shoring up levees around Lake Pontchartrain, the full amount the Corps had declared as its "project capability." Bush suggested $3.9 million, and Congress agreed to spend $5.7 million. Administration officials also scaled back a long-term project to restore Louisiana's disappearing coastal marshes, which once provided a measure of natural hurricane protection for New Orleans. They ordered the Corps to stop work on a $14 billion plan and devise a $2 billion plan instead. Levees only so strong But overall, the Bush administration's funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton administration's for its past five years. Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the chief of the Corps, has said that in any event, more money would not have prevented the drowning of the city, since its levees were only designed to protect against a Category 3 storm. Strock also has said the marsh restoration project would not have done much to diminish Katrina's storm surge, which passed east of the coastal wetlands. "The project manager for the Great Pyramids probably put in a request for 100 million shekels and only got 50 million," said John Paul Woodley Jr., the Bush administration official overseeing the Corps. "Flood protection is always a work in progress; on any given day, if you ask whether any community has all the protection it needs, the answer is almost always: Maybe, but maybe not." The Corps had been studying the possibility of upgrading the New Orleans levees for a higher level of protection before Katrina hit, but Woodley said that study would not have been finished for years. Still, liberal bloggers, Democratic politicians and some Republican defenders of the Corps have linked the catastrophe to the underfunding of the agency. "We've been hollering about funding for years, but everyone would say: There goes Louisiana again, asking for more money," said former Democratic senator John Breaux. "We've had some powerful people in powerful places, but we never got what we needed."

09-12-2005, 08:15 PM	#6 (permalink)
MrSmashy Crazy Location: Soviet Canukistan	Just think of how scary the fact that this senario was played out is. I mean, if this is how they mess up a hurricane senario they've been planning for, just imagine what would happen in case of a sucessful major man-made disaster in a major american city. I mean, its a very unlikely senario, but its still there as a possibility. If there is one good reason to hold anyone's feet to the fire on this one, it should be for that reason alone. To ensure that if something serious happens again, that the government is ready this time.