Paul at Wizbang has an excellent and comprehensive look at the cover-up, then admittance, by the US Corps of Engineers that the hurricane didn’t cause the flooding in New Orleans. There is even video proving his case!
The structural flaws of the levees themselves caused the flooding. The storm just hastened the inevitable collapse of the walls the kept back the water. The approach of Katrina and the evacuation of many (if not all) of the city resulted in tens-of-thousands of people living through the breach versus had the inevitable levee breach occurred suddenly with no warning — which Paul suggests was going to happen at some point anyway.
In the months since Katrina, we’ve learned that the storm was a Category 1 by the time she hit New Orleans. No “Super Hurricane,” just an average storm. We’ve also learned that the New Orleans Hurricane Protection System was not overwhelmed by Katrina, it collapsed. Causing the Corps of Engineers admit they flooded New Orleans not Katrina… An admission that got scant little media coverage. The Great Flood of New Orleans was not a natural disaster but a man made one.
The reason the Corps finally had to admit responsibility was that the floodwall that failed -flooding 70% of the city- basically collapsed under its own weight. It was undeniable. The Corps tried for months to claim the water came over the top of the floodwall and washed it away from the backside. (Which would make it Congress’s fault) Everyone who has seen the break or looked at the surge data knew this was a lie; that the wall suffered a catastrophic failure before the water reached the top. Almost a year later, the Corps admitted that the floodwall suffered from multiple fatal design flaws and failed prematurely.
If you think you know why New Orleans flooded, think again.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
Does Spike Lee know about this?
Given the failure of the ACE to build an ineffective levee system, the failure of FEMA to cope adequately with the afternath, and the complete incompetence of government at all levels in the clean up of New Orleans… would any liberal care to explain why putting the government in charge of Health Care would be a good idea?
#2 V the K — August 29, 2006 @ 12:12 pm – August 29, 2006
Given the failure of the ACE to build an ineffective levee system….
Actually, the Army Corps of non-Engineers was quite successful at building an ineffective levee system.
Their success at building an ineffective levee system was one problem–among many–that faced NOLA during and after Katrina.
VdaK, like Bruce’s post, we often forget that Katrina was a Class 5 hurricane and the levees were never EVER intended to hold under those conditions. Like an Oklahoma trailer sucked up in an F5 black vortex in August, the best laid plans and security provisions like tie-downs just don’t cut it.
Of course, as you rightly pointed out, that central fact doesn’t stop politicians on the Left from crowing and whining.
I guess it doesn’t stop sockpuppets, either. Cloak, cloak –thwarted block. Cloak, cloak.
Katrina wasn’t a class 5 hurricane when it hit. I think it was a cat 4 in Mississippi, and wasn’t even a cat 3 in NO.
Katrina was a class 5 while it was still at sea, but slowed down some as it approached.
It was still a mean, nasty, brutal hurricane, but it wasn’t a cat 5.
Matt, before making apples to oranges comparisons, try to get your facts straight….jeez…
It was a Cat 1 when it hit Florida and at most a cat 3 when it hit the Gulf Coast.
– It was stated the levees could handle this intense of a storm but as we all know the ACE did a flawed job.
just me, right.
Someone better tell the national weather service bureau and hurricane center that you think it wasn’t even a Cat 3 when it hit NO.
The experts say you’re wrong on it “not even being a Cat 3” –it was declared a Cat 5 exactly 24 hours before making landfall and four hours later Nagin ordered a mandatory evac… but don’t take the buses… unless they’re union-member Regional Transit Authority buses. Of course, by then, the looting had already started with some of the corrupt police leading the party.
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:F_y2v-cOrNgJ:www.brookings.edu/fp/projects/homeland/katrinatimeline.pdf+katrina+cat+5+landfall&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=5
Of course it dropped to a Cat 4 –as do all hurricanes– when it made landfall but it then had a Cat 5 surge.
You are being intellectually dishonest to say it wasn’t a Cat 5… and you’re just flat out wrong to write it wasn’t even a Cat 3.
keogh, I didn’t have the benefit of your expert insights before I posted at #7. I think your error is that you want to spin facts to suit DailyKos TalkingPt conclusions… doesn’t work here. Your still accountable even when you’re flat out wrong. Do your homework and put down the talking points.
If you follow the link in the blockquote above, it was a cat 1 by the time it hit New Orleans.
No need for a big debate, just follow the links.
Matt,
Read the first paragraph of
“Tropical Cyclone Report Hurricane Katrina” 23-30 August 2005
Richard D. Knabb, Jamie R. Rhome, and Daniel P. Brown
National Hurricane Center 20 December 2005
I quote
“After reaching Category 5 intensity over the central Gulf of Mexico, Katrina weakened to Category 3 before making landfall on the northern Gulf coast.”
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/TCR-AL122005_Katrina.pdf
You can try to play your semantic, NRO games with me, but it WAS a Cat 3 when it hit
Obviously I know what I am talking about. Learn to listen to people who know more.
You might not make a fool out yourself.
Just for the record: I seem to remember Katrina hitting NO as cat 3 when it hit N.O.
AND – Re-read Bruce’s post. It almost doesn’t matter what cat it was. The levees were going to break when hit by a cat 3, 4 or 5. The levees did the damage (not the storm) in N.O.
The storm surge built up while Katrina was still a Category 5. In most places along the Mississippi Coast the Katrina storm surge, which does most of the structural damage, was about ten feet higher than the storm surge produced by Hurricane Camille in 1969. which made landfall as a Category 5 and is considered one of the most powerful hurricanes to ever hit the U. S.
Katrina did not hit New Orleans. It moved east, just brushing New Orleans. But the strong backside winds “pushed” Lake Pontchartrain into the flood control canals and over some levees.
What really bugs me is you rightists keep trying to blame the victims of this hurricane. By comparing it to folks living in a trailer park, you can say “well the people of the golf coast should have known better”
These typical rightist analogies are bunk
Its just like you rightists for blaming victims….very similar to when a gal gets raped, you say “well she shouldn’t have been out after dark”
Cat Shmat.
Americans who live below sea level must be prepared to face the consequences.
Is this seriously how you spend the year anniversary of this thing? It didn’t hit NO; it was really just a sun shower; the ACE didn’t do a good job; the mayor shouldn’t attack the good people of nyc (who are rather confused these days as to exactly what the latest ‘new’ design for the tower and memorial even look like this week); the city has a French heritage and that explains it all; and on and on and on?
An American city. Mostly gone. Say it again: An American city. Mostly gone.
#12 Ashley Hunter — August 29, 2006 @ 9:07 pm – August 29, 2006
Katrina did not hit New Orleans. It moved east, just brushing New Orleans. But the strong backside winds “pushed” Lake Pontchartrain into the flood control canals and over some levees.
Actually, Katrina did indeed hit NOLA. It is true that the eye of the storm went east of NOLA, but NOLA was hit by the full brunt of the western part of the storm. With a hurricane, the eastern part of the storm is mostly rain, with a lot of wind. But the western part has far less rain, but substantially more wind. That is one of the things that is often forgotten about a hurricane.* And, quite frankly, the wind can do a lot more damage than the rainfall.
I don’t know for sure, but with NOLA it is likely that it was the wind, acting on the waters of Lake Ponchartrain, that caused the levees to break and flood the city. Note where the wind would have been coming from: the east and the northeast, exactly the directions that would have been optimal to cause the lake’s waters to break the levees.
*Actually, here in Europe, we have hurricanes. Hurricanes are classified, not by the amount of rainfall that they provide, but by the speed of the wind. They are almost classified like tornadoes (note to Matty: Wirbelstuerme). There aren’t a lot of them, but they do happen.
I feel much of the city deserves to be rebuilt and better protected. Even so, I can only hope the horrible policies of local adminstrations of the last several decades will be rejected or at least modified to reduce the apathy and helplessness of so many people in one area. That’s what led to the tragedy. The people are entitled to ask for help but they are not entitled to demand restoration without significant outlays of their own in both money and commitment to running a better city than in the past.
I’ve always thought that the ACE was incompetent, at least for the last 40 years or so. The levies collapsing in NOLA is just more proof of that.
#13 – Correction keogh – It’s just like YOU to blabber on ignorantly (i.e., without knowledge) about what “we righties” supposedly think.
For starters, many of us here on GP certainly aren’t righties. I for one am a fairly extreme social liberal, and, after being a 15+ year Democrat, am currently a registered Independent.
For another, you blabber on and on about your preconceptions without referring to or quoting specific individuals’ specific comments. Thus – you are blabbering to your own mirror, nothing more.
Those are the reasons I have learned to (normally) not even read you, most of the time.
Let’s see, Cat 5 surge… devasting hurricane…
but to the GayLeft it didn’t hit NO… it wasn’t even a Cat 3 when it made landfall… it was a Cat 1 when it hit NO (sic).
What? Have all you guys been tuned into Anderson Cooper’s tin foil hat this week? I can’t tell: are you being a fool on purpose or just a tool by default?
It’s amazing how the spin nonsense out of DailyKos can have such staying power among those who need to believe it is true. Need it to be true.
Oh and keogh-of-the-lower-case-clan, for the record I’m not a “rightie” (sic) either. I’m a progressive GOPer known within the party as a Ripon Republican… to the righties, I’m a Republican-in-name-only (RINO). Most radical GayLeftists like you don’t care about that distinction –you only see “GOP” and go bonkers.
But I am a fiscal conservative, an anti-tax classic liberal economist and someone who thinks people like you and your worldview make America unsafe and dangerous for our children… plus, unlike you, I can comprehend the written word of others.
Rather than spew and vent the nonsense handed out on the radical fringe porch of the Democrat Plantation, stop and think for yourself for just once, keogh. You’ll be amazed at how different reality is from the spin you’ve been given in DailyDoses… DailyKos, DailyShow. LOL. Get serious, keogh. The debate issues are too important to be reduced to your rants.
but to the GayLeft it didn’t hit NO… it wasn’t even a Cat 3 when it made landfall… it was a Cat 1 when it hit NO
When did Wizbang become part of the Gay Left?
To raj in #16, I don’t think I misspoke. According to a friend of mine, who is a professional meterologist, New Orleans was not technically “hit” by Katrina because a “hit” is determined by where the hurricane eye makes landfall. That was well to the east of New Orleans. Yes, New Orleans was impacted by the western side of the storm although there was minimal wind damage in the city. As I said in my original comment, it was Katrina’s winds blowing across Lake Pontchartrain that created a storm surge that overwhelmed the flood control canals and levees.
John asks “When did Wizbang become part of the Gay Left?”
LOL! That nails it’ let’s put the coffin in the trench.