My very first post on Katrina was at 7am on last Sunday morning, when I first saw that the storm was still on track to hit New Orleans and was now a category 5 hurricane.
That post had a link to an NPR story from last year about the possible consequences of such a storm, a story that has proven to be all too accurate.
Those of you who aren’t locals are fairly familiar with Walter Maestri now. He was the first Jefferson Parish official I heard crying on the radio a few days ago (Aaron Broussard yesterday was the second). Refresh your memory with what he told NPR last year, and keep this in mind whenever you hear a federal official say that the Katrina disaster was unexpected.
And just across the Mississippi River, Walter Maestri is struggling to help New Orleans prepare. Maestri is the czar of public emergencies in Jefferson Parish (that’s the county that sprawls across a third of the metropolitan area). He points to a map of the region on the wall of his command post.
“A couple of days ago,” explains Maestri, “We actually had an exercise where we brought a fictitious Category Five Hurricane into the metropolitan area.”
The map is covered with arrows and swirls in erasable marker. They show how the fictitious hurricane crossed Key West and then smacked into New Orleans.
When the computer models showed Maestri what would happen next, he wrote big letters on the map, all in capitals.
“KYAGB—kiss your ass good bye,” reads Maestri.
“Because,” says Maestri, “anyone who was here when that storm came across was gone—it was body-bag time. We think 40,000 people could lose their lives in the metropolitan area.”
And some scientists say that figure is conservative. People have known for centuries that New Orleans is a risky spot — the biggest river in North America wraps around it; and most of the land is below sea level. But researchers say they’ve been learning just how grave the problem is, only in the last few years. And they say the city and the nation aren’t prepared to handle it.
It was their job to know. But FEMA, Chertoff, Brown, Bush…they didn’t know. They didn’t do their jobs. They just didn’t.
…and when this is over and the water is pumped out and the body count is in, when the refugees are housed and the bulldozers are rolling and things are getting re-built; that’s when we need to make sure this country remembers it. When they’re looking at the sanitized aftermath and think clean-up and re-constructtion means the government did the right thing, we need to point to this, the fact that putting the fire out doesn’t equal protecting the house from fire.
People are going to forget this, becuase the media will lose interesting, the PR machine will start up on how many billions are going into rebuilding. The media will stop talking about how BushCo could have stepped in and prevented it, how they could have been ready for it, and how they could be doing somthing now, and they’re start talking about how malls and upscale housing are going up where the fucking people used to live, and ain’t that grand how New Orleans is rising like a phoenix from the ashes.
That’s when we need to remind them – this didn’t have to happen this way. And our government had the power to stop this, and they didn’t.
We have to make sure no one forgets. Because america loves to forget about it when the government fucks up.
I agree with you. How do “we” keep this debacle fresh and alive?
you might find this:http://www.absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?t=85349 interesting as well.
http://www.americaswetland.com/article.cfm?id=241&cateid=2&pageid=3&cid=16
Aaron Broussard was a prophet, too (scroll down):
Parishes Against Coastal Erosion (PACE) Response to the Bush Administration’s June 14, 2005 Policy Statement on the Proposed Energy Act of 2005
By Parishes Against Coastal Erosion
Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, NOAA and other federal and state agencies along with university experts agree that nowhere in the world is a coastal region losing wetlands and protective barrier islands faster than Louisiana. About this there is no doubt. It is predicted that by 2050, one third of coastal Louisiana will have vanished into the Gulf of Mexico. Our coast and its wetlands is a system on the verge of collapse. Without wetlands to buffer storms, our people and property and the nation’s energy supply are at risk. Oil and gas pipelines and facilities, which provide 25% of the Nation’s energy needs, are more vulnerable with each storm. Oil and gas activities and federal actions to control the Mississippi River for navigation and flood control are largely responsible for the drastic loss of our coastal. PACE believes we are completely within our right to ask the federal government to share money generated from offshore oil and gas revenues with the coastal states that bear a disproportionate burden in supporting this nation’s energy needs.
Louisiana’s congressional delegation has urged Congress for more than a decade to return to the state a fair share of the revenue from the production of offshore oil and gas both because of the impact of offshore production on Louisiana and because interior states get 50% of revenues from oil and gas production on federal lands.
The president has supported the concept, but has backed off when it comes to funding the restoration effort. PACE believes Louisiana can no longer afford to wait. Louisiana urgently needs guaranteed resources to thwart a catastrophe that is not being given the sense of urgency that it demands.
We believe the case has been made. Louisiana’s wetlands – America’s WETLAND – is crucial to the nations oil and gas production, commercial fisheries, navigation and commerce and national security. Restoring the damage hastened by years of inland and offshore drilling is clearly a national responsibility.
The President, in this Policy Statement, has failed us. To sidestep this as a key issue would be a serious deficiency, in the Energy Bill, and the entire nation will suffer as a consequence.
Our Louisiana legislature this month passed a constitutional amendment requiring any new offshore oil and gas revenue to be put in a trust fund dedicated to coastal erosion.
Louisiana has made a commitment. Now, it’s time for the President to step up to the plate and support funding to prevent the untold damage to the ecology, economy and potential loss of life in large numbers.
With the National Hurricane Center predicting another active hurricane season, PACE President Aaron Broussard said he fears that it is going to take a major storm and significant loss of life before the nation acts responsibly.
The PACE organization’s frustration with the Administration’s Statement was reflected in St. Bernard Parish President, Henry “Junior” Rodriguez’s comment that “Louisiana contributes much to this Nations energy needs. It’s time we take a hard look at our alternatives and consider whether we want to keep up this level of oil and gas production. ”
If you have any questions, please contact Jefferson Parish President and PACE President, Aaron Broussard at (504) 736-6400.