Addressing the Apologists: Who Could Have Predicted the Breaches?
It's time to address some of the claims that are being put forth in defense of FEMA and the Bush administration (or criticizing state and local governments) in the wake of the Katrina disaster. The first is that this tragedy, specifically caused by a break in the levees, couldn't have been predicted. Here are some quotes from relevant officials utilizing this defense:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/03/katrina.chertoff/index.html
Chertoff argued that authorities actually had assumed that "there would be overflow from the levee, maybe a small break in the levee. The collapse of a significant portion of the levee leading to the very fast flooding of the city was not envisioned."
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"This is really one which I think was breathtaking in its surprise," Chertoff said. "There has been, over the last few years, some specific planning for the possibility of a significant hurricane in New Orleans with a lot of rainfall, with water rising in the levees and water overflowing the levees," he told reporters Saturday.
That alone would be "a very catastrophic scenario," Chertoff said. "And although the planning was not complete, a lot of work had been done. But there were two problems here. First of all, it's as if someone took that plan and dropped an atomic bomb simply to make it more difficult. We didn't merely have the overflow, <b>we actually had the break in the wall</b>. And I will tell you that, really, that perfect storm of combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight."
http://mediamatters.org/items/200509020001
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."
- George W. Bush
Most of the doomsday scenarios involved a 25-30 foot storm surge completely overtopping the levees (though not necessarily breaching them), flooding the city and creating the toxic fishbowl scenario. Since the storm surge on Lake Pontchartrain ended up only being at the level of the levees, some are arguing that it breaching the levees in these conditions were unanticipated. Is this the case?
Well, let's look at oft-quoted Times-Picayune article on what would happen if the Big One hit:
"Another scenario is that some part of the levee would fail," Suhayda said. "It's not something that's expected. But erosion occurs, and as levees broke, the break will get wider and wider. The water will flow through the city and stop only when it reaches the next higher thing. The most continuous barrier is the south levee, along the river. That's 25 feet high, so you'll see the water pile up on the river levee."
As the floodwaters invade and submerge neighborhoods, the wind will be blowing at speeds of at least 155 mph, accompanied by shorter gusts of as much as 200 mph, meteorologists say, enough to overturn cars, uproot trees and toss people around like dollhouse toys.
The wind will blow out windows and explode many homes, even those built to the existing 110-mph building-code standards. People seeking refuge from the floodwaters in high-rise buildings won't be very safe, recent research indicates, because wind speed in a hurricane gets greater with height. If the winds are 155 mph at ground level, scientists say, they may be 50 mph stronger 100 feet above street level.
Buildings also will have to withstand pummeling by debris picked up by water surging from the lakefront toward downtown, with larger pieces acting like battering rams.
And from the June 8th, 2004 edition of the Times-Picayune (pulled from Lexis-Nexis, so no link):
It’s time now for the next lifts in a number of places that have sunk 2 to 4 feet from their design elevations. These include in Kenner west of the Pontchartrain Center, Metairie between Causeway Boulevard and Clearview Parkway, Norco and St. Rose in St. Charles Parish, the Bayou Sauvage area of eastern New Orleans, and remote marshland areas of eastern St. Bernard Parish.
The subsidence is expected.
What’s new, said Morehiser and Naomi, is that the agency has run out of money for the next round of lifts. Naomi said this is the first time a lack of money has stopped major corps work on the levees since the project began in 1967.
"I can’t tell you exactly what that could mean this hurricane season if we get a major storm," Naomi said. "It would depend on the path and speed of the storm, the angle that it hits us.
"But I can tell you that we would be better off if the levees were raised, . . . and I think it’s important and only fair that those people who live behind the levee know the status of these projects."
Levees on the east bank of New Orleans, as well as some in eastern St. Bernard Parish, are among the area’s oldest and have had several lifts. Corps engineers said the next lift might be the last they need.
But the levees on the east bank of St. Charles and Jefferson parishes are much younger, and most stretches have had only one or two lifts.
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"When levees are below grade, as ours are in many spots right now, they’re more vulnerable to waves pouring over them and degrading them," Naomi said. "We’re not below storm-surge elevation yet, but we will be if we stop raising our levees as they subside."
Bush budget falls short
The Bush administration’s proposed fiscal 2005 budget includes only $3.9 million for the east bank hurricane project. Congress likely will increase that amount, although last year it bumped up the administration’s $3 million proposal only to $5.5 million.
"I needed $11 million this year, and I got $5.5 million," Naomi said. "I need $22.5 million next year to do everything that needs doing, and the first $4.5 million of that will go to pay four contractors who couldn’t get paid this year."
Naomi said the corps already owes four contractors more than $2 million for hurricane protection work they’ve done this year without pay, and he expects the figure to climb to about $4.5 million by Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year.
The challenge now, said emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri in Jefferson Parish and Terry Tullier in New Orleans, is for southeast Louisiana somehow to persuade those who control federal spending that protection from major storms and flooding are matters of homeland security.
"It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay," Maestri said. "Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."
Joseph Suhayda, who (according to the T-P article) is an "a Louisiana State University engineer who is studying ways to limit hurricane damage in the New Orleans area" explicitly laid out a levee breach scenario. Al Naomi, senior project manager of the Lake Pontchartrain and vicinity levee project, noted that the levees were vulnerable to degradation. It's pretty clear that breaches in the N.O. levee system were a distinct possibility.
UPDATE: More posts from Brainster and Michelle Malkin claiming that breaks in the levee were not predicted. Neither quote the passages listed above. So here's another recent reference (pre-Katrina) to a levee breach:
If the Ponchartrain levees are breached by Katrina, water will pour into the city. Under worst-case scenarios, it would flood and disable many of the city's pumps and rise 20 feet -- to the rooftops in many sections.
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