THIS MODERN WORLD

The mayor of the city of New Orleans ordered an evacuation on Sunday. For 24 hours, the cable newsies talked of the possibility of a catastrophic storm surge leaving the city under twenty feet of water. Whether or not anyone could have anticipated the breach of the levees, plenty of people were aware that they might be overwhelmed, and that New Orleans could soon face major devastation and flooding as a result.

It’s not like we didn’t know that this might happen.

So why weren’t more emergency personnel and equipment in place and ready to go?

Why did it take the president two days to get back to DC? Why wasn’t he in the White House on Sunday night, overseeing emergency preparations?

And what the fuck is Condi Rice doing attending Broadway shows and shopping for expensive shoes at a time like this?

Sorry — does it “politicize” the issue to wonder whether we are quite literally being led by sociopaths and insane people?

Oh, by the way — as August points out — the Department of Homeland Security wants you to know that September is National Preparedness Month.

From americablog:

CNN just announced that New Orleans has now become so dangerous that FEMA is calling off its search and rescue operations in the city.

Jesus Christ.

Glad Bush decided TODAY to send those extra troops on the aircraft carrier that should arrive, oh, when?

* * *

Just a reminder — this is what George Bush did on Tuesday, well after it was clear that New Orleans was getting wiped off the map:

Also lifted from Atrios:

Spellman: Right now, and for several hours, a stream of people have been heading down Canal street heading for the the convention center looking for help. The Convention Center is along the Mississippi river on the southern side of town. They’lll be shocked at what they see when they get there. It’s thousands and thousands of people who hav ebeen there all nigth sleeping out on the streets on the sidewalk wherever they can find a spot.

There’s no one in control. No national guard. no police. And certainly no FEMA.

Inside we’ve gotten disturbing news of many dead bodies and nothing to be done with them. CNN’s Chris Lawrence got word to us that right in front of him an infant died. That’s where people are going for help and there’s simply none for them.

But don’t worry. We’ve got all the Guardsmen we need.

Like something out of Bosch:

The sick and the disabled were the first to be led out. But late Wednesday afternoon, as the slow evacuation of the Superdome began, it was not always easy to distinguish them from the rest of the 20,000 or more storm refugees who had steeped for days in the arena’s sickening heat and stench, unbathed, exhausted and hungry.

* * *

They had flocked to the arena seeking sanctuary from the winds and waters of Hurricane Katrina. But understaffed, undersupplied and without air-conditioning or even much lighting, the domed stadium quickly became a sweltering and surreal vault, a place of overflowing toilets and no showers. Food and water, blankets and sheets, were in short supply. And the dome’s reluctant residents exchanged horror stories, including reports, which could not be confirmed by the authorities, of a suicide and of rapes.

* * *

By Wednesday the stink was staggering. Heaps of rotting garbage in bulging white plastic bags baked under a blazing Louisiana sun on the main entry plaza, choking new arrivals as they made their way into the stadium after being plucked off rooftops and balconies.

The odor billowing from toilets was even fouler. Trash spilled across corridors and aisles, slippery with smelly mud and scraps of food.

* * *

It got worse. Ms. Rousell recalled hearing a loud bang Tuesday afternoon as the body of a man slapped the concrete at the edge of the football field in a fatal suicidal plunge, after he apparently learned that his home had been destroyed. Others told of fights that broke out in food lines, and of a husband and wife who slugged each other in a wild argument.

Several residents said they had heard of children being raped, though it was not clear whether anyone reported such incidents to the authorities, and no officials could be found who could confirm the accounts.

Darcel Monroe, 21, a bakery cashier, stammered hysterically as she recounted seeing two young girls being raped in one of the women’s bathrooms. “A lot of people saw it but they were afraid to do anything,” she said. “He ran out past all of us.”

And what CNN is reporting (via Atrios) is even worse:

We’ve just gotten word that there are many, many dead bodies, and while they were there they even saw a baby die.

I’m just glad that Jonah Goldberg was able to get a chuckle out of the whole thing back on Sunday:

ATTN: SUPERDOME RESIDENTS [Jonah Goldberg]
I think it’s time to face facts. That place is going to be a Mad Max/thunderdome Waterworld/Lord of the Flies horror show within the next few hours. My advice is to prepare yourself now. Hoard weapons, grow gills and learn to communicate with serpents. While you’re working on that, find the biggest guy you can and when he’s not expecting it beat him senseless. Gather young fighters around you and tell the womenfolk you will feed and protect any female who agrees to participate without question in your plans to repopulate the earth with a race of gilled-supermen. It’s never too soon to be prepared.

There are a lot of links in this Kos diary which back up Bob’s assertion below — New Orleans is a casualty of the war in Iraq. I’m just going to post excerpts here, you can click through for the source links.

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. 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.
— Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004.

* * *

The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which remains about 20% incomplete due to lack of funds, said Al Naomi, project manager. That project consists of building up levees and protection for pumping stations on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles and Jefferson parishes.
The Lake Pontchartrain project is slated to receive $3.9 million in the president’s 2005 budget. Naomi said about $20 million is needed.

“The longer we wait without funding, the more we sink,” he said. “I’ve got at least six levee construction contracts that need to be done to raise the levee protection back to where it should be (because of settling). Right now I owe my contractors about $5 million. And we’re going to have to pay them interest.”

* * *

That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount.
But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said.

* * *
In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

And then there’s this:

The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it’s too late. One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer was a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach. The levee failure appears to be causing a human tragedy of epic proportions:

“We probably have 80 percent of our city under water; with some sections of our city the water is as deep as 20 feet. Both airports are underwater,” Mayor Ray Nagin told a radio interviewer.

Washington knew that this day could come at any time, and it knew the things that needed to be done to protect the citizens of New Orleans. But in the tradition of the riverboat gambler, the Bush administration decided to roll the dice on its fool’s errand in Iraq, and on a tax cut that mainly benefitted the rich.

And now Bush has lost that gamble, big time. We hope that Congress will investigate what went wrong here.

The president told us that we needed to fight in Iraq to save lives here at home, and yet — after moving billions of domestic dollars to the Persian Gulf — there are bodies floating through the streets of Louisiana. What does George W. Bush have to say for himself now?

The first time I went to New Orleans, my reaction was probably similar that of most tourists: the city is below sea level? The only reason it’s not flooded is because of machines that operate twenty four hours a day?

We used to call San Francisco “the city that waits to die.” But New Orleans was a city on 24/7 life support. And what George Bush did, effectively, was pull the plug because he needed to spend the money elsewhere.

My emotions today run the gamut from anger to despair. Goddamn these incompetent motherfuckers.

* * *
…here’s one more, via the same Kos diary:

JACKSON BARRACKS — When members of the Louisiana National Guard left for Iraq in October, they took a lot equipment with them. Dozens of high water vehicles, humvees, refuelers and generators are now abroad, and in the event of a major natural disaster that, could be a problem. “The National Guard needs that equipment back home to support the homeland security mission,” said Lt. Colonel Pete Schneider with the LA National Guard.

That article was datelined August 1.

You’ll hear plenty of administration officials insisting that they have all the Guardsmen and equipment they need. And if you believe that, you probably also believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. The right-wing noise machine will do their best to drown out and discredit anyone who points this out now, but I promise you, within six months it will be conventional wisdom and the right wingers will simply clear their throats and look away when the topic comes up.