Clinton: Neglect of NO deliberate policy

'Deliberate' Neglect Laid to Bush In Policy on Katrina's Aftermath - January 30, 2006 - The New York Sun - NY Newspaper

Senator Clinton told a largely friendly audience here Saturday night that the slow pace of government-sponsored reconstruction following Hurricane Katrina was the result of a deliberate decision by the Bush administration and may have been motivated by a desire to discourage Democratic voters from returning to the devastated region.

"I think that basically we are now watching a deliberate policy of neglect take root," Mrs. Clinton said during an appearance at a fund-raiser for legal services charities. "It is deeply troubling for any American to believe that your government would abandon such a huge part of our country and such an important part of our history."

If congress is afraid of asking, maybe private citizens can get an answer

U.S. Newswire : "CREW Sues DHS Over Continuing Katrina CoverUp..."

Unemployment rate proves its vulnerability to reality

Louisiana's hurricane-ravaged economy got a bit of surprising news last week when the state labor department reported that the unemployment rate had dropped by nearly half. Tempered enthusiasm is in order, though, since facts, in this case, get in the way of percentages.

The state's jobless rate, which officially dropped from 12.1 percent in November to 6.4 percent in December, has long been spun in various directions by various interests, depending upon how the economy is doing.

By the time Katrina and Rita had done their respective numbers on Louisiana in August and September, the state had lost more than 205,000 non-farm jobs, including enough in the New Orleans area to completely wipe out 40 years of job growth, along with 11 years statewide.

Plaquemines homeowner says her home was bulldozed before she could even see it

Plaquemines Parish President Benny Rousselle has allowed the Army Corps of Engineers to take over land for levee work, but one homeowner said the bulldozers got to her home long before she could.

It was a challenge for Pamela Berthelot to find anything left of her three-bedroom home in Lower Plaquemines. Berthelot said she felt robbed of the chance to find more, because she said bulldozers tore down her house without her permission, before she could even see it.

“When we got here, there was nothing here, it was just this: empty,” said Berthelot.

Bertholet said satellite photos showed her home survived the storm, in spite of being pushed off its foundation and onto the shoulder of her street. Although it was badly damaged, she thought she could have saved something when she returned in mid-September.

'Deliberate' Neglect Laid to Bush In Policy on Katrina's Aftermath

Senator Clinton told a largely friendly audience here Saturday night that the slow pace of government-sponsored reconstruction following Hurricane Katrina was the result of a deliberate decision by the Bush administration and may have been motivated by a desire to discourage Democratic voters from returning to the devastated region.

Mrs. Clinton said she suspected that the assignment of President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, to oversee the relief effort indicated that political mischief was afoot. "Cynical minds might suggest that the destruction of the Democratic vote in Louisiana was a mixed blessing. If you rebuild New Or leans, all those Democrats might come home," she said during a 90-minute public interview conducted on an auditorium stage by a former television host, Jane Pauley.

Governor Blanco's approval rating is at 38% and its more than possible that the dive in ratings has to do with the neglect discussed by Sen. Clinton.

Shell, other business returning.

csmonitor.com

Shell's return ... is very, very significant," says Mark Drennen, president and CEO of Greater New Orleans Inc. "It has been a major corporate player in New Orleans historically, and its loss would not only have been a huge economic blow, it would have a been a very serious blow to our recovery efforts as well." Among large manufacturing firms, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin are back, along with a sizable share of their workforces. About 90 percent of the hotels have reopened. Most of the major law firms have also returned. In the city's Central Business District, Hertz Investment Group has opened four office buildings - and all are more in demand than before Katrina. "We have been pleasantly surprised by how many of our tenants are back," says Gary Horwitz, chief operating officer of the Los Angeles-based firm. "The leasing activity is as strong as we've ever seen [in] the Class A office market in New Orleans."

A nifty brief history of New Orleans Canal system

Nola.com: For centuries, canals kept New Orleans dry. Most people never dreamed they would become Mother Nature's instrument of destruction.

In 1871, city surveyor W.H. Bell sounded what is thought to be the first alarm about the dangers posed by the big outfall canals. He told city officials to place pumping stations on the lakeshore, otherwise "heavy storms would result in water backup within the canals, culminating in an overflow into the city."

That warning was ignored, and in 1915 the most powerful hurricane then on record hit the city and proved him right. The storm's surge pumped the lake 6 feet above normal. The outfall canals flowed over their meager levees, and much of the city flooded. New Orleans' brand new drainage system was overwhelmed, even before the storm knocked out the electrical station that ran the pumps. The death toll reached 275.

Baker shows guts, defies Bush

That's Republican Congressman Baker

Calling the Bush administration's approach to hurricane recovery in Louisiana a potential "death blow to the state's economy," Rep. Richard Baker vowed Friday to continue fighting for his legislation to bail out homeowners and help the region rebuild after Hurricane Katrina.

It's great to see an honest man, not falling in lockstep with his party. And here's Boustany showing some independence too:

U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette, says the Bush administration is being “short-sighted” in opposing a property buyout proposal to aid Louisiana hurricane victims and needs to do more than just say no to the state congressional delegation’s ideas.

Miracles and wonders. I guess all politics is local after all.

Where'd that extra $18 billion come from?

da po'blog has a great post about Bush's magical loaves and fishes kind of appropriations mumb0-jumbo. How did the money set aside for NO suddenly burgeon from $67 to $85 billion? Bush voodoo?

thanks to bayousaintjohndavid at Moldy City for the tip

Nope, just the fog in Bush's head

New York Times,

The White House was beset by the "fog of war" in the crucial days immediately after Hurricane Katrina, leaving it unable to respond properly to the unfolding catastrophe, House investigators said Friday after getting the most detailed briefing yet on how President Bush's staff had handled the events.

Yep. We figuted it might take a few years for FEMA to start doing its job.

Monsters and Critics

It will take about three years to get all New Orleans` Hurricane Katrina victims who want a temporary trailer into one at the current pace. A review by the New Orleans Times-Picayune shows only 2,796 trailers in Orleans Parish had been occupied as of Jan. 24, 14 percent of the nearly 20,000 ordered. Federal Emergency Management Agency officials said most of those are private trailers on private property. A group of mass trailer sites are expected to begin opening this week in the city. Only 151 trailers for people left homeless by the storm have been set up. Ten sites of 413 trailers are expected before Mardi Gras.

Bush just a little premature about "plans."

New Orleans Times Picayune

A day after President Bush rebuked local and state officials for not producing a hurricane recovery plan, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said his administration is just weeks away from delivering a voluminous document that will detail the city's strategy for rebuilding neighborhoods, restoring public services and resurrecting the region's wrecked economy.

Nagin's promise came on Friday after his Bring New Orleans Back commission accepted the last of six reports from subcommittees advising the mayor on education, culture, health care and other matters.

New Orleans dying as it waits for Washington to get its act together.

ContraCostaTimes.com

Vickie Bassetti, 66, owner of Bassetti Fine Art Photographs in the French Quarter, said Friday that residents are feeling "more abandoned than ever" by official Washington.

"The reality is being ignored or it's more than they are capable of coping with," she said. "They have other agendas."

Tulane University history professor Lawrence Powell said that Washington is treating New Orleanians "like we're some kind of Kleenex that you can just use and throw away."

Washington doesn't seem to care that Louisiana supplies energy to and receives river-carried waste from a large part of the country, he said. "Then they tell us we are stupid to live down here."

He was especially annoyed by the first lady's comments about government's slow pace, saying, "It may work that way under Bush, but it didn't work that way under Lyndon Johnson."

What part of the word 'Plan" is Bush having trouble with?

2theadvocate.com

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said she felt “kicked in the teeth” by Bush’s remarks, including assertions that Louisiana failed to produce a plan for recovering from hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Blanco said the state has a plan: U.S. Rep. Richard Baker’s 4-month-old bill to create a $30 billion revolving fund to buy out owners of heavily damaged homes, pay off their mortgages and redevelop communities.

The Rude Pundit says Katrina stories not going away

The Rude one, who has a fondness for NO and had dont some very good first hand reporting of the damages there, has a longish piece on how Bush and the feds have angered even Republicans like Vitter. He ends it with a paragraph about my home town that I coulnd't resist quoting. (My house is on the parade route.) Careful, though, rated R for language.

The Rude Pundit:

"The Rude Pundit actually recommends heading up the road a piece to Lafayette, Louisiana, which has its own grubby-souled Mardi Gras. Not as elaborate as New Orleans, it's a helluva party. And no Katrina corpses to be found."

Demolishing a city's history

Chron.com - Houston Chronicle: "Preservationists say the city would tear down structurally sound, historic buildings under a much-criticized plan to cull the city of homes in danger of falling over in the wake of Hurricane Katrina."

What the Corps isplanning for the canals

You want details, Blagueur gives you details.
INR : "The company submitted a design that uses a row of 8-ft-dia bow-thruster propellers like those used to hold oil and gas rigs in position when drilling in deep water. The Corps is testing design viability with a 24-in. valve thruster at Alden Research Laboratory in Holden, Mass.

'It was a no-brainer for me,' says Charles Nelson, company president. He says the firm is familiar with the technology from its oil and gas work. 'You ask me what’s the biggest propeller I can think of and I say a bow thruster,' he says."

Codrescu: New Orleans libraries in peril

How do you rebulid a library system when no one much cares about readingany more?
The Villager : "Public libraries are indispensable to poor communities like New Orleans, because they serve as cultural centers for people who still have the integrity not to surrender to television and video games. Public library buildings are also useful for sheltering a great number of people. If anyone in government would have given any thought to public libraries in New Orleans, they might have built them to serve as shelters in a disaster. The storm that ripped the roof right off the scandalous poverty in our city also exposed the shabby treatment of programs intended to better community life. The complete lack of foresight and imagination by the bureaucrats in charge of public monies is beyond appalling. It’s criminal. Libraries may not be the first priority in a city beset by thousands of personal tragedies and hundreds of major and urgent needs, but they are an irreplaceable piece of the complex puzzle of urban civilization. Take away the library and what you have is a mindless shopping mall. "