Hurricanes may be "natural disasters," but their consequences often have little to do with nature, and everything to do with political choices. That bears emphasizing as the horrific consequences of Hurricane Katrina unfold in New Orleans and Mississippi: Consider:
As the New Orleans Times-Picayune has reported in a devastating series of articles over the last two years, city and state officials and the Corps of Enginners had repeatedly requested funding to strengthen the levees along Lake Pontchartrain that breeched in the wake of the flood. But the Bush administration rebuffed the requests repeatedly, reprograming the funding from levee enhancement to Homeland Security and the war on Iraq.
This year the Bush administration slashed funding for the New Orleans Corps of Engineers by $71.2 million, a stunning 44.2 percent reduction from its 2001 levels. A Corps report noted at the time that "major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. . . . Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now."
Work on the 17th Street levee, which breached on Monday night, came to a halt earlier this summer for the lack of $2 million.
"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," Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana told the Times-Picayune in June of last year. "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."
Also relevant is this:
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday: “With thousands of their citizen-soldiers away fighting in Iraq, states hit hard by Hurricane Katrina scrambled to muster forces for rescue and security missions yesterday -- calling up Army bands and water-purification teams, among other units, and requesting help from distant states and the active-duty military.”
The back-page Post story added: “National Guard officials in the states acknowledged that the scale of the destruction is stretching the limits of available manpower while placing another extraordinary demand on their troops -- most of whom have already served tours in Iraq or Afghanistan or in homeland defense missions since 2001.”
Speaking for the Mississippi National Guard, Lt. Andy Thaggard said: “Missing the personnel is the big thing in this particular event. We need our people.” According to the Washington Post, the Mississippi National Guard “has a brigade of more than 4,000 troops in central Iraq” while “Louisiana also has about 3,000 Guard troops in Baghdad.”
UPDATE: More information on how the Bush Administration has contributed to the scope of this disaster.
ANOTHER: Krugman discusses these issues here (I swear this guy must be reading my blog).
RELATED THOUGHTS here and here.
AND ONE MORE: A rather lengthy and detailed June 2003 article from a civil engineering magazine indicating that at least some engineers recognized the risks facing New Orleans. (Thanks to Ry Parsons for the pointer.)
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