[Leica] planning for disaster

[imagist at imagist.cnc.net (george lottermoser)]

> Baloney - there is no reason they shouldn't be planning for these kind of
> events. I know for sure the British Military plans for massive Disaster 
and
> Civil Defence missions such as this - at one time I was involved in just
> such planning.
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Subject: Bush cuts N.O flood control $$ 44% to pay for Iraq - Salon.com
In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the
three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New
Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.

By Sidney Blumenthal


Aug. 31, 2005  |  Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, Hurricane
Katrina has left millions of Americans to scavenge for food and shelter and 
hundreds to thousands reportedly dead. With its main levee broken, the 
evacuated city of New Orleans has become part of the Gulf of Mexico. But the 
damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act of 
nature.

A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New
Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush
administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a flood
killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban
Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened and
renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New
Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a
terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the
flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq
war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New
Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the
waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the
beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent
since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring
freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees,
but it was too late....... more:

"No one can say they didn't see it coming":

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2005/08/31/disaster_preparation/ind
ex.html
-- 
regards,
George Lottermoser, imagist