Bush, Brown, and Chertoff LIE: "first the hurricane, then the flood"

[darkstar]

Pisses me off. Right the fuck off.

I've worked in and around the wetlands loss problem for a while. My expertise is not in NO scenario, but I've been to enough affiliated conferences and such that I know that this was almost axiomatic among those who did do the NOLA modeling: I fear a big, slow moving 2 or 3 more than a Cat 5."

Sure a 5 and its surge would be bad, especially given the loss of swamps and wetlands would make the equivalent of Betsy—same size, path, etc.—worse because they act as buffers to both rain and wind.

But the slosh models—those that address what’s going to be happing from the surge and the RAIN FROM THE FUCKING STORM—have always shown that 1) the counter clock winds at the west of the storm would create a tidal environment in Lake Pontchartrain including southward surges AND levee damage and 2) the rain would go on to dump after it left NO, and that water would drain—for days after—into the Miss basin from the Ohio system, etc.

Anyone who tries to sell this as two events is LYING. This was a major threat all along.

Sorry if this is old news to DU by now. I slept in my office in BR Tuesday until last night and just now got back to Lafayette and have not seen TV or checked in to DU much. My weariness has only grown to anger after 12 hours of sleep and some coffee.

sorry bout the language and typos. rage typing....

[Lindsay]

1. Righteous rant.

Good on ya for finally getting some sleep, and I hope you and yours are all safe.

Yeah, we all know they're lying. It's what they do. And they can't do even that very well these days.

[liberal N proud]

2. Right there with you on this one - America should be raging

This enables them to separate the event in to the the haves and the have nots again. Those along the gulf shore east of the city are victims of the Hurricane and those in NOLA are flood victims and therefore they can treat them differently and will not pay as much attention to the poor of NOLA.

There still is no excuse for the delay in the relief/rescue efforts, bu$h is responsible, he is supposed to be the leader of the country and bring the nation together in a time like this, not spin the hell out of their failures.

[mattclearing]

3. Thanks for the informative post.

It's good to know that this was exactly what had been predicted to be a most dangerous scenario from the beginning. The negligence involved in the response and even preparation is mind-boggling.

[VPStoltz]

4. And can you believe those fucks in the insurance business?

A colleague of my partnet has people on the Gulf Coast. Their insurance company, even though they have "hurrican" insurance, said it will not cover their damage because it was caused by a flood, not the hurricane itself. Is this unbelievable or what?