Who redirected helicopters leading to flooding of New Orleans?

[SoCalDemocrat]

On Monday the levy was overflowing, but plans were under way to repair it. US Army Corp of Engineers had 4 helicopters carrying 3000 lb sandbags en-route to shore it up. Those helicopters were re-directed by someone outside the Army and told to go pick up civilians trapped on rooftops (better photo op).

Who redirected the helicopters? Whomever redirected the helicopters likely caused the city to be flooded and the massive loss of life and property we have seen.

Had they been allowed to secure the levy, the worst of the flooding could of been prevented.


http://www.bloggledygook.com/bloggledygook/2005/08/

The damage to the 17th Street Canal and its levee means that the water from Lake Pontchartrain is now free to flow down to inundate hundreds of thousands of homes and other buildings here.



Once it flows in, the water will not drain from New Orleans because of the very levees that protect the city and that largely held during the hurricane. Those levees, built to keep water out, are now keeping the water in, and reports from across the city indicate that water levels are rising.



Authorities plan to use helicopters to drop 3,000-pound sandbags into the breach in the damaged levee, the Associated Press reported. The breach is said to be about 200 feet long. There were reports Tuesday that other levees may also have given way in the hours since the storm passed.

[SoCalDemocrat]

1. more info

Again, who ordered those helicopters not to complete their mission?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/30/AR2005083000689.html

"After Hurricane Katrina passed Monday, many residents had been relieved to find their neighborhoods at least partially above water. But by late Monday, long after the rains had subsided, residents realized the floodwaters were still rising.

An emergency management flight Monday afternoon had discovered a break in one of the levees that protect this city from flooding, but its significance was not immediately known. On Tuesday, two levees were found to have been breached, and the saucer-shaped city was filling with water."

[SoCalDemocrat]

2. power struggle between White house and state of LA

http://amygdalagf.blogspot.com/2005_08_28_amygdalagf_archive.html

"Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.

"

[SoCalDemocrat]

3. From Sept 2nd

http://nytimes.com/2005/09/03/national/nationalspecial/03storm.html?ei=5094&en=c39cf45e7f030e63&hp=&ex=1125720000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all

"The Army Corps of Engineers kept at the repair work on the broken levees that had allowed Lake Pontchartrain to thunder into the bowl-like city after it seemed that damage from the hurricane had ceased. And after three days of delays, the Corps and a swelling army of private contractors slowly began to set the stage for draining the hundreds of billions of gallons of floodwaters from the city.

The plan was to close the holes that the storm tides had opened and break open new holes in places where the levees were holding water in the city rather than letting it out.

A train of dump trucks and a yellow bulldozer began laying a narrow, temporary road of black rubble and gravel from dry ground to the north end of the 300-foot breach in a wall of the 17th Street Canal, through which most of the floodwaters passed. At the same time, heavy-lift helicopters lowered hundreds of huge sandbags into the south end of the gap.

The height of the water in the streets and the adjoining lake had leveled off, so water was no longer rising. The authorities were hopeful that the breach could be slowly, if temporarily, blocked. At the same time, Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, commander of the Corps, said he was concerned about storms forming in the Atlantic."

[Spazito]

4. I place my money on FEMA, probably the director that was in

Louisiana at the time.

[dogindia]

5. kick.