Or are they just focusing on reporting the horror human interest stories that could have been avoided if our President would have done his job?
I don't watch TV these days, that's why I am asking.
If they are not talking about the cuts made in the budget for events such as natural disasters, why not? Maybe we should send them this information.
-----------
Last year, FEMA spent $250,000 to conduct an eight-day hurricane drill for a mock killer storm hitting New Orleans. Some 250 emergency officials attended. Many of the scenarios now playing out, including a helicopter evacuation of the Superdome, were discussed in that drill for a fictional storm named Pam.
This year, the group was to design a plan to fix such unresolved problems as evacuating sick and injured people from the Superdome and housing tens of thousands of stranded citizens. Funding for that planning was cut, said Tolbert, the former FEMA disaster response director. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12528233.htm--------
From reports (notably Editor & Publisher)
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313Instead of following the plan, Bush gutted the budget over the last few years that was supposed to be going to strengthen the levees. In 2003 and 2004, New Orleans did not get the funding that it was supposed to get.
"Local officials are now saying, the article reported, that
had Washington heeded their warnings about the dire need for hurricane protection, including building up levees and repairing barrier islands, "the damage might not have been nearly as bad as it turned out to be."-----------
Bush took New Orleans disaster funds and used them for the Iraq war and for his tax cutsby John in DC - 8/30/2005 09:57:00 PM
An amazing late-breaking article from Editor & Publisher
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313Bottom line:
Experts knew this was coming, and all the preparations ground to a halt because Bush stole New Orleans' disaster preparation money so he could use it for his Iraq debacle:
New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.
...after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle.
The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain.At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/08/bush-took-new-orleans-disaster-funds.html-----------
"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. 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."-- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish,
Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004.
http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002331.htmlalso check out this thread....
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2050029-------------------
http://www.ieminc.com/Whats_New/Press_Releases/pressrelease052604_Manscen.htmBush has slashed Clinton's Disaster Mitigation Program."...Among emergency specialists, 'mitigation' -- the measures taken inadvance to minimize the damage caused by natural disasters -- is a crucial part of the strategy to save lives and cut recovery costs. But since 2001, key federal disaster mitigation programs, developed over many years, have been slashed and tossed aside. FEMA's Project Impact, a model mitigation program created by the Clinton administration, has been canceled outright. Federal funding of post-disaster mitigation efforts designed to protect people and property from the next disaster has been cut in half. Communities across the country must now compete for pre-disaster mitigation dollars.
As a result, some state and local emergency managers say, it's become more difficult to get the equipment and funds they need to most effectively deal with disasters.
In Louisiana, requests for flood mitigation funds were rejected by FEMA this summer.(See sidebar.) In North Carolina, a state also regularly threatened by hurricanes and floods, FEMA recently refused the state's request to buy backup generators for emergency support facilities.
And the budget cuts have halved the funding for a mitigation program that
saved an estimated $8.8 million in recovery costs in three eastern North Carolina communities alone after 1999's Hurricane Floyd.Consequently, the residents of these and other disaster-prone states will find the government less able to help them when help is needed most, and both states and the federal government will be forced to shoulder more recovery costs after disasters strike.
Disaster in the MakingAs FEMA Weathers a Storm of Bush Administration Policy and Budget Changes, Protection From Natural Hazards May be Trumped by "Homeland Security"
http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=9166------------
New Orleans district,
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Cut by Bush
In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding.
It would be the largest single-year funding loss ever for the New Orleans district, Corps officials said.
I've been here over 30 years and I've never seen this level of reduction, said Al Naomi, project manager for the New Orleans district. I think part of the problem is it's not so much the reduction, it's the drastic reduction in one fiscal year. It's the immediacy of the reduction that I think is the hardest thing to adapt to.
There is an economic ripple effect, too. The cuts mean 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.
New Orleans CityBusiness, Jun 6, 2005, by Deon Roberts
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4200/is_20050606/ai_n14657367-------------
2004 levee projects Underfunded in hardest hit areas of NO..."The water's rising pretty fast," eastern New Orleans resident Chris
Robinson told The Associated Press in a cell phone interview at the height of the storm. "I got a hammer and an ax and a crowbar, but I'm holding off on breaking through the roof until the last minute. Tell someone to come get me, please. I want to live."
I can only imagine the horror this must be like and when I read it could have been avoided but wasn't because of a "funding" issue when we are spending billions on a bullshit war, it sort of makes me angry. Here's the snippets...
"Especially hard hit was the Lower Ninth Ward, a poor neighborhood squeezed between a marsh on the north, the river on the south and a shipping canal on the west. In adjoining St. Bernard Parish, local officials estimated that 40,000 homes had flooded. In Jefferson Parish, another county contiguous to New Orleans, authorities had received calls from residents stranded on roofs. Blanco said her office had reports of 20 building collapses in New Orleans.
http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/nation/ny-usnola304403795aug30,0,117411.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-print--------
Bush budget not expected to diminish New Orleans district's $65Mhttp://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4200/is_20050207/ai_n10176537 New Orleans CityBusiness, Feb 7, 2005 by Deon Roberts
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has identified millions of dollars in flood and hurricane protection projects in the New Orleans district. Chances are, though, most projects will not be funded in the president's 2006 fiscal year budget to be released today.
In general, funding for construction has been on a downward trend for the past several years, said Marcia Demma, chief of the New Orleans Corps' programs management branch.
In 2001, the New Orleans district spent $147 million on construction
projects. When fiscal year 2005 wraps up Sept. 30, the Corps expects to have spent $82 million, a 44.2 percent reduction from 2001 expenditures.
Demma said NOC expects its construction budget to be slashed again this year, which means local construction companies won't receive work from the Corps and residents won't see any new hurricane protection projects.
http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/30/225058/062It 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. 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.
-- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish,
Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004.
http://www.unknowncountry.com/journal/ The Lesson of the Storms Tuesday August 30th, 2005
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