Why does Chertoff keep separating the disaster into two parts?

[European Socialist]

Who's buying that excuse? The same hurricane caused the wind damage and the flood.

[valerief]

1. Let's see, if hurricanes don't break levees/floodgates, then

What does? Okay tsunamis do, but the gulf is hurricane territory.

His splitting it up into 2 parts infuriated me, too. It makes no sense whatsoever.

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. Rovian talking point. Lie repeatedly till it sticks -then it's the truth.

[FrenchieCat]

3. I think that's right....

There was a natural disaster....a Hurricane named Katrina which technically missed New Orleans

and THEN

the levees broke...the ones that were supposed to have gotten shored up via FEMA Funds....

and then the man made disaster began!

So yeah....there were two parts. The first couldn't be controlled....but unfortunately for Chertoff, the second one didn't have to be the disaster that we are now witnessing!

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

4. And, it does nothing to mitigate the disaster of their disaster response

To Alabama and Mississippi. By the the way, citizens of Mississippi -do you agree with your governor Haley Barbour's assessment that the Federal response has been fabulous and that you've gotten everything you needed and expected in the wake of a disaster? Co's that's what he's telling the rest of us. Is he a responsible governor speaking or your behalf or a political shill doing PR for Bush? I am asking that question absolutely seriously.

[phiddle]

5. Everything has 2 sides;

In this case, hurricane and himicane. I wonder how much the public is paying Mr. Jerkoff to be this deceiptful and incompetent?

[Pepperbelly]

6. Because that way he thinks it doesn't look as bad.

You see, NO HANDLED the hurricane but then there was that unfortunate levee breach and who could have predicted that?

Makes you sick, doesn't it.

Although I despise agreeing with anything that Tony Jabba-the-Hut Blankley, on the John Mac group this week, he said something that pretty well explained the inaction to me. It doesn't excuse it but I see how it happened. Everybody's holding their breath as Kat bears down on NO and then, MIRACLE, it jigs a bit and then heads north, merely clipping NO rather than hitting dead on or even worse, just to the west. Deep sigh of relief.

But then the levee broke. Dumbfounded, these assholes were caught flat-footed because they let down their guard when Kat bore north rather than northwest. The whole crew should be fired, starting with Nero.

[TayTay]

7. To deflect blame from themselves for their incompetence

If they can make the public believe that the hurricane was one thing and the levee collapsing another, then they get themselves off the hook for their slow and deadly response to this storm.

This allows them to say that they were prepared for one emergency, but, damn another one hit and nobody could have forseen that and we had to regroup and we had to get Brownie head out of his butt and so forth. This is the BIG LIE.

The levee problems were forseen as part of the hurricane damage. They were not a surprise. These people are lying in order to save their lousy butts from criticism, and I hope, criminal prosecution.

[rocktivity]

8. The levees broke because they were not category 4 material

And they weren't category 4 material because Bush pulled the funding on their renovation!

:mad:
rocknation

[fob]

9. Actually breaking up into two parts should hurt him more. Afterall

the hurricane was certainly NOT preventable, but the levee breaking, there are only 2 or maybe 3 dots from the failure of them to the failure in the White House.

95 hurricane kills 6
Clinton sets up specific organization to strengthen levees
2000 bush* steals first "election"
2004 bush* steals second "election"


Dot 1 - somewhere along there bush* scuttles Clinton's Org that had gotten levees to 80% complete
Dot 2 - bush* defunds ACoE budget to spend it killing Iraqis
Dot 3 - Hurricane Katrina is PREdicted to hit NO at Cat 4 or 5, after passing, the levees that were a few dollars shy of completion fail.


bush* takes $70 million from New Orleans to spend in Iraq and 4 days AFTER the levees thee $70 mil was meant for fail, he* signs a bill to spend $10.5 BILLION there.

[Born_A_Truman]

10. He thinks it buys them a day...

Hurricane=Monday (NO Dodged A Bullet)
Levees break=Tuesday (or Monday night)

It doesn't but that's my opinion on why he is saying it.

[darkstar]

11. Angers the hell out of me too

(Posted this Sat in GD)

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--perhaps THE--major threat all along. And on top of that, you monans, its a STORM, i.e. those things that, large or small, bring both WIND and RAIN.

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.