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ZT-In-Exile |
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Thursday, March 2, 2006 at 6:25 AM WASHINGTON - On the eve of Hurricane Katrina's fateful landfall, President Bush was confident. His homeland security chief appeared relaxed. And warnings of the coming destruction breached or overrun levees, deaths at the New Orleans Superdome and overwhelming needs for post-storm rescues were delivered in dramatic terms to all involved. All of it was captured The Associated Press obtained the confidential government video and made it public Wednesday, offering Americans their own inside glimpse into the government's fateful final Katrina preparations after months of fingerpointing and political recriminations. "My gut tells me ... this is a bad one and a big one," then-federal disaster chief Michael Brown told the final government-wide briefing the day before Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29. The president didn't ask a single question during the briefing but assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared." The footage along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by AP show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster. A top hurricane expert voiced "grave concerns" about the levees and Brown, then the Federal Emergency Management Agency chief, told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren't enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome. "I'm concerned about ... their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe," Brown told his bosses the afternoon before Katrina made landfall. The White House and Homeland Security Department urged the public Wednesday not to read too much into the footage. "I hope people don't draw conclusions from the president getting a single briefing," Bush spokesman Trent Duffy said, citing a variety of orders and disaster declarations Bush signed before the storm made landfall. "He received multiple briefings from multiple officials, and he was completely engaged at all times." Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said his department would not release the full set of videotaped briefings, saying most transcripts though not the videotapes from the sessions were provided to congressional investigators months ago. "There's nothing new or insightful on these tapes," Knocke said. "We actively participated in the lessons-learned review and we continue to participate in the Senate's review and are working with them on their recommendation." New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, a critic of the administration's Katrina response, had a different take after watching the footage from an AP reporter's camera. "I have kind a sinking feeling in my gut right now," Nagin said. "I was listening to what people were saying they didn't know, so therefore it was an issue of a learning curve. You know, from this tape it looks like everybody was fully aware." ...
—ZT-In-Exile |
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AbsolutCarib |
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Thursday, March 2, 2006 at 7:00 AM You're right man. It was Bushs' fault. He knew about it 16 hours prior to the hurricane hitting land. He could stopped it!! —AbsolutCarib |
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RustyThePelican |
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Thursday, March 2, 2006 at 8:00 AM For those who want to see the transcripts themselves of the video conferences, the New York Times has them for the August 28th and August 29th briefings. The transcript for the 29th makes one garbled mention of the levees around New Orleans (page 6). After making the point that the storm surge would cause the greatest devastation in the Gulfport area of Mississippi, going as high as 21 feet, Max Mayfield then turns to New Orleans: MAX MAYFIELD: "... The rest of the track we have 10 to 15 feet, in a few areas up to 16 feet. At least glimpsed it out, and Louisiana can talk a little bit more about this than I can, but it looks like the Federal levies [sic] around the City of New Orleans will not have been (incomprehensible) any breaches to." That certainly doesn't sound like a warning -- and this was on the day the levees broke. That transcript clearly shows that the conference considered the storm surge and precipitation runoff to be the major threats of flooding in New Orleans. The possibility of breaches, even on the 29th, had been discounted. The transcript from the August 28th meeting talked more about levees, but in the same vein, and this time no one mentions the word "breach". Starting on page 5, Max Mayfield again talks about the dangers of Lake Pontchartrain, but only in the context of the winds created a surge that could overtop the levees: "One of the valleys here in Lake Pontchartrain, we've got on our forecast track, if it maintains its intensity: about 12 1/2 feet of storm surge in the lake. The big question is going to be: will that top some of the levies? And the currrent track and the forecast we have now suggests there will be minimal flooding in the city of New Orleans itself, but we're -- we've always said that the storm surge model is only accurate within 20 percent. "If that track were to deviate just a little bit to the west, it would -- it makes all the difference in the world. I do expect that there will be some of the levies over top even out here in the western portions where the airport is. We've got valleys that can't overtop some of the levies. "The problem we're going to have here -- remember, the winds go counterclockwise around the center of the hurricane. So if the really strong winds clip Lake Pontchartrain, that's going to pile some of that water from Lake Pontchartrain over on the south side of the lake. I don't think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levies will be topped or not, but that's obviously a very, very grave concern." Again, the entire briefing that related to levees only focused on the effects of the wind on Lake Pontchartrain and its effect in pushing water over the top of the levees. Mayfield never even addressed the possibility of breaches in the levee walls. And in fact, the storm track shifted eastward in the final hours before Katrina hit, which eliminated much of the predicate for even the worries Mayfield expresses in this transcript. The media got it wrong yet again on Katrina. The notion that the experts warned of levee breaches is nothing more than a hack job initiated by the AP and continued by the rest of the Exempt Media even after the source material has proven it false. http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/006443.php
—RustyThePelican |
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Darwin'sBlade |
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Thursday, March 2, 2006 at 8:23 PM Yes it's true. It was Bush who made the blacks too dumb to leave loot, rape, murder and threaten EMT's during this disaster. —Darwin'sBlade |
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Misdirectomy |
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Thursday, March 2, 2006 at 10:28 PM Darwinsblade presents a fascinating and completely non-rascist point. —Misdirectomy |
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ZT-In-Exile |
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Friday, March 3, 2006 at 12:16 AM Yes it's true. It was Bush who made the blacks too dumb to leave loot, rape, murder and threaten EMT's during this disaster. Darwin'sBlade Where's Lefty and his moral outrage over this? Anyway, DB, I have to believe you caught your girlfriend in bed with a black man, and thats where all of this anger is coming from. Speaking of Asians...  —ZT-In-Exile |
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Colin |
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Friday, March 3, 2006 at 12:57 AM
Edited Friday, March 3, 2006 at 12:58 AM Rape allegations after Katrina were later proved to be false. Sorry, D'sB. Linky ANARCHY DIDN'T TAKE OVER MYTH: "They have people ... been in that frickin' Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people."--New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Sept. 6, 2005 REALITY: Both public officials and the press passed along lurid tales of post-Katrina mayhem: shootouts in the Superdome, bodies stacked in a convention center freezer, snipers firing on rescue helicopters. And those accounts appear to have affected rescue efforts as first responders shifted resources from saving lives to protecting rescuers. In reality, although looting and other property crimes were widespread after the flooding on Monday, Aug. 29, almost none of the stories about violent crime turned out to be true. Col. Thomas Beron, the National Guard commander of Task Force Orleans, arrived at the Superdome on Aug. 29 and took command of 400 soldiers. He told PM that when the Dome's main power failed around 5 am, "it became a hot, humid, miserable place. There was some pushing, people were irritable. There was one attempted rape that the New Orleans police stopped." The only confirmed account of a weapon discharge occurred when Louisiana Guardsman Chris Watt was jumped by an assailant and, during the chaotic arrest, accidently shot himself in the leg with his own M-16. When the Superdome was finally cleared, six bodies were found--not the 200 speculated. Four people had died of natural causes; one was ruled a suicide, and another a drug overdose. Of the four bodies recovered at the convention center, three had died of natural causes; the fourth had sustained stab wounds. Anarchy in the streets? "The vast majority of people [looting] were taking food and water to live," says Capt. Marlon Defillo, the New Orleans Police Department's commander of public affairs. "There were no killings, not one murder." As for sniper fire: No bullet holes were found in the fuselage of any rescue helicopter. But you go on with your delusional world. It's much safer in there. —Colin |
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greymatters |
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Friday, March 3, 2006 at 12:58 AM
Edited Friday, March 3, 2006 at 1:00 AM What about the baby rape!? Don't take the baby rape away from me. Oprah told me about the baby rape, Oprah wouldn't lie to me! Speak of baby rape.... and asians.... 
—greymatters |
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ZT-In-Exile |
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Friday, March 3, 2006 at 8:08 AM Rape is cool and all, but the basic point is that Bush lied -- again. Three days after Hurricane Katrina wiped out most of New Orleans, President Bush appeared on television and said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." His staff has spent the past six months trying to take back, modify or explain away those 10 words. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/02/AR2006030202130.html The storys all over the place.
Katrina video is fueling criticism of Bush
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/03/03/katrina_video_is_fueling_criticism_of_bush/
New Katrina video details misinformation
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-03-02-katrina-video_x.htm
Speaking of which, the Republicans can't even make a fucking budget.If the United States kept its books like General Motors and nearly every other business in the country, the 2005 budget deficit would be $760 billion and rising, not $319 billion and falling, as is commonly reported. A group of fiscally conservative Democrats who call themselves the Blue Dog Coalition pointed out this more dire number Thursday and accused the Bush administration of playing hide the ball with the report that includes the higher figure. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-03-02-deficit-budget_x.htm
Congress Hears Dire News on National Debt
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-briefs3.3mar03,1,7662216.story?coll=la-headlines-nation Look everybody, you can try and spin all of the problem's Bush has caused however you'd like. The fact of the matter fucking up like a car crash. —ZT-In-Exile |
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ItHadToBeJew |
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Friday, March 3, 2006 at 11:48 AM Blue Dog Coalition is a really sucky name. What about "Liberal Turbo Max"? —ItHadToBeJew |
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greymatters |
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Friday, March 3, 2006 at 5:46 PM It turns out Brownie was doing a good job but because he was the Commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association before he became the head of FEMA, no one was paying attention to what he had to say. I thought Brownie came off very well in those tapes. —greymatters |
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TortillaFactory |
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Friday, March 3, 2006 at 6:56 PM I'm way too busy having a life to watch this video, but I've been made to understand nobody told Bush the levees were going to break. Could be wrong. Just throwin' it out there. Also, what was he supposed to do about it? Command the sea to be still? —TortillaFactory |
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Dark Laith |
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Friday, March 3, 2006 at 6:58 PM
Edited Friday, March 3, 2006 at 6:58 PM I would pay so much money to see a video of Bush commanding the sea to be still. That would be hilarious. —Dark Laith |
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ItHadToBeJew |
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Friday, March 3, 2006 at 7:03 PM On the ACS, when Adam won't tear into Bush and defends him a bit, you can practically hear Damashek pouting in the background. —ItHadToBeJew |
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Colin |
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Friday, March 3, 2006 at 10:39 PM That's right TF. Bush was told the levess might be "topped". Later, Bush said he didn't think that anyone thought the levees would be "breached". Miles apart. GALAXIES! —Colin |
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