Feds are treating Louisiana like enemy
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Bob Marshall, Times-Picayune
http://www.nola.com/sports/t-p/index.ssf?/base/sports-20/1131262016233480.xml
After Hurricane Katrina whacked New Orleans it was fashionable for commentators to compare our losses to the devastation wrought by the 9/11 atrocity. Initially, I didn't like the analogy. Sept. 11 was an attack by a human enemy; Aug. 29 was a shot from nature. But lately I'm finding myself warming to that association, because I'm beginning to hear a haunting question made famous after 9/11: Why do they hate us?
This time it isn't directed at residents of another land. It's aimed at Congress and the White House.
How else should a coastal Louisiana resident feel after last week's news that President Bush has asked Congress to spend $250 million on the state's desperately needed coastal restoration projects. Sounds like a big check, unless you know we need $14 billion to do the job. Bush knows. And unless he was sleeping on all those tours of the disaster zone, he also knows what's happened to our coastal wetlands and why they're important to protecting this city and region from future storms.
No one would ever accuse this president of being an environmentalist, but he's certainly made it clear he cares about security. So maybe he'll review testimony given the Senate Homeland Security Committee last Wednesday in a hearing concerning the lack of security provided by the city's hurricane protection system. If he does, he'll notice Ivor van Heerden, director of the LSU Hurricane Center, giving this answer to a question about the role wetlands play in storm protection:
"It we had the wetlands today we had 100 years ago, the surge would have been dramatically less."
Van Heerden goes on to explain that the marsh and swamps that once blanketed our coast provided enough friction to seriously -- and rapidly -- dampen the power of a hurricane's two main threats: tidal surge and wind. Van Heerden used Hurricane Andrew -- a Category 3 storm as it came ashore at the mouth of the Atchafalaya Basin -- as a prime example.
"Andrew made landfall in Louisiana in 1992, and its path came up the central part of the coast where there are still extremely healthy wetlands (marshes and swamps) and two emerging deltas. The surge at Morgan City -- just 20 miles inland -- was only seven feet. In terms of wind velocity, between the coast and Morgan City (Andrew) lost 50 percent of its energy. That's an example of how valuable wetlands are in reducing hurricane impacts from wind and surge."
That storm-killing potential has been lost for the portion of our coast surrounding New Orleans. Wetlands that once formed a 50-mile-wide security blanket between the city and the Gulf were sacrificed to a long series of decisions their supporters claimed were in the national interest: levees to protect cities and agriculture from rivers; dredging to prevent deltas from being built; 30,000 miles of canals dug for energy exploration and shipping.
And last week the U.S. Geological Survey announced Katrina took another 100 square miles of our coastal wetlands.
None of this should have been news to those senators or to a president who claims to care about keeping Americans safe. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, under the ultimate command of the president, spent most of a decade helping Louisiana create a plan to restore those eroding wetlands. But when the commander in chief and the Congress were told it would cost $14 billion, Louisiana was told the nation couldn't afford the price.
That was before Katrina, at $200 billion (and counting), the costliest natural disaster in the nation's history. In the weeks after the full impacts were known, Louisiana, using corps data, asked Congress and the president to approve a Category 5 hurricane protection system that could cost roughly $31 billion -- $17 billion for levees and floodgates, $14 billion for the coastal restoration plan.
They were optimistic the plan finally would receive a positive hearing. After all, Katrina had provided the cost-benefit analysis.
"We told them for years what a bargain this would be," said Sidney Coffee, Gov. Kathleen Blanco's executive assistant for coastal activities. "Now I think they can see our plans were pretty darn cost-effective compared to what the costs are now."
So far they haven't. Congressmen have been critical, even insulting, about Louisiana's needs for protection and restoration. Last Wednesday, the president piled on.
The best summation may have come from King Milling, the banker who also chairs the governor's advisory commission on the coast, when he told The Associated Press:
"I think it is grossly inadequate and reflects a lack of appreciation of the issues that we are facing in this part of the country.
"Worst of all, if they do understand them (the facts), then it may be that they may have written us off."
Which brings me back to that 9/11 question.
. . . . . . .
Bob Marshall can be reached at rmarshall@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3539.
Hurricane Katrina: FEMA Officials Wouldn't Listen:
Who is to blame for the slow response to Hurricane Katrina? Watch Clip below:
HTTP://www.apfn.org/APFN/KATRINA.HTM
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Bob Marshall, Times-Picayune
http://www.nola.com/sports/t-p/index.ssf?/base/sports-20/1131262016233480.xml
After Hurricane Katrina whacked New Orleans it was fashionable for commentators to compare our losses to the devastation wrought by the 9/11 atrocity. Initially, I didn't like the analogy. Sept. 11 was an attack by a human enemy; Aug. 29 was a shot from nature. But lately I'm finding myself warming to that association, because I'm beginning to hear a haunting question made famous after 9/11: Why do they hate us?
This time it isn't directed at residents of another land. It's aimed at Congress and the White House.
How else should a coastal Louisiana resident feel after last week's news that President Bush has asked Congress to spend $250 million on the state's desperately needed coastal restoration projects. Sounds like a big check, unless you know we need $14 billion to do the job. Bush knows. And unless he was sleeping on all those tours of the disaster zone, he also knows what's happened to our coastal wetlands and why they're important to protecting this city and region from future storms.
No one would ever accuse this president of being an environmentalist, but he's certainly made it clear he cares about security. So maybe he'll review testimony given the Senate Homeland Security Committee last Wednesday in a hearing concerning the lack of security provided by the city's hurricane protection system. If he does, he'll notice Ivor van Heerden, director of the LSU Hurricane Center, giving this answer to a question about the role wetlands play in storm protection:
"It we had the wetlands today we had 100 years ago, the surge would have been dramatically less."
Van Heerden goes on to explain that the marsh and swamps that once blanketed our coast provided enough friction to seriously -- and rapidly -- dampen the power of a hurricane's two main threats: tidal surge and wind. Van Heerden used Hurricane Andrew -- a Category 3 storm as it came ashore at the mouth of the Atchafalaya Basin -- as a prime example.
"Andrew made landfall in Louisiana in 1992, and its path came up the central part of the coast where there are still extremely healthy wetlands (marshes and swamps) and two emerging deltas. The surge at Morgan City -- just 20 miles inland -- was only seven feet. In terms of wind velocity, between the coast and Morgan City (Andrew) lost 50 percent of its energy. That's an example of how valuable wetlands are in reducing hurricane impacts from wind and surge."
That storm-killing potential has been lost for the portion of our coast surrounding New Orleans. Wetlands that once formed a 50-mile-wide security blanket between the city and the Gulf were sacrificed to a long series of decisions their supporters claimed were in the national interest: levees to protect cities and agriculture from rivers; dredging to prevent deltas from being built; 30,000 miles of canals dug for energy exploration and shipping.
And last week the U.S. Geological Survey announced Katrina took another 100 square miles of our coastal wetlands.
None of this should have been news to those senators or to a president who claims to care about keeping Americans safe. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, under the ultimate command of the president, spent most of a decade helping Louisiana create a plan to restore those eroding wetlands. But when the commander in chief and the Congress were told it would cost $14 billion, Louisiana was told the nation couldn't afford the price.
That was before Katrina, at $200 billion (and counting), the costliest natural disaster in the nation's history. In the weeks after the full impacts were known, Louisiana, using corps data, asked Congress and the president to approve a Category 5 hurricane protection system that could cost roughly $31 billion -- $17 billion for levees and floodgates, $14 billion for the coastal restoration plan.
They were optimistic the plan finally would receive a positive hearing. After all, Katrina had provided the cost-benefit analysis.
"We told them for years what a bargain this would be," said Sidney Coffee, Gov. Kathleen Blanco's executive assistant for coastal activities. "Now I think they can see our plans were pretty darn cost-effective compared to what the costs are now."
So far they haven't. Congressmen have been critical, even insulting, about Louisiana's needs for protection and restoration. Last Wednesday, the president piled on.
The best summation may have come from King Milling, the banker who also chairs the governor's advisory commission on the coast, when he told The Associated Press:
"I think it is grossly inadequate and reflects a lack of appreciation of the issues that we are facing in this part of the country.
"Worst of all, if they do understand them (the facts), then it may be that they may have written us off."
Which brings me back to that 9/11 question.
. . . . . . .
Bob Marshall can be reached at rmarshall@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3539.
Hurricane Katrina: FEMA Officials Wouldn't Listen:
Who is to blame for the slow response to Hurricane Katrina? Watch Clip below:
HTTP://www.apfn.org/APFN/KATRINA.HTM
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