Subj : Re: Um...no comment?
To   : alt.tv.farscape
From : John Iwaniszek
Date : Fri Sep 02 2005 00:58:05

From Newsgroup: alt.tv.farscape

"RR" <lynchnutNOSPAM@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:VxMRe.221866$gL1.24855@tornado.texas.rr.com: 

> In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of
> the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush
> administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to
> pay for the Iraq war. 
> 
> A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New
> Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush
> administration ordered that the research not be undertaken.
> 
> After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the
> Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of
> Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In
> early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report
> stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three
> most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New
> York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control
> project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In
> 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans
> district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the
> waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts
> at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of
> 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps
> to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for
> fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late.
> 
> The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which before the hurricane published a
> series on the federal funding problem, and whose presses are now
> underwater, reported online: "No one can say they didn't see it coming
> ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions
> are being asked about the lack of preparation."
> 
> By Sidney Blumenthal
> Salon.com Wednesday 31 August 2005
> 



Here's a timeline for the gutting of FEMA, starting, you guessed it, in 
2001.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_09/007023.php

.