Subj : Re: Um...no comment?
To   : alt.tv.farscape
From : RR
Date : Fri Sep 02 2005 01:02:52

From Newsgroup: alt.tv.farscape

John Iwaniszek wrote:

>> 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

Thank you.

-- 
RR

"It's been my experience that every
  time I think I know 'where it's at,'
      it's really somewhere else."
      - William Holden - S.O.B.

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