White House Knew of Levee's Failure on Night of Storm

Avatar4321 said:
Second, I see absolutely no reason that Cheney accidently shooting his friend is going to hurt Republicans politically. We aren't having an election for 8 months. There is going to be tons of other news far more important political discussion going on. This will hardly be a memory.


Imagine a congressional debate several months from now.

Dem: "And furthermore I believe I am a better personal to represent this district in Washington, after all remember that Chenney accidently shot his friend."

Rep: :rolleyes:
 
White House Knew of Levee's Failure on Night of Storm

By the way, how could the White house know of Leeve's "failures" when they didn't even break during the storm itself?
 
Wasn't Katrina a category 5 hurricane? Weren't the levees built to withstand a category 3? Who didn't know there was a good chance for disaster?
Where not most of the people injured or dead because they were not evacuated?
Who had authority over these buses?

busses_hurricane_katrina_fl.jpg


I bet 1300 people would have fit in those vehicles.
 
MtnBiker said:
Wasn't Katrina a category 5 hurricane? Weren't the levees built to withstand a category 3? Who didn't know there was a good chance for disaster?
Where not most of the people injured or dead because they were not evacuated?
Who had authority over these buses?

busses_hurricane_katrina_fl.jpg


I bet 1300 people would have fit in those vehicles.

Actually, by the time it hit NO, it was a cat 3. However, the particular way it came at NO created a much larger storm surge than is typical for a storm of its size. That's why the levees broke.
 
The thing that really surprises me with this whole issue, is WHY aren`t those same people, that seem so set on placing blame on the Federal level, just as active in removing both the Gov. of Louisiana, and the mayor of New Orleans?

This whole deal is at THEIR feet, and what we are witnessing here is DEFELECTION in its most basic form.

I for one have grown tired of hearing how the administration is somehow at fault in this NATURAL DIASTER.

We have tornadoes by the dozens plow through Arkansas on a yearly basis, I`ve never heard ONE person try to blame the Federal Government for not warning them. The people in NO did have warning`s a plenty, they just choose NOT to leave, pretty stupid if you ask me.

New Orleans has been under threat of such a disaster for decades, their inaction, and blanten disregard of impending disaster is theirs to bear alone.

Knock it off with this deflection routine. :bs1:
 
HardworkingRep9 said:
Does anybody here get the feeling that Mr. Brown was the "fall guy" for Mr. Chartoff and President Bush? Over 1300 Americans died as a result of our government's inaction, and they get away with it by saying " We need to do a better job"? Is it not fair to say that since President Clinton was almost thrown out of office for lying about a sexual tryst, President Bush should be thrown out for lying about what he knew and when about Hurricane Katrina which killed so many and ruined many more? Together with the recent Quail incident by Vice President Cheney, I think we Republicans are in for a rough ride at the voting stations. Please tell me I am wrong!

Well even if he did know, he was waiting for the local governments of each state to ask for what they needed, so I fail to see the point to all of this other than Democrats looking under every rock for a way to impeach Bush. But get used to it because it's not going to stop till he is out of office and even then his detractors will rewrite history as they did for Reagan in an attempt to take way any good legacy he may have. Cheerup, the local government of San Francisco has written a decree asking for Bush's impeachment, and with that the Republicans will see a lot of money coming in ;)

BTW welcome to the board :)
 
I am from Louisiana originally and can tell you that it is common knowledge that New Orleans has been vulnerable to flooding forever. Go to Jackson Square and watch the ships on the Mississippi cruising by. You don't just see the masts above the levee, you see 3 quarters of the ship. The Corp of Engineers have been fighting to keep the Mississippi River out of downtown NO for years, everyone knows it's only a matter of time before the River flushes it all into the Gulf.

As I watched Katrina come into the N.O. area it looked like this was the perfect storm that had been talked about for decades. It wasn't, it veered to the east at the last second and we all rejoiced at how lucky New Orleans was. It wasn't till later when the levee gave way that the real destruction happened and it came from the least likely place, Lake Pontchatrane. Most believed the Mississippi levees would be the ones to break.

Louisiana is incredibly backwards with that bullshit Napoleonic law and a real pain in the ass to deal with on a Federal level. The Governor was briefed by President Bush himself,early, so was the chocolate Mayor. Neither utilized the wide variety of transportation methods that were available. trains, Ships, buses, government vehicles, military aircraft(have to ask for help), they didn't use these. It is squarely on the shoulders of the Governor and the Mayor. Don't you remember Nagin blaming Blanco for not letting the Red Cross in to help because she didn't want the people to stay?

You can't possibly be getting on the Cheney hunting accident crap, have you ever seen the spray pattern of bird shot? Hunting Quail in a group is an accident waiting to happen. Do you really believe a beer at lunch constitutes "drinking". I know of some prime waterfront property in New Orleans for you to buy dimwit.
 
lol, he's not coming back. He made his nonsensical post and has retreated to DU with his tales of adventure into the land of the evil conservatives.

Funny thing is, you can tell he was DU because he thought he had to pretend he was a republican to gain access to the boards and make a post.
 
trobinett said:
The thing that really surprises me with this whole issue, is WHY aren`t those same people, that seem so set on placing blame on the Federal level, just as active in removing both the Gov. of Louisiana, and the mayor of New Orleans?
The federal government has more teats to suck. They want more entitlements.
 
yet the MSM and idiots make it viable. Links at site:

http://www.slate.com/id/2136998/

kf's Loony Oscar Longshot
Plus--New York Times in ruins!
By Mickey Kaus
Updated Thursday, March 2, 2006, at 8:30 PM ET

Topping Out: A good deal of the gleeful Froomkinian outrage in the press and Democratic party over that pre-Katrina video seems to be based on what is at best is a semantic misunderstanding. After Katrina, Bush said "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." In the video, Patterico points out, Bush is warned by hurricane expert Max Mayfield that there's a chance the "levees will be topped." Topping is different than breaching, no? When a levee's "topped," or "overtopped," some water sloshes over it and into the city. Then the storm passes and that's it. When a levee's "breached," there's a hole in the levee and Lake Pontchartrain pours in the gap and keeps pouring in until the city is completely flooded. What Bush said after the storm seems quite consistent with what Mayfield told him before the storm--i.e., he thought the levees might be topped by the storm surge but not that they'd be breached, with the catastrophe that resulted. ... P.S.: Is the despised, self-parodying MSM intentionally glossing over this important difference in order to exaggerate the anti-Bush shock value of the video? I don't know--but I do know that the actual "topped" quote was hard to find in print, lending some of the stories an eerie, undocumented quality. Do reporters not print the quote because then they couldn't justify the charge that Bush lied about the "breach"? You make the call. I'm too paranoid at this point. ... P.P.S.: Shouldn't Bush's press operation, rather than Powerline and Patterico, be forcefully pointing all this out? ... 5:14 P.M. link
 
NOT.

http://www.forbes.com/technology/ebusiness/feeds/ap/2006/03/02/ap2567320.html
Associated Press
Update 22: In New Video, Blanco Says Levees Are Safe
BY LARA JAKES JORDAN and MARGARET EBRAHIM , 03.02.2006, 09:00 PM


In the hectic, confused hours after Hurricane Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast, Louisiana's governor hesitantly but mistakenly assured the Bush administration that New Orleans' protective levees were intact, according to new video obtained by The Associated Press showing briefings that day with federal officials.

"We keep getting reports in some places that maybe water is coming over the levees," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said shortly after noon on Aug. 29, according to the video. "We heard a report unconfirmed, I think, we have not breached the levee. I think we have not breached the levee at this time."

In fact, the National Weather Service received a report of a levee breach and issued a flash-flood warning as early as 9:12 a.m. that day, according to the White House's formal recounting of events the day Katrina struck.


Critics have maintained the Homeland Security Department responded too slowly to the breaches, delaying repair efforts and allowing flooding to worsen. Formal reports of New Orleans' levee breaches reached the White House by 6 p.m., and the administration confirmed the damage by the next morning, according to the White House's recount.

In the video of the conference call, Blanco appears uncertain about the reliability of her information and cautioned that the situation "could change."

Blanco said floodwaters were rising in parts of the city "where we have waters that are 8 to 10 feet deep, and we have people swimming in there."

"That's got a considerable amount of water itself," the governor said. "That's about all I know right now on the specifics that you haven't heard."

The AP separately obtained video earlier from other briefings before the hurricane made landfall. That video showed U.S. officials warning that Katrina might breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers.

Before the release of the latest video, lawmakers from both parties said the pre-Katrina briefing for President Bush and top administration officials raised new questions about government response to the storm that flooded New Orleans and killed more than 1,300 people.

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said the earlier video "makes it perfectly clear once again that this disaster was not out of the blue or unforeseeable. It was not only predictable, it was actually predicted. That's what made the failures in response - at the local, state and federal level - all the more outrageous."

The earlier video "confirms what we have suspected all along," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada, charging that Bush administration officials have "systematically misled the American people."

Reid and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California renewed their calls for an independent commission to investigate the federal response to the hurricane.

The House and Senate have conducted separate investigations of the federal response, and the White House did its own investigation. House Democrats for the most part refused to participate in the House probe, insisting since last fall that an independent commission should be created to handle the probe.

"I try not to get angry, but I am plenty frustrated that we're not getting answers" from the administration, said Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-La., one of the few Democrats who participated in the House investigation. "If nobody was hiding anything, why did the committee not get the documents it requested? We need to use subpoenas if necessary to get those documents."

A spokesman for Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., who headed the House investigation, said there was nothing new in the videotapes and accompanying transcripts made public Wednesday.

"Top federal, state and local officials failed to process and act on information at their disposal," said David Marin, the spokesman. "We already knew that."

But Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, disagreed.

"If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must be worth a million," he said. "Six months after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the homes and livelihoods of millions along the Gulf Coast, the truth about what the president knew and when he knew it has come to light."

The earlier videotape captured a briefing, one day before Katrina stuck on Aug. 29, involving then-Federal Emergency Management Agency head Michael Brown, Bush, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and other officials.

Five days after the briefing, with most of New Orleans underwater, Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

Presidential spokesman Trent Duffy said Wednesday that Bush "received multiple briefings from multiple officials, and he was "completely engaged at all times."

The White House did not immediately respond Thursday to the renewed Democratic calls for an independent investigation.
 
The White House did not immediately respond Thursday to the renewed Democratic calls for an independent investigation.

Perfect, just what we need, ANOTHER GD panel, Senate hearings out the yazoo, independent investigators.

Should be able to pull this off for what, under twenty million dollars or so?

How much more of this BS can we allow the legislative branch of the government get away with, before we start holding THEM accountable for their Tom foolery?

:bsflag:
 
I don't see why the media is making such an issue out of this video about Bush being warned. He was told it COULD happen,then a few days later said no one thought it would. Lots of people knew 9-11 could happen,but again who thought it would?

It is blatantly obvious that the media along with their good friends the Democrats are ignoring too many facts. Many people could have gotten out of NO. Why didn't they Because that joke of a mayor didn't even call a mandatory evacuation until it was too late.I believe because of that,some didn't take the storm as seriously as they should have. And how many times have we seen the pics of those buses? To top all that off,some people just didn't want to leave and whatever happened is a result of their decision not to.

If anything,the video proves Bush WAS concerned about the hurricane and not ignoring it the way the press would have people believe.Mayor Nagin needs to quit running his mouth and try to run what's let of that city,until he is voted out that is. If I hear his criticism of the Feds one more time,I will scream!!!
 
MtnBiker said:
Wasn't Katrina a category 5 hurricane? Weren't the levees built to withstand a category 3? Who didn't know there was a good chance for disaster?
Where not most of the people injured or dead because they were not evacuated?
Who had authority over these buses?

busses_hurricane_katrina_fl.jpg


I bet 1300 people would have fit in those vehicles.

I would also bet that they could have made more than one trip in the three days after they had been asked to evacuate before the storm hit.
 

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