Natural Stupidity and Natural Disasters

This morning, our president, on national televion reassuring the nation about the drowning of New Orleans, said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." This is mind-boggling incompetence, ignorance, and ineptitude. I was talking to people last week about what would happen if the levees break, and I'm not a civil engineer, a disaster planner, or more than an occasional visitor to N'awlins. Wasn't Bush briefed before meeting the press? Wasn't Bush briefed as Katrina bore down on the Gulf Coast?

An article on the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness website reports:

Last year, "in an eight-day tabletop exercise, more than 250 emergency preparedness officials from more than 50 federal, state and local agencies and volunteer organizations began using that catastrophic scenario -- dubbed Hurricane Pam -- to develop a recovery plan for the 13 parishes in the New Orleans area."

The planning scenario had a Category 3 storm flooding New Orleans by flowing over the levees and through gaps. They predicted a Category 3 hurricane could

"leave 300,000 people trapped in New Orleans, many of whom would not have private transportation for evacuation, send evacuees to 1,000 shelters, which would likely remain open for 100 days; [and] require the transfer of patients from hospitals in harm’s way to hospitals in other parts of the state;"

Last week, the Category 5 Katrina was headed straight towards New Orleans, before it lessened slightly to a Category 4 and swerved a bit to the east. Katrina was obviously worse than the doomsday scenario they planned for. Why was FEMA not ready even for Pam? First class ideological stupidity combined with cronyism.

Here's Bush in context, from a Washington Post story, since the official transcript is not posted by Good Morning America. The full context makes his quote even worse:

Sawyer: "Mr. President, this morning, as we speak . . . there are people with signs saying 'Help, come get me'. People still in the attic, waving. Nurses are phoning in saying the situation in hospitals is getting ever more dire and the nurses are getting sick because of no clean water. Some of the things they asked our correspondents to ask you is: They expected -- they say to us -- that the day after this hurricane that there would be a massive and visible armada of federal support. There would be boats coming in. There would be food. There would be water. It would be there within hours. They wondered: What's taking so long?"

Bush: "Well, there's a lot of food on its way. A lot of water on the way. And there's a lot of boats and choppers headed that way. Boats and choppers headed that way. It just takes a while to float 'em! ..."

Sawyer: "But given the fact that everyone anticipated a hurricane five, a possible hurricane five hitting shore, are you satisfied with the pace at which this is arriving? And which it was planned to arrive?"

Bush: "Well, I fully understand people wanting things to have happened yesterday. I mean, I understand the anxiety of people on the ground. I can imagine -- I just can't imagine what it is like to be waving a sign saying 'come and get me now'. So there is frustration. But I want people to know there is a lot of help coming.

I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached. And as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded. And now we are having to deal with it and will."