From the BBC. I’ve stayed away from any of this until this just blew my mind:
“I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did appreciate a serious storm but these levees got breached and as a result much of New Orleans is flooded and now we’re having to deal with it and will,” he said.
From the Boston Globe’s August 29th Edition (written before the hurricane hit)
For years, forecasters have warned of the nightmare scenario a big storm could bring to New Orleans, a bowl-shaped city as much as 10 feet below sea level in spots and dependent on a network of levees, canals and pumps to keep dry. It’s built between the half-mile-wide Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, half the size of the state of Rhode Island.
Estimates have been made of tens of thousands of deaths from flooding that could turn New Orleans into a 30-foot-deep toxic lake filled with chemicals and petroleum from refineries, and waste from ruined septic systems.
Actually everyone was predicting this as a very real possibility and problem and doing it for years. With Katrina it was specifically feared. In fact, the expectation was that a direct hit would lead to far faster flooding and probably more levee breaches than we’ve seen including the Mississippi River levees.
This is a ‘better’ situation than was predicted.
I’m so absolutely baffled by this bullshit I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
That’s either a bone or empathetic statement. It’s a signal to state and local leaders that if you don’t point fingers, we won’t and that now isn’t the time. Or, just an off the cuff comment to relieve the guilt of federal, state, and local officials who all knew this was a possibility — dating back 40 years.
I know he was briefed on the levee situation before, during and after the storm. He also learned from is dad’s mistake after Andrew.
That “we’re” isn’t a royal we and that first sentence was an opinion, “I think,” not a presidential statement, “This is what happened.”
There is plenty to bash any President for, W included, but I’m not sure this is one of those times…Just a thought.