More Dirt in New Orleans

In the linked article, several previously-unpublished factors are revealed about the Katrina debacle in the Big Easy. Here are some choice tidbits:

1) Quite a bit of flooding was not due to the levees breaking.

In two cases, storm-driven water, far higher than the levees were designed to hold back (up to 15 feet of tidal surge), overwhelmed them and went pouring down on parts of the city. According to the Journal, the waves inundated the mostly working-class eastern districts, home to 160,000 people. In some places, the water rose as fast as a foot per minute, survivors told the Journal. These levees did not break.

2) At least one of the levees broke for reasons unrelated to structural integrity.

Another huge wave came across Lake Pontchartrain in the north. It sent a steel barge ramming through the Industrial Canal, a major shipping artery that cuts north to south through the city, possibly creating a breach that grew to 500 feet, letting water pour into nearby neighborhoods of the city's Ninth Ward. The barge's remains were found lying on the bottom of the gap. An early eyewitness reported seeing the barge smash through the levee. His report was never followed up by the media.

3) This one is just priceless. I'm sure this won't halt the forthcoming flood of accusations of, and lawsuits over, discrimination.

Vital repairs for which a whopping $600 million had been appropriated by the federal government were stopped after residents of the Ninth Ward complained about the noise created by the repair project and sued to halt it.

4) And here is probably the most damning exerpts:

Among the city's self-proclaimed responsibilities was the job of the mayor to order an evacuation 48 hours before the hurricane came ashore, not 24, hours, as Mayor Nagin did; the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority was meant to
"position supervisors and dispatch evacuation buses" to evacuate at least some of the "100,000 citizens of New Orleans [who] do not have means of personal transportation," but it did not, and the flood claimed the buses.
Moreover, the city was responsible for establishing shelters co-ordinated with "food and supply distribution sites" which the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army and others were to provision, but the city did not.
Both agencies provided the supplies but as Fox cable News correspondent Major Garret revealed, they were barred by local authorities from delivering them to those stranded in the city at places such as the Superdome who most needed them in the immediate aftermath of the storm.

5) Let's not forget all the accusations being leveled at the federal government.

Part of its [New Orleans'] "Future Plans" section, for example, concerns the levees. It also includes discussion of "the preparation of a post-disaster plan that will identify programs and actions that will reduce of eliminate the exposure of human life and property to natural hazards."
In 9,000 words, there are only four references to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Nowhere, not even in a section on catastrophic events, do the words "Department of Homeland Security" appear.

6) Finally, some questions are posed.

The city declared that its hurricane preparedness procedures were "designed to deal with the anticipation of a direct hit from a major hurricane." Such a hurricane hit, and New Orleans was not prepared. The first questions that legislators in Washington and in Baton Rouge should be asking are simple: Why didn't the buses run? Why were people left to starve? Where did all those dollars go?

Cynic that I am, I think I can answer the last question: To line the pockets and pad the voter rolls of local elected officials and state Democrats. It takes a lot of money to raise the dead, after all.