Aftermath of Katrina
Government Refusal to Take Social Responsibility is a Crime
For Your Information: Government Actions in the Hurricane Aftermath
Why the Levee Broke Venezuela Offers $1 million, Oil, Food and Equipment for U.S. Victims of Hurricane Katrina


Aftermath of Katrina

Government Refusal to Take Social Responsibility is a Crime

Voice of Revolution extends its condolences to all those contending with the massive devastation and needless deaths in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. We salute the heroic rescue efforts made by working people, firefighters, doctors, nurses, all those joining to lend a hand. We vigorously condemn the government for its refusal to provide all the resources, equipment and supplies needed to provide for everyone as quickly as possible. This is their duty and one they have abandoned. Once again President George W. Bush is AWOL.

While the hurricane itself is a natural phenomenon, the human catastrophe now unfolding in New Orleans and across Louisiana and Mississippi is man-made. The devastation shows with sobering and heart-rending clarity the results of a decaying system where government takes no social responsibility for the well being of the people. Government refusal to have needed supplies and equipment, like water, helicopters and buses on hand is directly responsible for the current catastrophe.

Governments at all levels are brutally attacking the very conception that government exists to provide for the people and replacing it with the same callousness and disregard President George W. Bush has shown the people in Louisiana and Mississippi. Death and destruction for the people, whether in Louisiana or Iraq, are of no consequence. The government exists to fund and defend its wars of aggression, its forces of repression, the private property of the monopolies. Massive cuts of vital necessities are imposed on the people. This too is brutally clear in New Orleans today, where funding cuts to the levees that protect the city from flooding are directly responsible for the flooding.

The situation unfolding is one that gives pause, as it appears the government has orchestrated the disorder, given every appearance that it is both incapable and unconcerned, and now brings the military in to “restore order.” Many are rightly concerned that this military presence will become permanent, as the difficulties facing the region are expected to last for months. Many are equally concerned that far from making an effort to bring calm to the situation, government delay and inaction is fomenting fear and strife. Toward what end? To justify a permanent role for the military? To justify use of force against the people? Is it an accident that one of the military commanders of the National Guard brought out that many of the guardsmen are just returning from overseas and know how to use lethal force?

The situation is a serious one. As the people take up social responsibility and go forward to lend a hand, let all be vigilant against government moves to use this catastrophe to increase the role of the military against the people.

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For Your Information

Government Actions in the Hurricane Aftermath

Hurricanes are a natural phenomenon. What happens to the population and environment in their wake, however, is directly tied to whether governments take up their social responsibility toward the population, both in preparation and in the aftermath of such storms. The utter devastation now sweeping through New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana and Mississippi is the result of government refusal to carry out preparations they knew were necessary and refusal to provide for the people in the immediate period before Hurricane Katrina hit and the four days since. Here are some of the relevant facts:

1) The government knew in advance that hurricane Katrina would be one of the worst ever. Yet it did not have fleets of helicopters, buses and supplies, including water, standing by for immediate dispatch once the hurricane subsided, in this case on Tuesday, August 30. Even now, days later, people are dying from the lack of clean water, and health epidemics are expected as bodies remain scattered and decaying in city streets. Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi face similar problems.

2) The state National Guard is normally on reserve for hurricane relief, especially in known hurricane areas like Louisiana and Mississippi. About 8,000 members of the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard are watching the catastrophe unfold 7,000 miles away in Iraq. Forty percent of Mississippi’s National Guard force, and 35 percent of Louisiana’s are in Iraq.

3) Preparedness plans called for hospital ships to be standing by in safe waters, also to be dispatched as soon as the storm subsided. They were not. One left from Baltimore September 2. Ships equipped with pumping stations were also to be standing by. None were. They too are just now arriving, too late.

4) Although there was an order given to evacuate, there were no plans and no organized government efforts to insure all residents were evacuated to safety before the hurricane hit. Everyone was left to fend for themselves. An estimated 300,000 people were left stranded in New Orleans. The vast majority are African American and working poor, without cars or means to evacuate.

5) A major cause of the massive flooding in New Orleans was the collapse of the levee system, which protects the below-sea-level city from flooding from the Gulf and Lake Pontchartrain. Funding for raising and shoring up the levees has been drastically cut. Federal flood control spending for southeastern Louisiana was slashed from $69 million in 2001 to $36.5 million in 2005. Federal hurricane protection for the Lake Pontchartrain vicinity in the Corps of Engineers’ budget dropped from $14.25 million in 2002 to $5.7 million this year.

The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of this, the federal government imposed the steepest reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Cuts forced the Corps to essentially stop major work on the now-breached levee system. This was the first such stoppage in 37 years. Meanwhile, hundreds of billions of dollars have been pumped into the war against Iraq.

6) People were told to go to the Superdome and Convention Center for evacuation. Thousands did so, with about 9,000 people at the Superdome and 15-20,000 at the Convention Center. All have been forced to remain for days without water, food or electricity and with dead bodies and filth surrounding them. Similar situations exist in Mississippi. The battalion chief of the Biloxi Fire Department said, “We need water. We need ice. I’ve been told it’s coming, but we’ve got people in shelters who haven’t had a drink since the storm.” Yet the main response of government has been to claim there is looting and to bring the Guard in to “restore order.”

7) Bush was playing golf when Katrina hit. He did not even view the devastation the government wrought until two days later. He is only now visiting the area four days later, and still says that he is “satisfied with the response.” He has some problems with what he calls “the results.” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said August 31, “We are extremely pleased with the response of every element of the federal government.” Head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), despite repeated calls by local officials for assistance, said “we did not know” how bad conditions were.

8) In a country with a highly trained and talented workforce, with massive resources and plenty of food, water and clothing, where people everywhere are prepared to join the rescue efforts, the government is telling everyone simply to make charitable contributions.

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Why the Levee Broke

Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city, the waters continued to rise in New Orleans on Wednesday. That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal. With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until until it's level with the massive lake.

There have been numerous reports of bodies floating in the poorest neighborhoods of this poverty-plagued city, but the truth is that the death toll may not be known for days, because the conditions continue to frustrate rescue efforts.

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "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."

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to this February 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness:

The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which remains about 20% incomplete due to lack of funds, said Al Naomi, project manager. That project consists of building up levees and protection for pumping stations on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles and Jefferson parishes.
The Lake Pontchartrain project is slated to receive $3.9 million in the president's 2005 budget. Naomi said about $20 million is needed.
"The longer we wait without funding, the more we sink," he said. "I've got at least six levee construction contracts that need to be done to raise the levee protection back to where it should be (because of settling). Right now I owe my contractors about $5 million. And we're going to have to pay them interest."

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

That June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane- and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs. According to New Orleans CityBusiness this June 5:

The district has identified $35 million in projects to build and improve levees, floodwalls and pumping stations in St. Bernard, Orleans, Jefferson and St. Charles parishes. Those projects are included in a Corps line item called Lake Pontchartrain, where funding is scheduled to be cut from $5.7 million this year to $2.9 million in 2006. Naomi said it's enough to pay salaries but little else.
"We'll do some design work. We'll design the contracts and get them ready to go if we get the money. But we don't have the money to put the work in the field, and that's the problem," Naomi said.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:

That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount.
But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said.

The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late. One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer was a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on Monday. The levee failure appears to be causing a human tragedy of epic proportions: "We probably have 80 percent of our city under water; with some sections of our city the water is as deep as 20 feet. Both airports are underwater," Mayor Ray Nagin told a radio interviewer.

The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. ... In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."

Washington knew that this day could come at any time, and it knew the things that needed to be done to protect the citizens of New Orleans. But in the tradition of the riverboat gambler, the Bush administration decided to roll the dice on its fool's errand in Iraq, and on a tax cut that mainly benefited the rich. Now Bush has lost that gamble, big time.

The president told us that we needed to fight in Iraq to save lives here at home. Yet -- after moving billions of domestic dollars to the Persian Gulf -- there are bodies floating through the streets of Louisiana. What does George W. Bush have to say for himself now?

Will Bunch is a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News

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Venezuela Offers $1 million, Oil, Food and Equipment for U.S. Victims of Hurricane Katrina

Sept 1, 2005 (Venezuelanalysis.com).- CITGO Petroleum Corporation has pledged a $1 million donation towards Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, the company’s President and CEO Félix Rodríguez announced yesterday through a press release.

Rodríguez said this donation had the full support of the company’s parent organization, the Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), as well as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

“Our hearts go out to the victims of this terrible tragedy and CITGO stands prepared to offer its assistance,” Rodríguez said.

According to the CEO, the funds will be directed to appropriate relief organizations in the affected areas.

CEO Rodríguez traveled yesterday to Lake Charles, Louisiana where he met with local officials and visited the city’s Civic Center, which has been turned into a full-service shelter for storm refugees.

Rodríguez presented the local chapter of the American Red Cross, in charge of operations at the shelter, with a separate $25,000 donation to assist the organization in its efforts at the center.

2,200 victims are currently housed at the Civic Center, and more victims are expected to arrive.

A group of volunteers from the nearby CITGO Lake Charles Manufacturing Complex, known as Team CITGO, are helping in the relief efforts.

Rodríguez met with local and state officials, including Lake Charles Mayor Randy Roach, Louisiana Senators Willie Mount and Jerry Theunissen, and State Reps. Ronnie Johns, Chuck Kleckley, Elcie Guillory and Dan Morrish.

Rodríguez stressed that CITGO stands prepared to offer additional assistance.

He also presented officials with a letter from Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramírez indicating that Venezuela is prepared to offer additional assistance in the form of fuel supplies to help offset shortages.

Ramirez, who also serves as president of the Venezuelan national oil company, PDVSA, stressed that the offer of support for storm victims comes from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

President Chávez announced yesterday that Venezuela will send oil and humanitarian aid to the U.S. to help alleviate the effects of the hurricane, which he described as "a catastrophe."

Sources at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington DC, told Venezuelanalysis.com that apart from the million dollars in monetary assistance, Venezuela is offering two mobile hospital units, each capable of assisting 150 people, 120 specialists in rescue operations, 10 water purifying plants, 18 electricity generators of 850 KW each, 20 tons of bottled water, and 50 tons of canned food.

According to the Embassy, Venezuela's Consulate in New Orleans will remain closed until further notice.

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