Disaster Preparedness An Election Issue
• Rights of Midwest Flooding Survivors Must Be Provided with a Guarantee
• Government Inaction Means Widespread Damage
• Government’s Premeditated Failure of Levees•
Disaster Preparedness Is an Election Issue
Rights of Midwest Flooding Survivors Must Be Provided with a Guarantee
Once again, the country is witness to a government-organized disaster. Government refusal to plan and build a system of levees along the Mississippi River and its refusal to act on the basis of its own climate reports that predicted the severe rains and record high river levels, is criminal. And it is a premeditated crime. The likelihood that the levees would flood was known. The fact that they were totally inadequate to protect whole cities and towns and vital farmlands was known. And sending millions of sandbags and water afterwards only further illustrates that the government left the people of the region unprepared and in grave danger, resulting in death and massive destruction of people’s lives.
Certainly, witnessing the destruction of these floods from levee failure reminds everyone of the consequences of failed levees in New Orleans. Funding for levees in New Orleans was specifically cut from the Army Corps of Engineers ’ budget and diverted to Iraq war funding. And now again everyone is witnessing the fact that another $162 billion in “emergency funds” for the Iraq war were rapidly provided, with only $2.4 billion for flood relief for the Midwest. This amount is not sufficient for just the state of Iowa, let alone the medical and housing costs for people in six states.
Disaster preparedness is without doubt an election issue and one requiring government action now. The rights of all the flood victims must be provided with a guarantee. That is what a modern society requires. But that is not what the existing government delivers. There is not even comment by the government as to what is required to provide levees capable of withstanding record water levels. Far from it, victims are told they should have flood insurance. The government's concern is with property, not people. At best, families are given what amounts to crumbs for rebuilding ($28,000 total) when a major government undertaking is required. Similarly, small towns are told they must fund tens and even hundreds of millions in levee construction, many times their entire budget. The government refuses to provide both the funding and planning required for an integrated system of levees, capable of withstand a worst-case scenario, along the whole Mississippi River and its tributaries. Clearly, funding infrastructure and plans for disasters can be organized. But, unlike Iraq war funding, the government will not do it as it does not contribute to their drive for world empire.
Even now, water remains contaminated in many flooded areas and epidemics threaten. Sewage treatment plants were down. Yet there is also no discussion of what is required to protect social infrastructure — like sewage and water systems, and hospital emergency generators — from floods in the future. And to guarantee evacuation of people and their belongings. While the government did nothing in this regard, other than order the evacuations, people organized themselves. Tens of thousands volunteered to assist in strengthening levees, providing housing, organizing trucks for people to move their belongings to higher ground and more.
The problem is not a lack of will or ability. It is the aim of government to meet the needs of the monopolies. The monopoly owners can each plan their operations to the hilt, the government can conduct the war and build whole cities for military occupation abroad almost overnight — but disaster preparedness at home remains unplanned and chaotic. The rights of human beings simply do not count with a government organized to serve the monopolies and their drive for empire. Funding is systematically removed from infrastructure, like levees, and housing and healthcare.
The failure of government in this modern age to be prepared for disasters and organized to minimize death and damage, especially to people, also brings to the fore the need to change the character of government. A modern democracy requires that the people themselves be empowered to govern and decide, and that society put the rights of human beings and their collectives at the center. The current elections are again showing that the electoral set up is designed to keep people and their demands out of the equation. It serves to keep the two parties of the rich in power and the people out. Elections 2008 are also showing that contention on this issue of who decides is growing sharper. Organizing informed debate to advance the aim of political empowerment remains vital for all concerned. Voice of Revolution will continue to contribute to this discussion and urges all concerned to join in — send us your views, your top election issues, work in your areas to take problems up for solution. Join in! Contact us today, office@usmlo.org.
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Government Inaction Means Widespread Damage
Tens of thousands of people across six states are currently contending with the widespread devastation to homes, businesses, whole towns and farms. Massive flooding occurred as dozens of levees along the Mississippi River were topped or failed. An estimated 3.4 million acres in the three states hardest hit — Iowa, Illinois and Missouri — were flooded at levels topping ten feet high in many places. The area flooded in just these three states is larger than the state of Connecticut. People in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Indiana were also impacted. As well, the government is also now reporting that the water is highly toxic from raw sewage, fuel, chemicals, fertilizer, manure, and more, with diseases from unsafe water a major concern.
The enormity of the catastrophe makes clear that the federal government must take full responsibility. It has a duty to guarantee the rights of all, including the right to housing, medical care, clean water and land, reparations, clean up of their communities and reparations, especially for those who have lost everything. Instead, the country is once again witnessing the collective efforts by the people themselves to organize flood control, evacuations and relief, while the government shows its failure to prevent flooding, ensure water and sewage is safe from flooding, and meet the rights of the people impacted. Few could miss the stand taken, when the House passed $164 billion for war against Iraq, with only $4 billion provided for flood relief. Iowa alone suffered at least $1.5 billion in damages. The cost of the disaster may end up rivaling that of 1993 Midwest floods that caused more than $20 billion in damage and 48 deaths.
Some Facts on the Flooding
• Overall there are 24 known deaths and 150 injured as a direct result of the flooding. An estimated 40,000 people have been displaced, many permanently. Power failures from unprotected power stations and flooding of basement generators forced evacuations of hospitals. Power failures also meant sewage plants were down across the region, while flooding also contaminated water wells. The extended stress and anxiety of recovery along with the toxic water and land will likely bring many more illnesses and deaths.
• The states involved deployed about 6,000 National Guards, mainly to help in filling 13 million sandbags. It is not clear if any will remain for assisting in rebuilding, garbage removal, securing safe water, and general clean up of toxic wastes. Many consider 6,000 far too small a deployment for the size and scope of the disaster. The people, on the other hand, brought forward tens of thousands of volunteers to fill and place sandbags, rig up walls from boards and rocks, and assist in evacuations. Showing the people’s sense of the need for organized collective effort, some smaller trucking companies came forward to provide the means for families to load up their belongings and move them to higher ground.
• Cedar Rapids, Iowa — Iowa’s second largest city with a population of about 120,000 was one of the hardest hit. 1,300 square blocks were damaged or destroyed. Officials estimate $1 billion in damages to property. This figure does not include funds for necessities like counseling and other medical care in a situation where people lost not only homes but everything — their daily life, their family photos, their neighbors and friends in many cases. As one evacuee put it on returning to his destroyed home, “Our whole lives are sitting there on the side of the road, us and everyone else’s.” The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provides individual funds to property owners, for home repairs, capped at a total of $28,000.
• Cedar Rapids, like other villages and towns flooded, is also producing massive amounts of debris. About 4,200 destroyed houses means about one ton of debris each, including heavy appliances, electronics and furniture. Businesses, churches and local government offices mean flood-related garbage is estimated at 300,000 tons. A typical garbage truck handles about four tons, so additional trucks have to be contracted to assist. The same problem is occurring throughout the flooded areas. In all the flooded areas, the federal government is not acting to guarantee garbage removal, sewage treatment or clean water — other than to ship in 3.6 million liters of bottled water.
• Dozens of levees were either not high enough, so the record-high water levels of the Mississippi topped them, or they failed due to lack of government action to repair and strengthen them. Some areas had no levees, others had 90 percent of their levees fail. In all cases the government knew about the problems and the likelihood that the flooding would occur.
• Iowa and Illinois produce one third of the country’s corn and soybeans, with Iowa the largest producer. The crops are a main source of livestock feed, ethanol and edible oils. Estimates are that 5 million acres across the Midwest have been ruined and will not produce a crop this year. The impact extends worldwide. The U.S. exports 54 percent of the world's corn, 36 percent of its soybeans and 23 percent of its wheat. And given government refusal to determine wholesale prices, prices for both corn and soybeans are at record highs. This is occurring at a time of food crises here and worldwide, when basic necessities like corn cannot be bought by billions of people.
• Total crop loss in Iowa alone is estimated at $3 billion, including 1.3 million acres of corn, 2 million acres of soybeans, hay and pasture. This represents about 16 percent of the state’s farmland. FEMA has so far approved $16 million in grants for individuals.
• Flooding caused Interstate 80, the major east-west highway to close. Stretches of the Mississippi from Iowa to Missouri were closed, stranding more than one hundred barges loaded with corn, soybeans, cement, fertilizer and other products. A single barge typically carries the equivalent of 55 tractor-trailers, with a typical towboat handling a tow of 10-15 barges, or the equivalent of 900 trucks.
• While the government spends $10 billion a month on war in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus $500 billion a year on the Pentagon war machine, funding for infrastructure, like dams and levees, is near historic lows. According to one report, the U.S. spends two thirds less in real terms on civil engineering projects than it did in 1960.
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Government’s Premeditated Failure of Levees
The federal government is presenting the massive flooding of towns and farmland across the Midwest, with its horrendous destruction of people’s lives, as a “natural disaster.” In fact, much like Katrina, it is a government-organized disaster. The government was completely aware of the inability of the hundreds of levees along the Mississippi to withstand the levels of flooding that occurred.
The federal government specifically had the warming and experience of the 1993 flooding in the Midwest. It had predictions from weather and natural resources experts that climate change and global warning would bring much higher water levels. It did nothing to build a coordinated system of levees high enough and strong enough. Indeed, in many cases it told people in the flood plain areas that they were “safe” from flooding. Now they have lost everything.
Here are some of the relevant facts:
• The 1993 floods were generally at record levels across the Midwest, also the result of record high rivers and levees that were either not high enough, in need of repair, or non-existent. The government commissioned a committee of experts at that time. It recommended a uniform, national approach with responsibility for building and maintenance given to the federal government’s Army Corps of Engineers. While some efforts were made to improve some of the levees, a federal government plan to systematically build the levees to withstand a worst-case scenario — which is at least higher and stronger than the 1993 levels — was not done. As well, the existing system is so poorly designed, levees holding in one area means flooding in the town across the river or back upriver. Such events occurred repeatedly in this year’s floods. As Illinois’ Office of Water Resources reported, “We always fight floods and raise levees during events like this with little or no coordination or regard for the impact it will have on people upstream or across the river.”
Dr. Gerald Galloway, a former brigadier general with the Corps and chairman of the 1993 commission, had this to say of the recent floods. “We told them [the government] there were going to be more floods like this. Everybody likes to go out and shake hands on the levee now and offer sandbags, but that is not helpful. This should not have happened in the first place.”
At present, the federal government does not even take responsibility for the existing levees, let alone develop a uniform system of levees as is required. At best they survey them to see if they meet federal standards. If they do not, the only measure taken is forcing homeowners to buy flood insurance! The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) itself emphasizes that the maps are not to indicate whether people are safe, but for insurance purposes only.
Levees, like bridges and highways are clearly part of the country’s social infrastructure, not the sole responsibility of a single city or town. Their failure and the consequent destruction are the failure — and crimes — of the federal government.
• In 2005, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the country’s infrastructure, including levees, dams and bridges, a grade of “D.” They projected that a $1.6 trillion investment was needed over five years to bring the country’s systems up to a good condition. No such investment was made.
• Also in 2005, following the government-organized Katrina disaster, Congress passed a bill setting up a program to inventory the existing levees. But it did not fund even this minimal program. Today, many of the FEMA maps, indicating where levees are located and their strength, are 20 years old. In some cases the government does not even know where some of the levees are. All such information is vital when determining which are most likely to fail, where along the river strengthening of particular levees is most needed, how to strengthen one area without flooding another and how high to build them up with sand bags. Indeed, the necessity for sandbags themselves is an indication of the failure of the government to provide the standard of levees needed. For this year’s flooding, the government supplied 13 million bags for volunteers to fill and place.
• In 2007, the Army Corps of Engineers surveyed the levees for East St. Louis, and found they did not meet Corps standards. These standards are themselves generally too weak, as New Orleans flooding showed. The Corps estimated it would cost $200 million to bring the 70-year old system up to existing standards. The upgrade did not take place. At the same time, the federal government did require all homeowners in the area — mostly impoverished African Americans already threatened by the foreclosure crisis, to buy flood insurance.
• The government also has the experience of the 1927 flood, which took place further south, from Cairo, Illinois, in southern Illinois, to the Gulf of Mexico. This part of the Mississippi has a more standardized system designed by the Army Corps of Engineers. While it too needs strengthening, the area is better equipped to contend with floods than the Midwest section of the river. Yet this experience is not utilized.
• The federal government’s own climate report predicted that more frequent and intense heavy rains, and consequent flooding, were unavoidable in North America, given the increasing concentrations of heat-trapping gases [global warming.] Thomas R. Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina and a lead author of the report emphasized that climate extremes will continue to grow more intense. Richard Moss, head of the climate program of the World Wildlife Fund added, “To fully grasp the ramifications of the surge in extreme droughts and floods that is forecast in this report, one need only look at the widespread devastation across the Midwest.” He said that along with a need for substantial reductions in greenhouse gases, just as importantly, “We need a serious program of national preparedness to respond to these increasing threats.” The government refuses to do either.
Professor Nicholas Pinter, who specializes in flood hydrology brought out, “We have had two almost 100-year floods and two almost 500-year floods in a 35-year period. Flood levels all along this [Midwest] stretch of the Mississippi have climbed upward, not just by inches but by 8, 10, 12 feet — up to 18 feet over historical 100-year flood conditions. Floods are higher and more frequent. The current estimates for flood frequency and intensity appear to be grossly underestimated.” (A 100-year flood is one that has a 1 percent chance of occurring in a given year). Dr. Pinter also says that the existing river navigation engineering done to facilitate shipping contributes to the flooding.
The government failure to provide the levees required is premeditated and done with complete knowledge that such flooding was likely. The government is guilty of mass killing and destruction and should be charged for its crimes.
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Government to Block Evacuation for Those Without ID
Texas Activists Reject Government Plans for Identification Checks During Hurricanes
Right while the U.S. government proclaims itself interested in humanitarian relief and uses this excuse to try and intervene against the people in Myanmar, the government’s Border Patrol in Texas announced that in the event of a hurricane, they would refuse to evacuate anyone without identification (ID) showing their citizenship. People found out about the plan when a reporter was taking pictures of the Border Patrol humiliating seniors by forcing them to show ID verifying citizenship in a mock-evacuation. The reporter was forced to stop taking pictures and leave. The mock-evacuation took place in the Rio Grande Valley border area that includes Brownsville, Texas.
Border Patrol said the estimated 130,000 area residents that would be evacuated by bus in the event of a hurricane, will all be checked for citizenship papers. Anyone who could not prove citizenship or permanent residency status would not be allowed to board the bus. The Border Patrol was also going to check any shelters and detain those without the identification Border Patrol required. Everyone without ID would be sent to government detention centers. The government plans to implement the policy in all the hurricane areas, from Florida to Texas.
The action is coming from a government notorious for the crime of leaving the people of New Orleans on their roofs to die. Now, documentation will be used to block people from evacuating and to terrorize families from even attempting to evacuate. The hurricane evacuations are mandatory, so people also see this policy as yet another means for the government to justify rounding up and detaining people who refuse to comply. How dare the government separate families at a time of natural disaster when people are doing everything to guarantee the safety and well-being of families and communities!
Border Patrol spokesperson for the area said, "We've been charged with securing the borders of the U.S. I personally do not want to be the one who says, okay, I'm not going to screen this bus because I've got to get them out of here and have somebody on that bus be linked to terrorism or be a terrorist and do this country harm."
This claim of terrorism is a sham, promoted to justify rounding people up like cattle and putting them in detention camps. In all the many years of migration into the U.S. and the long-standing immigrant populations in the area, there is not a single case of terrorism by the people. This fact was admitted by U.S. Representative Silvestre Reyes, of Texas, chair of the House Intelligence Committee. He confirmed that there have been no officially documented cases of terrorists crossing into the U.S. from Mexico. There are many documented cases of state terrorism by the Border Patrol and the military, including not only raids but racist killings of individuals guilty of no crime.
People in the area, including civil rights organizations and church activists immediately denounced the government. Activists are demanding that the Border Patrol be removed from all evacuation centers. They said they would organize to keep people away and develop their own collective evacuations. Said one priest, "I can tell you right now that 'mandatory' evacuation orders will be ignored by half the Valley — since no one will leave behind the aunt or uncle or grandmother — and certainly would not trust the Border Patrol with them." Another activist rejected the government plan as unconscionable. Expressing the outrage of many, another organizer said, "At a time of natural disaster we would like to think that the preservation of life is superior to whether people have paperwork. It's a case of basic humanity." He added, "When you call the Fire Department to report a fire they do not check your immigration status before putting out a fire.”
Government has a responsibility to the people to guarantee their safety and people are rejecting this notion that the job of government is to terrorize and detain people. Everyone agreed that Border Patrol should be removed from the hurricane emergency preparedness task force and from any presence at evacuation points and shelters. Many also denounced the racist profiling that would necessarily be involved. Another Texas activist said, “If Border Patrol wants to help in the event of a hurricane they could be out there putting sandbags on top of the levees their vehicles have damaged. We have a terrible threat of floods because of the state the levees are in."
Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid (TRLA), the largest provider of legal aid in Texas, also denounced the government plans. The group said the policy would especially jeopardize the poor, elderly, and those with limited English-speaking ability. “In the event of an evacuation, time will be of the utmost importance in minimizing a humanitarian disaster,” said a TRLA attorney. “Putting lives at unnecessary risk is not acceptable.”