Fema 'knew of New Orleans danger'

[DoYouEverWonder]

11 October 2005

The former head of the US emergency agency has acknowledged that the government knew the flood barriers protecting New Orleans were inadequate.

Michael Brown was forced to quit the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) after bitter criticism of the response to Hurricane Katrina.

In a BBC documentary, he admitted that the levees had not been upgraded to deal with the most powerful hurricanes.

<snip>

The documentary also reveals that a key briefing officer within Fema sent a message directly to Mr Brown early on the day before Katrina hit, warning him of potentially disastrous flooding in New Orleans, which could trap more than 100,000 people.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4331330.stm


Too bad Bush has surrounded himself with people with no imaginations. No one could have every imagined the levees would have failed or that 10,000's of people would need to be shelter has a result. Nope, no one that works for Bush could have ever imagined anything.

[all.of.me]

1. so what is the plan for the FUTURE of the levees?!

since the hurricanes are getting worse and worse, because the gulf is getting warmer and warmer, are they planning to FINALLY upgrade the levees to withstand a cat 7?!

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. Actually the levees held

It was the flood walls that failed.

Flood walls are a crappy excuse for a real levee. All floodwalls need to be replaced with proper levees and New Orleans will be a lot less likely to flood.

[maddezmom]

3. BBC is pushing this story...it's on the crawler

[Rockholm]

4. This story needs to be pushed.

We all knew that NO was going to flood as Katrina was heading towards the coast.The people of NO always knew it would flood eventually. Hell, they even teach the kids to have an axe in the attic so they can chop their way out of the attic. (Just to equate how important that point is, kids in earthquake zones get taught from an early age to get under a desk or in a doorway in the event of an earthquake).

Bush and his administration...COMPLETE FAILURE. Eight trips to New Orleans ain't goona cut it. A day late and a dollar short pal.