New Orleans After Katrina

Very few will learn anything from this, and it will repeat wherever disaster strikes next. The whole country is insane, from the politicians who allowed this situation to develop, to the rescue operation, to reporters hyping the story, and especially the "consumers" of this tragedy. "It was like those Mel Gibson movies"

Nature abhors a contradiction just as it does a vacuum. New Orleans was a contradiction because the sinking was due to the very thing the levee's tried to prevent. The "protected" area was robbed of the silt that would have been deposited there keeping it above sea level. The huge question now is; Will the contradiction be solved, or allowed to stand? Tearing the levee's down and building on solid ground would be the only true solution. The power of greed and pure stubbornness however, will likely attempt to find a work-around and leave the contradiction unresolved for another generation, which hopefully might have the sanity to deal with the reality.

New Orleans, the tragedy
September 1st, 2005
"The drama unfolding in New Orleans, however, is now officially a tragedy. Katrina wrought destruction, but the consequences most horrifying us today are the result of human folly." ~ The American Thinker

Corps engineers said that the 17th Street Canal levee was breached Monday night. They believe water gushed over the concrete wall and scoured the earth behind it, causing a two-block-long portion to collapse. A second breach occurred on the Industrial Canal levee during the storm. Corps officials also were concerned about a third flood wall structure, Pumping Station 6, used to remove water via canals from the city into Pontchartrain. ~ http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/0805/31natkatlevees.html

VINCENT LAFORET/New York Times Floodwaters rush over the levee along the Industrial Canal, which runs from Lake Pontchartrain to the Mississippi River on the east side of New Orleans.

MOVIES OF THE MIND: "There were hitch-hikers," she said. "People with backpacks, whole families carrying little babies, trying to get rides. I would've stopped, but I had two cats and a dog in my car. I even saw a monk in his monk outfit walking down the interstate. It was like those Mel Gibson movies, the 'Road Warrior.'" ~ early New Orleans escapee.

New Orleans evacuees tell horror stories
Implementing the "National Response Plan"

KATRINA: NATURAL DISASTER OR SABOTAGE AND INSTITUTIONAL TERRORISM? E-mail: Robert Schoen, New Orleans resident

"We were ready from literally the time the storm blew through," American Red Cross president Marty Evans told Fox News Channel's Major Garrett last Thursday. "We were ready to go. We just were not given permission to go in."

by Niki Raapana, September 9, 2005
Homeland Security was a Communitarian invention. So were FEMA and all state MEPHA Acts. Global Communitarians advocated for a powerful, central government that would rule America via local communitarian thinkers and subserviant community "leaders." Gone are the days when strong local leaders can arise and take charge. High-level Communitarians don't know how to handle local emergencies by using familiar local neighbors as resources. (They will use this fact to create a database of all this information.) Today, because we are now a Communitarian sub-nation of subordinates, our people are required to wait for directions from incompetent federal appointees. The ultimate result of this transition will be when our best local people are required to wait for directions from incompetent supra-national U.N. appointees. ~ The Case Against Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Communitarian Homeland Security

Katrina Wasn't The Problem, It Was The Levees. Photo's

By George Friedman
September 01, 2005 22 30 GMT -- The American political system was founded in Philadelphia, but the American nation was built on the vast farmlands that stretch from the Alleghenies to the Rockies. That farmland produced the wealth that funded American industrialization: It permitted the formation of a class of small landholders who, amazingly, could produce more than they could consume. They could sell their excess crops in the east and in Europe and save that money, which eventually became the founding capital of American industry.

But it was not the extraordinary land nor the farmers and ranchers who alone set the process in motion. Rather, it was geography -- the extraordinary system of rivers that flowed through the Midwest and allowed them to ship their surplus to the rest of the world. All of the rivers flowed into one -- the Mississippi -- and the Mississippi flowed to the ports in and around one city: New Orleans. It was in New Orleans that the barges from upstream were unloaded and their cargos stored, sold and reloaded on ocean-going vessels. Until last Sunday, New Orleans was, in many ways, the pivot of the American economy. New Orleans: A Geopolitical Prize

Implementing the "National Response Plan" "In America, we do not abandon our fellow citizens in their hour of need" ~ Bush said

New Orleans paper rips federal response
Times-Picayune: Everybody at FEMA should be fired
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- New Orleans' largest newspaper printed a blistering editorial in Sunday's edition under the headline "An Open Letter to the President," criticizing the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina.
The Times-Picayune -- which abandoned its headquarters and temporarily ceased its print publication last week -- called on every Federal Emergency Management Agency official to be fired, "Director Michael Brown especially."
"Our people deserved to be rescued," the editorial said. "No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn't be reached."CNN

Mayor says federal goverment failed in responding to hurricane, pledges more support from NYC
Posted on Sun, Sep. 04, 2005
SARA KUGLER
Associated Press
NEW YORK - Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Sunday that the federal government's handling of Hurricane Katrina has been "inadequate," and said more aid, including police officers and firefighters, was en route to Louisiana.
The Republican mayor, who usually treads carefully when it comes to commenting on the Bush administration, told reporters that the president himself was aware of the government's failings.
"It would appear, and I think the president acknowledged, that the federal government's response has been inadequate," Bloomberg told reporters at City Hall.READ

As New Orleans Sinks Might a Texas Star Be Rising?
September4 ,2005
By: Genevieve Cora Fraser
At the risk of sounding paranoid, I have a few thoughts on the US government's response to Hurricane Katrina. Might the so-called delays in the evacuation have been deliberate? I am not referring to the extent of the natural disaster itself but the public planning and subsequent government response. Some believe there is a possibility that9 / 11was either created or allowed… that it was used to justify the wars in Afghanistan (for access to the Caspian oil reserves and to destroy the Taliban to allow the return to the heroin trade) and Iraq (oil and on behalf of Israel) and used to justify moving towards fascist control with the Patriot Acts I and II. Might there have been a method to the government/administrations madness in allowing the destruction of the city of New Orleans? READ

White House ramps up relief and PR campaign
Associated Press
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Bush administration kicked its hurricane Katrina response and its public relations campaign into overdrive on Sunday, as the first confirmation came from Washington of a dreaded statistic -- that the storm probably killed thousands of people. READ

New Orleans collects its dead in 'ugly' search
Sun Sep 4, 2005 5:44 PM EDT
By Mark Egan and Mark Babineck
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - New Orleans turned to the horrific task of collecting its dead on Sunday with rescue teams scouring the toxic waters flooding streets and homes to find survivors and recover thousands of bloated corpses.
A full six days after Hurricane Katrina ripped up the U.S. Gulf Coast and sent flood waters pouring into New Orleans, no one knows how many people were killed, but government officials say the number is surely in the thousands.
"When we remove the water from New Orleans, we're going to uncover people who died hiding in houses, who got caught by the flood. People whose remains will be found in the street," U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said. "It is going to be about as ugly a scene as you can imagine." READ

N.O. gathers its dead; homeland chief predicts `ugly scene', " NEW ORLEANS -- New Orleans turned much of its attention Sunday to gathering up and counting the dead across a ghastly landscape awash in perhaps thousands of corpses. "It is going to be about as ugly of a scene as I think you can imagine," the nation's homeland security chief warned.
Air and boat crews also searched flooded neighborhoods for survivors, and federal officials urged those still left in New Orleans to leave for their own safety." KATC 3

CBS Evening News reports that the levee breech has been sealed over a background picture of still water at the scene of the break which obviously was NOT SEALED. News reports say that the survivors have been evacuated and the focus will now be turned to recovering the dead bodies. Homeland Security Chief says it is "unaceptable" that anyone stay in the city. Perhaps the most official propaganda line comes from the "Stars and Strips" online edition, "Thousands rescued as New Orleans is Emptied "Weary troops get a breather after removing victims from flooded city". This is a clear indication that the rescue operation is ending and those left in the city may be treated as armed resistance. They are already calling it "urban warfare". Many of them merely want to stay in their homes to look out for themselves, and protect their assets.
Posted by Bobby, Sept. 4, 2005, 5:55 PM

Sept. 3 - "The buffoonery, from the President's "disappointment" to FEMA's excuses is as phony as a three dollar bill." New Orleans As It Looks From Here

Sept. 2 - "There is something sinister going down -- it's not simply incompetence or negligence." The People of the Dome

By Ker Than
LiveScience Staff Writer
August 31, 2005
The past 10 years have seen more ferocious and more frequent hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean and scientists are confident that there will be more to come. While some studies have suggested that global warming may be a contributing factor, many meteorologists instead believe that it is just part of a natural cycle. Many More Hurricanes to Come

Corps: Lack of funds did not contribute to flooding
By Andrew Martin and Andrew Zajac
Washington Bureau
Published September 2, 2005
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday that a lack of funding for hurricane protection projects around New Orleans did not contribute to the disastrous flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina.
In a telephone interview with reporters, corps officials said that although portions of the flood-protection levees remain incomplete, the levees near Lake Pontchartrain that gave way--inundating much of the city--were completed and in good condition before the hurricane.
"I don't see that the level of funding was really a contributing factor in this case," said Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, chief of engineers for the corps. "Had this project been fully complete, it is my opinion that based on the intensity of this storm that the flooding of the business district and the French Quarter would have still taken place."
Strock also denied that escalating costs from the war in Iraq contributed to reductions in funding for hurricane projects in Louisiana, as some critics have suggested. Records show that corps funding for the Louisiana projects generally has decreased in recent years. Lack of funds did not contribute to flooding

By ANDREW C. REVKIN and CHRISTOPHER DREW
Published: September 1, 2005
No one expected that weak spot to be on a canal that, if anything, had received more attention and shoring up than many other spots in the region. It did not have broad berms, but it did have strong concrete walls.
Shea Penland, director of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of New Orleans, said that was particularly surprising because the break was "along a section that was just upgraded."
"It did not have an earthen levee," Dr. Penland said. "It had a vertical concrete wall several feel thick."
...He [Mr. Naomi] said there were still no clear hints why the main breach in the flood barriers occurred along the 17th Street Canal... Intricate Flood Protection Long a Focus of Dispute

Who is in charge of the Response to the Katrina Disaster?
by Stan Moore
(Friday September 02 2005)
Is there any one person in charge of organizing the rescue of victims of Hurricane Katrina? Why have not helicopters been sent immediately with emergency supplies to land on the highways near the Superdome so that victims who could walk to that location could at least obtain water and food? Why have not helicopters delivered water and food to the local highways was countless people have been stranded without being able to return home or to move one way or another? Who is in charge

Sept. 2, 2005, 8:27AM
Bush: Katrina relief results 'not acceptable'
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Bush, facing blistering criticism for his administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, said today "the results are not acceptable" and pledged to bolster relief efforts with a personal trip to the Gulf Coast.
"We'll get on top of this situation," Bush said, "and we're going to help the people that need help." Katrina relief results 'not acceptable'

BEIJING, Sep. 2 (Xinhuanet)-- ...New Orleans' top emergency management official called chaos a "national disgrace" and questioned when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly lawless city.
About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at New Orleans convention center grew increasingly hostile after waiting for buses for days amid the filth and the dead.
Police Chief Eddie Compass said there was such a crush around a squad of 88 officers that they retreated when they went in to check out reports of assaults. Riot runs wild in hurricane-hit New Orleans

WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 (Xinhuanet) -- Explosions and fires were erupting on Friday in US city of New Orleans devastated by Hurricane katrina, CNN reported. The explosions and fires were reported in southwest New Orleans after another night of lawless. Katrina, which hit New Orleans days ago, forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and shut refineries along the Gulf Coast, sending gasoline prices soaring to new records of well over 3 US dollars a gallon in most part of the country.
With Armed looters running in the streets, US troops poured into the New Orleans on Friday with shoot-to-kill orders.
"These troops are battle-tested, They have M-16s and are locked and loaded," Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said.
"These troops know how to shoot and kill and I expect they will," the governor said. Explosions, fires rock flooded New Orleans: CNN

`Engineering nightmare': Draining a city
Thu, Sep. 01, 2005
THREE TO SIX MONTHS LATEST ESTIMATE FOR SWAMPED NEW ORLEANS
By Curtis Morgan, David Ovalle and Carol Rosenberg
Knight Ridder
NEW ORLEANS - This city remained submerged Wednesday, a dark and stinking soup rippling from ankle deep to over roofs in the worst-hit areas on the eastern side of town. Engineering nightmare

September 1, 2005
Water covers New Orleans
As Hurricane Katrina dissipated on its way toward the northeastern United States on Tuesday, the threat only grew for New Orleans and other Gulf towns. Monday afternoon's seeming reprieve in New Orleans evaporated as two breached levees flooded the city.
On geologic timescales, the Mississippi would have switched to flow through the nearby Atchafalaya River long ago but for the controls placed on it by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The levees that entrain the river stop it from flooding in normal conditions, also preventing it from depositing the huge amounts of sediment it carries from the Rocky Mountains and the Midwest, out beyond the continental shelf. That lost sediment could have been deposited in what is now New Orleans, and it would have made up for part of the massive subsidence and compaction the area is experiencing, "but it's gone," Scholle says.
"Several … government policies have made this disaster possible, or at least exacerbated it," Scholle says, from subsidized federal coastal home insurance that encourages people to build and rebuild in hazardous areas, to the levee system. Water covers New Orleans

Evacuation Halted Amid Fires, Gunshots
Sep 1, 9:49 AM (ET)
By ADAM NOSSITER
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The evacuation of the Superdome was suspended Thursday because of fires and gunshots outside the arena, authorities said, as National Guardsmen in armored vehicles poured into New Orleans to help restore order across the increasingly lawless and desperate city.
Tempers flared elsewhere across the devastated region. Police said a man in Hattiesburg, Miss., fatally shot his sister in the head over a bag of ice. Evacuation Halted Amid Fires, Gunshots

New Orleans evacuees tell horror stories
By MIKE WILLIAMS
Cox News Service
Thursday, September 01, 2005
LA PLACE, La. — After three days with no running water, flush toilets, hot food or electricity, Samantha Rumby could be excused if it sounded like her imagination was running wild.
Her descriptions of the devastation — and desperation — left in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina sounded like the script for a post-apocalypse Hollywood thriller.
"When we left, there was a line of ambulances on the side of Interstate 10," said the 32-year-old employee of a medical supply company, who fled Wednesday morning from her apartment in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans. "The helicopters were bringing out the flood victims and you could see children through the opened doors. There were helicopters everywhere. It was like the evacuation of Vietnam."
As Rumby drove west on the interstate to escape the stricken city, she was stunned by another sight.
"There were hitch-hikers," she said. "People with backpacks, whole families carrying little babies, trying to get rides. I would've stopped, but I had two cats and a dog in my car. I even saw a monk in his monk outfit walking down the interstate. It was like those Mel Gibson movies, the 'Road Warrior.'" New Orleans evacuees tell horror stories

Flooding in New Orleans will only get worse
Thursday, September 01, 2005
By MARK SCHLEIFSTEIN
Newhouse News Service
NEW ORLEANS -- The catastrophic flooding that filled the bowl that is New Orleans on Monday and Tuesday will only get worse over the next few days because rainfall from Hurricane Katrina continues to flow into Lake Pontchartrain from north shore rivers and streams, and east winds and a 17.5-foot storm crest on the Pearl River block the water's outflow.
The lake is normally 1 foot above sea level, while the adjoining metropolitan New Orleans is an average of 6 feet below sea level. But a combination of storm surge and rainfall from Katrina have raised the lake's surface to 6 feet above sea level, or more.
All of that water moving from the lake has found several holes in the lake's banks -- all pouring into New Orleans.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin warned Tuesday evening that an attempt to plug the holes in the 17th Street Canal had failed, and the floodwaters were expected to continue to rise rapidly throughout the night. Eventually, Nagin said, the water could reach as high as 3 feet above sea level Flooding in New Orleans will only get worse

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 1 (UPI) -- Post-hurricane flood waters as deep as 20 feet began to recede in New Orleans Thursday as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wrestled with levee damage.
Maj. Gen. Dan Riley, chief of the corps' engineers, estimated the floodwaters had receded by as much as 2 feet overnight and would continue to flow out of the city at a rate of about a half-inch per hour, the New Orleans Times Picayune reported. New Orleans flood waters start receding

Thousands Could Be Dead, New Orleans Mayor Says
UPDATED: 8:55 am EDT September 1, 2005
A medical official says the evacuation of the Superdome in New Orleans has stopped because of shots fired at military helicopters.
"We have suspended operations until they gain control of the Superdome," said Richard Zeuschlag, head of Acadian Ambulance, which was handling the evacuation of sick and injured people from the Superdome.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said Hurricane Katrina has "most likely" killed thousands of people.
That would make it the deadliest natural disaster in the United States since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire that killed as many as 6,000 people. It would also be the nation's deadliest hurricane since 1900, when an estimated 12,000 people were killed in Galveston, Texas.
Developments
Major developments in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina:
* * The first of nearly 25,000 refugees being sheltered at the Superdome in New Orleans arrive at Houston's Astrodome, where they will stay until floodwaters recede.
* Officials start evacuating 10,000 people - patients, staff and refugees - out of nine hospitals in the New Orleans area without power, using generators that are running low on fuel, or battling floodwaters.
* Tenet Healthcare Corp. asks Louisiana State Police and the U.S. Coast Guard to help evacuate one of its fully functioning hospitals after a supply truck carrying food, water and medical supplies was held up by gunmen.
* New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin orders 1,500 police to leave their search-and-rescue missions and return to the streets to stop looting. He says looters would be arrested and jailed.
* The Red Cross says it has collected $21 million, nearly $15 million of that from individual donations through its Web site. Some people offer up their homes as temporary shelters, listing information on the Internet.
* In Washington, the Bush administration is working to put a price tag on the government's share of the recovery effort, which Bush will submit in an emergency budget request to Congress in the days ahead.
* Bush says the government has sent 5.4 million precooked meals, 13.4 million liters of water, more than 1,000 search and rescue personnel and the floating hospital ship USNS Comfort to the Gulf Coast.
* Rubber and timber shipments set to dock in New Orleans will unload at the Port of Houston Thursday - the first of many rerouted cargo shipments the port may receive.
Wynton Marsalis, Usher, John Mellencamp and Green Day say they will participate in a Hurricane Katrina telethons to raise funds for the American Red Cross and other organizations. Jerry Lewis' annual Labor Day fundraiser will join in as well.
Previous Stories:
* September 1, 2005: Bush: 'New Communities Will Flourish'
* August 31, 2005: Thousands Could Be Dead, New Orleans Mayor Says
* August 31, 2005: White House To Release Oil From Federal Reserves To Boost Supply
* August 31, 2005: New Orleans Mayor: Entire City Could Flood
* August 30, 2005: Rescuers Search For Katrina Survivors Along Gulf Coast
* August 30, 2005: Katrina Shreds Superdome Roof
* August 30, 2005: Oil Prices Top $70 A Barrel After Katrina
* August 30, 2005: U.S. Airlines Take Direct Hit From Katrina, Oil Prices
* August 30, 2005: Katrina Among Costliest U.S. Storms
* August 30, 2005: Report: At Least 50 Dead In Coastal Mississippi
* August 29, 2005: Katrina Damage Blocks Phone Calls To Stricken Area
* August 29, 2005: Bush Considers Tapping Petroleum Reserve
* August 29, 2005: Superdome Roof Ripped As Katrina Nears New Orleans
* August 28, 2005: For Mississippi, Katrina Prompts Memories Of Camille
* August 26, 2005: Katrina Strengthens; 4 Dead, 5 Missing
Superdome Evacuation Stops After Shots Fired At Military Chopper

A million people fled the New Orleans area before Katrina arrived. But former Mayor Sidney Barthelemy estimated 80,000 were trapped in the flooded city and urged U.S. President George W. Bush to send more troops.
Katrina refugees for Texas, New Orleans in chaos

MIAMI, Florida, August 31, 2005 (ENS) - New Orleans now is trying to cope with rising flood waters as water from Lake Ponchartrain and the Mississippi River flows into the bowl-shaped city. Katrina Death Toll Climbs, New Orleans Swamped as Levees Break

I address this next especially to the highly sensitive Left, most of whom have never been to Louisiana, and think of it as That state where Mississippi Burning happened, or maybe it was In the Heat of the Night?
If you're from that state, you simply know the levees are a sinking project. For most people, the words "Army Corps of Engineers" are not part of everyday conversation. If you live there, or trace your family there within a generation, it's stamped on you at birth. You know that they're fighting a losing battle, or if you don't, you're deluding yourself. If you've ever seen any of the relevant bodies of water up close, you have an instinctive understanding that the ACE is fighting a rearguard action.
With the facts nicely out of the way, the Left has decided to use the bodies floating in the streets as a perverse sort of political ammunition, so let's put this little meme into the ground now. With a stake in its heart.
The city of New Orleans lies below sea level; if they want to live there, why couldn't they just raise the $45,000,000 a year locally to maintain their own dikes? They could have covered that with a hotel bed tax and a property tax hike of less than $50 a year. The city's budget is already a half-billion per year. Which $45 million out of that was more important than the levees?
I no longer see the Left as a set of political opponents. I understand them now to be what they are: An uncompromising, barely human mass of malignancy, that exists only to be crushed electorally and culturally once and for all. Or, as a wiser man than I put it, The Evil Party. Politicizing Tragedy or The American Left and Human Filth: Distinguish If Possible

"The challenge is an engineering nightmare," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said on ABC's "Good Morning America."
As the waters continued to rise in New Orleans, the Pentagon began mounting one of the biggest search-and-rescue operations in U.S. history, sending four Navy ships to the Gulf Coast with drinking water and other emergency supplies, along with the hospital ship USNS Comfort, search helicopters and eight swift-water rescue teams. Red Cross workers from across the country converged on the devastated region.
The Army Corps of Engineers said it planned to use heavy-duty Chinook helicopters to drop 3,000-pound sandbags Wednesday into the 500-foot gap in the failed floodwall. But the agency said it was having trouble getting the sandbags and dozens of 15-foot highway barriers to the site because the city's waterways were blocked by loose barges, boats and large debris. ~ New Orleans the lost city

A full day after the Big Easy thought it had escaped Katrina's full fury, two levees broke and spilled water into the streets on Tuesday, swamping an estimated 80 percent of the bowl-shaped, below-sea-level city, inundating miles and miles of homes and rendering much of New Orleans uninhabitable for weeks or months.
"We are looking at 12 to 16 weeks before people can come in," Mayor Ray Nagin said on ABC's "Good Morning America, "and the other issue that's concerning me is have dead bodies in the water. At some point in time the dead bodies are going to start to create a serious disease issue."
To repair one of the levees holding back Lake Pontchartrain, officials late Tuesday dropped 3,000-pound sandbags from helicopters and hauled dozens of 15-foot concrete barriers into the breach. Maj. Gen. Don Riley of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said officials also had a more audacious plan: finding a barge to plug the 500-foot hole. Engineering nightmare': Water keeps rising in New Orleans

With a 300-foot section of an earth-and-concrete levee on New Orleans' 17th Street Canal gushing water into Jefferson Parish yesterday...
The break was not the "worst nightmare" many have feared. That would have been a break in the 27-foot levees that hold back the Mississippi, which flows by at a million cubic feet per second.
Other nearby areas, such as St. Bernard Parish, are flooded by water that poured over the levees along the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain.
"The issue of the structural integrity [of levees] is a growing issue across the country," said the University of Maryland's Galloway.
"We're discovering that we really don't know a lot about the genealogical roots of the levees," he said. He was referring to the history of such embankments, which farmers or local authorities began building 35 to 100 years ago and which were added to over the decades without full documentation.Plan for coping with levee break: patch, then pump

Others envision an expensive Everglades-style project to restore thousands of acres of wetlands to absorb floods and surges. At any rate, the government, experts say, is slowly realizing the limits of the levee-and-canal system. "The Corps has started to realize that, often at the call of the people and legislatures, they have done projects to tame rivers ... and not looking at them as dynamic environmental systems that can't be tamed," says Mr. Van Bruggen. http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0831/p03s01-ussc.html

Authorities also reported a levee breach in the western part of the city. A levee along the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain gave way forcing dozens of residents to flee or scramble to rooftops. ~ http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0831/p03s01-ussc.html

Katrina kills 50 in one Mississippi county
Tropical storm heads toward Tennessee, Ohio River Valley
Tuesday, August 30, 2005; Posted: 1:52 a.m. EDT (05:52 GMT)
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Hurricane Katrina left at least 56 people dead Monday, about 50 of them in one Mississippi county, CNN confirmed, and the toll was expected to climb following one of the most powerful hurricanes to hit the northern Gulf Coast in a half century. Katrina kills 50

New Orleans braces for monster hurricane
Crescent City under evacuation; storm may overwhelm levees Monday, August 29, 2005; Posted: 12:10 a.m. EDT (04:10 GMT)
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- New Orleans braced for a catastrophic blow from Hurricane Katrina overnight, as forecasters predicted the Category 5 storm could drive a wall of water over the city's levees. New Orleans braces

FEMA Prepares for Katrina Landfall
Reported By: Jennifer Leslie
Web Editor: Steve Dixon
Last Modified: 8/27/2005 10:09:35 PM
FEMA Prepares for Katrina Landfall

Preparations Underway for Katrina's Landfall
Thursday August 25, 5:52 pm ET
Nationwide reaches out to policyholders with automated phone calls
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Aug. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., the country's seventh-largest property and casualty insurance company, has claims representatives and agents prepared to assist customers as Katrina make landfall this week. Preparations Underway

Bush Monitoring Katrina Landfall
Thursday, August 25, 2005
MIAMI — The Bush administration is ready to leap into action with help and resources as soon as Tropical Storm Katrina hits land, the White House said Thursday. Bush Monitoring Katrina Landfall

Hurricane Katrina Lands in Fla., Killing 2
By JILL BARTON, Associated Press Writer
Thu Aug 25, 7:51 PM ET
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Hurricane Katrina dumped sheets of rain, kicked up the surf and blew strong winds along the densely populated southeast coast Thursday, killing two people shortly after it struck land.
Katrina's maximum sustained winds increased to 80 mph before the Category 1 storm made landfall along the Miami-Dade and Broward county line... Hurricane Katrina Lands in Fla., Killing 2