Kevin Drum posts a devastating chronology of the Bush administration’s treatment of the likelihood of catastrophic flood damage in New Orleans. Read the whole, depressing timeline. His conclusion:
Actions have consequences. No one could predict that a hurricane the size of Katrina would hit this year, but the slow federal response when it did happen was no accident. It was the result of four years of deliberate Republican policy and budget choices that favor ideology and partisan loyalty at the expense of operational competence. It’s the Bush administration in a nutshell.
I heard an interview on NPR yesterday with a Dutch civil engineering expert (the Netherlands is a a country that is largely below sea level). He noted that the flood defences around New Orleans were designed to protect against a once in a century event. The Netherlands, after tragic floods that killed 1,800 people in 1953, designed their defences to protect against a once in 10,000 years event. It cost a lot more, but compared to the cost of failure he said it was “peanuts”.