I learned of the Katrina Blogswarm from Shakespeare’s Sister. Apparently the idea originated with King Cranky of Royally Kranked.
The idea is that since today can be considered the first anniversary of the onslaught of Katrina, those of us in the blogosphere who pay attention to such things should devote at least one post to Katrina’s aftermath. The press is paying attention to this as well, of course, but we can count on them to make minimal mention of the near-criminal incompetence of the Bush administration in dealing with the massive human cost of that disaster.
I am not certain what I can add in the way of analysis. Shakespeare’s Sister says it most succinctly, I think, when she states that “Katrina was the inevitable failure in the wake of Bush Conservatism’s success“. Perhaps the best I can do is to point out a few items that illustrate the extent of this administration’s failure:
Despite four emergency spending bills approved by Congress to provide more than $110 billion in aid, federal agencies have spent only $44 billion. Even as President Bush insisted last week and in his radio address Saturday that $110 billion was a strong commitment, he conceded that the recovery effort was plagued with bureaucratic hurdles.
The scale of the catastrophe continues to overwhelm the government’s capacity to respond. Aid agencies are only now contending with the long-term needs of hundreds of thousands of evacuees and with the landscape of shattered houses and public infrastructure that will take years to restore.
- Much of the money that is being released is wasted, or gobbled up in non-competitive bidding:
The government awarded 70 per cent of its contracts for hurricane Katrina work without full competition, wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in the process, says a U.S. House of Representatives’ study released Thursday by Democrats.
The report, a comprehensive overview of U.S. government audits on Katrina contracting, found that out of $10.6 billion US in contracts awarded after the storm last year, more than $7.4 billion were handed out with limited or no competitive bidding.
In addition, 19 contracts worth $8.75 billion were found to have wasted taxpayer money at least in part, costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the report. It cited numerous instances of double-billing by contractors and cases of trailers meant as emergency housing sitting empty in Arkansas.
- The AP has a point-by-point list of the promises that the Bush administration has failed to fulfill:
The job of clearing debris left by the storm remains unfinished, and has been plagued by accusations of fraud and price gouging. Tens of thousands of families still live in trailers or mobile homes, with no indication of when or how they will be able to obtain permanent housing. Important decisions about rebuilding and improving flood defenses have been delayed. And little if anything has been done to ensure the welfare of the poor in a rebuilt New Orleans.
Despite aggressive efforts to repair the New Orleans levee system, it isn’t clear whether it would withstand a hurricane with heavy storm surge this year, the head of the Army Corps of Engineers conceded Saturday.
Lt. Gen. Carl Strock said the agency was tracking Tropical Storm Ernesto, churning in the Caribbean with 60 mph winds Saturday. The storm could be near hurricane strength by the time it reaches Jamaica today, the National Hurricane Center said.
- ThinkProgress has produced an exhaustive Katrina timeline.
- And let us not forget that, when the Fratboy-In-Chief said afterwards “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees”, he was, as always, lying through his teeth:
Video showing President George W Bush being warned on the eve of Hurricane Katrina that New Orleans’ flood defences could be overcome has emerged.
The footage, obtained by the Associated Press, also shows Mr Bush being told of the risk to evacuees in the Superdome.
...
Mr Bush does not ask any questions as the situation is outlined to him.
No comments
Comments feed for this article