Greg Palast: Expert Fired Who Warned New Orleans Levees Would Burst

[Louisiana1976]

I don't get to use the word "heroic" very often. Van Heerden is heroic. The Deputy Director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, it was van Heerden who told me, on camera, something so horrible, so frightening, that, if it weren't for his international stature, it would have been hard to believe:

"By midnight on Monday the White House knew. Monday night I was at the state Emergency Operations Center and nobody was aware that the levees had breached. Nobody."

On the night of August 29, 2005, van Heerden was shut in at the state emergency center in Baton Rouge, providing technical advice to the rescue effort. As Hurricane Katrina came ashore, van Heerden and the State Police there were high-fiving it: Katrina missed the city of New Orleans, turning east.

What they did not know was that the levees had cracked. For crucial hours, the White House knew, but withheld the information that the levees of New Orleans had broken and that the city was about to drown. Bush's boys did not notify the State of the flood to come, which would have allowed police to launch an emergency hunt for the thousands who remained stranded.

<snip>

more...
http://crooksandliars.com/greg-palast/katrina-four-years-later-expert-fired

[Aragorn]

1. OMG!

I can't believe it! gwb lied!

[omega minimo]

2. Katrina NOLA was genocide.

[indepat]

3. Surely Bush's boys did not fail to relay information of a pending catastrophe for hours for that be

dereliction of duty beyond any comprehension. So what else is new, what other monstrous revelations are lurking by the drove to be dribbled out in bits? :grr:

[defendandprotect]

4. I think "Katrina" remains in the public mind as a total exposure of Bush fascism . . .

And, as I recall it, the levees built by Army Corps were not sufficient --

too low, I think.

If we don't get control of corporations and our government, we'll all be "KATRINA'd"

[PSzymeczek]

17. And cthe administration

would neither authorize nor fund the Corp to make the levee system capable of withstanding such a storm.

[defendandprotect]

22. Right . .. was it general maintenance or repairs . .. not sure?

[ixion]

5. kick

The US response to Katrina was criminal negligence, at best, and criminal malfeasance, more than likely.

[AuntPatsy]

6. already knew...and still? NO 's waits....

[Nikki Stone1]

7. kick

:kick:

[alsame]

8. The Katrina response alone is

grounds for that admin to be prosecuted. Ethnic cleansing, GOP style. With the added bonus of taking down a Democratic Governor.

[Nikki Stone1]

9. "The Big Easy to the Big Empty" on youtube (PALAST)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkpv6rpJEI8

[EFerrari]

23. Includes interview with fired whistleblower. Must see video.

[PDJane]

10. I knew this.......read the book

And yes, it's quite true that the government should have compensated every single homeowner in New Orleans for the damage that was their fault. Legally, they are responsible for the whole damn thing.

[Nikki Stone1]

13. What book?

Thanks.

[PDJane]

15. Oh......sorry. The Palast Book...........

Armed Madhouse. Interesting book....funny and infuriating by turns....and sometimes at the same time.

[Nikki Stone1]

18. Thanks.

I'll get a copy.

[Wilms]

11. No one ever imagined that...oh. Wait. Wrong disaster. n/t

[lapfog_1]

12. It was intentional.

They didn't have a plan to create a Hurricane. What they had was a plan (probably shared among 4 or 5 people), a contingency plan, that IF a hurricane hit NO, and IF the levees broke, they would do nothing. They would let the areas they KNEW would flood do just that, and, they hoped, become uninhabitable, especially for the people that presently inhabited those areas.

It wasn't a plan to let 1200 people die, just remove 100,000 to 200,000 mostly poor, mostly black, and, especially, mostly democratic voters from NO. And move them to other places. Places where their votes wouldn't count (if they bother to vote).

And it could be carried out by just 3 or 4 people. Bush, Cheney, Michael Brown, maybe one or two others. And Brown might have even been the unwitting pawn, not really in on the plan, but willing to go along with it. And excused as being mere ineptitude and incompetence. But they knew what they were allowing to be done. They planned it.

They probably had other contingency plans for other mostly democratic areas. Earthquake response in, say, San Francisco or LA, Tornado response for Minnesota, hurricane response for the florida keys. Any place that was majority democrats would be depopulated. Intentionally.

Evil people doing evil things. or rather, by their inaction, allowing evil things to happen. To their benefit.

ACORN is registering too many poor people of color. ACORN must be destroyed. NO has too many democratic members of the house, NO will be allowed to be destroyed. And what isn't destroyed will be redistricted to be safe republican seats in Congress.

They were two of the most evil people to ever hold power in any country. Sustained by a portion of the population that thrives on hate and "screw you" attitude. Look at how they now react to losing power at the federal level... like the liquid metal Terminator meeting his doom in the vat of molten steel, they thrash around helplessly... but they still thrash.

[Nikki Stone1]

14. + 100000

+

[PDJane]

16. Yes.

treasonous, traitorous, and amoral bunch.

[BlooInBloo]

19. It is certainly difficult to regard all of the stuff as a massive coincidence.

[PDJane]

20. I realize that coincidence

tends to look like much else. However, this kind of 'coincidence' has left a lot of footprints...and the've been discovered by too many people. Even incompetence doesn't quite cover this much dirt.

[defendandprotect]

24. Agree --

[notadmblnd]

21. They wanted people to die!

The entire point of bush ignoring it was to maximize casualties. No one will ever be able to convince me of anything different.

[lapfog_1]

25. No, probably not.

It was worse than that... they didn't CARE if they died.

[notadmblnd]

26. I listened to the police scanner in NO that week.

a fire broke out in the Superdome, IIRC it was the Wednesday after the storm. If it weren't for the NO fire chief refusing to leave until the water tanker got there, that place would have been locked down with all those people in it and they would have been left to die in the fire. The National Guard there repeatedly told the NOFD to leave because they were ready to "pull the plug on the operation."

The archives here at DU should still have the threads that were posted that week.