Truly Bad Films

Saturday, September 03, 2005

Ultra-Catastrophe

Updated!
Chertoff, in his speech on behalf of FEMA today, stated that no one in FEMA ever imagined that a hurricane might cause the levees in New Orleans to breach. He compared the unlikeliness of such an oddity - he called it an "ultra-catastrophe" - to a bomb going off during a hurricane.

One reporter said to Chertoff, "Let me get this straight. We know the levees were built to hold in a Cat 3 storm. But you're saying that when a Cat 4 storm hit, FEMA had no idea that the levees were not engineered for that?" You should have seen Chertoff tap dance then. It was like watching a giraffe fall down a flight of stairs. Even Pres. Bush lept onto the prevarication bandwagon by saying no one predicted the failure of the levees. What he meant, of course, was the same as what Chertoff meant: No one in FEMA had predicted it.

Officials in Louisiana almost at once began listing all the experts who for decades have warned that the levees would break in a powerful storm. In fact, the levee already broke once in 1965 when hurricane Betsy came through. Neil Frank, a famous hurricane specialist, spent his whole career warning the government of exactly that secnario. Ivor van Heerden, an LSU engineer, predicted this catatrophe and presented the results of his studies to the Army Corps of Engineers. But they would not take him seriously. And last October, Joel K. Bourne, Jr. published an article in National Geographic discussing the certainty that disaster loomed and that nothing was being done to avert it. In reality, it seems that everyone but FEMA knew the levees would break. The question was only, when?

So, my point is this: Chertoff = Tap dancing liar. M. Brown = Gigantic, inflatable moron.

In other news, many colleges and universities are urging students and profs who are displaced from their studies and teaching in New Orleans to transfer to other campuses as "Visiting" students and teachers. Virginia Tech is accepting applications until next Wednesday!

1 Comments:

At 6:02 PM, Blogger bunnyjo georg said...

You are a delightful, talented blogger. And funny! And creative! And right. Thank you for giving the rest of us a taste of what good blogging can be.

 

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