On Tue, 2025-09-02 at 21:53 -0700, Frank Reichert wrote: > Good evening, Dave! > > I share your pain. And you'll soon see why. > > Dave Laird wrote to everyone... > > > This is not America. This is some other-worldly country, that George W. > > Bush, Jr. fantasized along with his ascension to power; this is a pit of > > iniquity where his imminence could not be bothered to leave his vacation > > to attend to the funeral of thousands of innocent people in the Deep > > South.
How many congresscritters left their vacation? Oh yeah, only those who had homes there and lost their homes. And why should *any* president go about mugging up funerals? > This is a den of vipers where he sits idly by watching his > > butt-buddy bureaucrats intone pious-sounding phrases, moving their lips > > but not their hearts. Good to know you can see into the hearts of people you don't know or have the opportunity to be around. ;) > I notice that CBS News tonight reflected on the fact that not > many of those who were enduring this catastrophe were white. > Most of the white population had either already evacuated, or > made arrangements early on to to avoid the worst. So what are you saying? Surely you don't suggest racism on the part of the hurricane? And those who chose to stay chose to stay. > Almost the > entire gauntlet of those desperate souls were black, African > Americans, most of which were impoverished. Even more so now > than before. > > Why did it take five wrenching days to get food, water, and > immediate assistance while thousands perished? Several US > military bases surround the area, including Corpus Christi, TX, > Biloxi, Mississippi. Well, those places are not storehouses for such items. While it is no great secret it is also not well know that most of our MRE and water resources are in fact stored at sea, not in every base in the US. > It was also pointed out on CBS News tonight, that only a small > fraction of Louisiana's National Guard were present to respond to > this catastrophe. The rest, including much of the State National > Guard's equipment were in Iraq! Hogwash. Of the approximately 11,000 guardsmen in LA, approximately 3000 are deployed (and due to return in the next month). Of the remaining, approximately 3K were active and waiting prior to the storm's arrival, and 6K were on standby. Three days prior to the arrival of Katrina, 10,000 National Guardsmen had been deployed ready to help. News flash: pretty much all of the equipment that would be useful in this disaster would be useless in Iraq and thus not shipped there. Iraq isn't exactly wet. Also, while you don't hear about it on the press because they don't get to whine about it, guardsmen were stranded and out of communication when the storm and flood destroyed communication lines as well as transportation routes. > You're right about one important thing as well. As you just > pointed out, this amounts to a failure on the magnitude and scale > of most third world countries, that even respond much more > quickly, and seem to have more energy to save the living than our > own Federal government displayed in this tragedy. So uhh how fast was the response to the Tsunami then? Oh that's right it took weeks. > The stench of the lying bodies on the streets and bridges in New > Orleans matches nicely with the stench of the present > Administration in power over the executive branch of this > prostitute government. I am deeply appalled by it all, and I > don't particularly care what people might think of me as a result > of my criticism. > > It was mentioned just earlier tonight on a documentary, that the > paltry sum appropriated by Congress for immediate aid to the > victims in this tragedy is about as much as it takes to float the > US invasion of Iraq for one week! I guess we know where the > hearts and minds of the current Administration lie. Sure, they knew a disaster of this magnitude was coming and chose to not do anything about it. Pshaw. > > People had foretold what has happened in New Orleans years and years ago, > > and despite all the high-technology and verbiage from Homeland Security's > > Alan Chertok, no one bothered to ever take those warnings seriously. No > > one bothered to even examine the prodigious number of learned studies that > > indicated what would happen if a Category 5 hurricane hit New Orleans, > > even a glancing blow. No one in government even bothered to examine the > > predictions about Biloxi, many of which were mentioned here, in this > > humble place, as recently as three years ago. Too little, too late. > Actually, the Army CoE *wanted* to build those levees to support a cat5 hurricane but years and years and years ago (you know when they were built) they were told that a cat 3 build was sufficient. It would have cost many billions more back then. This was in the late sixties. I'm sure somehow though you'll blame the current administration for it. The levees were built in response to a cat 4 on the verge of cat 5 that hit NO in 1965 known as Betsy. Look it up if you like, it was the last hurricane to bear this name. Katrina will probably be retired as well. So the idea of a cat4-cat5 hurricane flooding out NO was prominent in the minds of all concerned in the late sixties. If you want to blame an administration, blame that one. If the current administration only allows funding for a cat 3 protection level after this one, you can blame the next one on this it if you like. Just for further reference, the projects involved in the flood protection of the area came from the Flood Control Act of 1965. Further projects on it came about by the Water Resources Development Acts of 1974, 1986, 1990, and 1992. The latest round of major projects had approximately three quarters of a billion spent on it. According to the project managers, the max they had the capacity to handle in 2006 if given the funding for it is about 20 million. That was back in May. Why? Well short of a big storm, you can't just rebuild a levy. In 2004, the capability of the local area was 6.6 million. The project (for the area where the main breach occurred) was not targeted for completion until 2018, it was 80% complete. The billions that have been spent on flood control since 1910 (or even 1965) in New Orleans goes to the continual pumping of the water table and natural water collection results out of the bowl. Remember, the city mostly lies below sea level. Let us say the current administration and Congress had increased the funding by a factor of ten, a full order magnitude. What difference would it have made? None. How about a factor of 100? Again, none. A conservative estimate of what it would have cost in today's dollars to rebuild those levees to withstand a cat 5 and accompanying flooding is 15 billion before the government gets involved. With the government involved, figure a good 30 billion. And of course, we must also remember that the main responsibility for immediate disaster response lies with the state and local governments, as it should be. Indeed, the Army Corps of Engineers did have a project set up for next year to study what it would take to move to cat4-5 protection. But those are considered "100 year storm intensities", and clearly they felt they had the time. Given the last one was in 1965, I can understand their point. > My guess is that we haven't seen or heard the freight train > coming down the tunnel at full speed as a result of this tragedy > either. Six refineries have been knocked out. The Shrub wants > to offer millions of barrels of petroleum from the Nation's > Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Problem is, we no longer have the > refinery capacity to process any more petroleum than is already > available. The price of petroleum actually dropped today on the > world market. Why? Because certain countries have increased their output as a result of the storm, because more than the US has/is/is considering releasing crude from it's reserves, and because the price was artificially high due to speculation. Remember, oil is a commodity and is traded just like other commodities on the futures market. Oil has been prepped for a fall for a while now. Its price was/is artificially high in that it was not representative of the relationship between supply and demand. Germany is considering releasing 2 million barrels per day for the next 30 days, and that is just crude. But the refinery bit is partly true. One of the measures being taken is a significant relaxing of the environmental controls placed on refineries. With these out of the picture, most refineries can increase throughput significantly. Further, the relaxation of the environmental requirements also re-opens many refineries from overseas as gasoline suppliers-- ones we lost last year due to the increase in restrictions. Note that it takes about 10-15 days for gasoline/oil to reach the US form Europe. Gas prices have also started to fall, right on time. We've reached the end of the "driving season", and thus a drop in demand that naturally occurs this time of year resulting in lower prices. No conspiracy needed, no greedy oil barons needed. Just plain natural processes. Also, as oil companies "take stock" of the damage, the damage to the majority of refineries and rigs is less than initially thought. In fact, you may have seen the "oil rig" banging up against that bridge. In truth, it wasn't an oil rig, but a hotel platform. The realization that the damage was not as extensive as initially thought to be, combined with the pre-hurricane run-up finishing off, and the release of oil reserves from around the world, and the increase in production coming from the Saudis, a lowering of oil prices is expected. If they didn't start to come down even a little bit, I'd be suspicious. > The problem is, one third of this nation's > domestic capacity to deliver and refine petroleum was wiped out > in this catastrophe. We have not built a new refinery in the US > for over three decades! Due to government meddling, I'll point out. Meddling that has been going on for decades. Mainly due to environazis. > > Despite my years of being somewhat jaundiced about government in general, > > I will never look at the federal government in quite the same way again. I sincerely hope everyone reconsiders a lot of things. Among the the wisdom of building a major city in a bowl that sits below sea level on the hurricane coast. Not to mention living there. Also among them people need to slough off the expectation they got from Hollywood about what can be done. There are these pesky rules called "the law of physics as we know them." And they wreaked havoc on us this time. Why people think the Army or anyone could make food, water, and people movers suddenly appear in any given spot is beyond me. Even people who should know better. Sure, the movies make it seem instant, but reality is far from that illusion. It doesn't matter how many air bases or army bases are within flight distance. What matters are where the supplies are. If the food supplies to handle that are in say California, you still have to get them from California to the air bases. I've served with the units in LA, probably something none of you can say. I know what they can and can not do. When I was at Fort Hood, TX we had to get our MRE supplies from Oregon and ... New Orleans. These supplies are stored at sea and on the coasts to provide rapid overseas deployment capability of mass quantities. Any store-piles in LA are gone. Nearby didn't have them because their supply was in the flood zone and surrounding areas. They were shipped by truck because more urgent assets were needed to be shipped by air. Assets such as Swift boats and reconnaissance equipment, as well as helicopters. Despite all the conspiracy nuts claiming to the contrary over the last several decades, we have never had the capability to control the supplies and infrastructure in the event of an emergency like this. A president can issue all the EOs his or her heart desires; it make no difference. We don't have detailed hi-res satellite surveillance of the US. So we had no realistic reconnaissance of the area. It took 3 days to get satellite images. That said, the Army did in fact ship and deploy drones as best they could. To give many of you who have no clue, it takes an active duty army unit a day just to muster. That does not include vehicle prep and readiness. I'm talking an active, otherwise prepped for immediate deployment combat unit. New Orleans was a city of half a million people. Moving millions of MREs takes a lot more time than a few hours. Between roads not being traversable and not knowing in advance localized ground transport comes to worse than a standstill. It comes down to "crap go back and find another route". With choppers you have longer flight times than people realize. He big ones are interminably slow and don't have the kind of capacity we'd need to do what many claim we could have. Even if every chopper in the US Army, Navy, and Coast Guard were just feet out of the danger zone ready when the storm hit, and they moved in immediately as it was safe to do so, covering that much terrain and performing rescues of this magnitude is not possible. The ACE *had* three DTOS (Deployable Tactical Operations System) units in the area. All three were destroyed in the storm. These are the command centers for disaster, and for this area specifically hurricane, recovery operations. They are the command and control. With these gone, a major link in the chain was destroyed. BTW, this system (a national system) consists primarily and centrally of tractor trailer trailers. Choppers won't handle these. Also a chief priority in a flood situation is doing what you can to *stop* the flooding, or at least slow it down. It took a day to determine there were levee breaches. > Boy, you got that one right! But it's probably not over by a > long shot either. Wait for the economic costs to hit home! And > it will. A major slice of the deep water ports that carry this > nation's cargo transit the region, including food essentials. It > was predicted just today that we will be paying a LOT MORE in the > coming weeks and months as this cargo is diverted elsewhere. Actually the lion's share of Gulf Coast and specifically NO ports are for goods from Latin America. The primary imports that come though the Port of N.O. are: chemicals, cocoa beans, coffe, and petroleum. In roughly that order, IIRC. Exports, however, are another matter. > And, then there's the oil thing again. Just today, the cost for > ocean transit of petroleum to the US has DOUBLED! Now, I wonder > just how something like that happened, don't you? No, not really. It happens every year at this time. It's called "hurricane season". Insurance companies have increased rates for hurricane seasons a pretty bog-standard way of life. The other massive contributor to the increase in trans-oceanic crude shipping costs is the surge in demand for the ships. We may well find ourselves in a ship shortage. Europe ahs already started booking rather large shipments. Naturally, a sharp rise in demand of a limited supply will result in higher costs. Nothing sinister there, Frank. > > They are hideously-inadequate at the job of protection, and even worse at > > responding like decent human beings in the face of an unprecedented > > disaster. The irony of that statement is practically beyond belief. > > Now, let's see how many of the countries where U.S. forces have responded > > to help others in need in the past will send help. Let's just wait and see. > > I guess the UN will likely come in to help bail us out! Wouldn't > that be a humiliating outcome, but probably predictable under our > current leadership's mindset. I'm not about to discount that > possibility either. It likely WILL happen. Actually, Sri Lanka (remember them?) has offered help, the Saudis have, even Argentina. No humiliation involved. The UN won't help out, ad it has nothing to do with who is or isn't POTUS. We're too big for them to help. Seriously. Do some digging into the UN rules and requirements. California could shake off it's entire coast and the UN wont do anything beyond words and gratitude they still have their HQ on the East Coast. Besides, they don't have the funding or ability to handle something of this magnitude, and don't get involved unless they get all the credit. They are an agency bereft of anything decent. They've been finally caught with their pants down and their member somewhere it shouldn't be. As a result they need all the good press they can get. The US will be fine w/o UN help and the UN knows it. So what they'll do is offer token assistance in the form of some bodies, likely their flood experts, some token water purification and storage stuff. They'll take the little bit of good press that gets them and be content, knowing full well the US is more than capable of providing water storage and purification supplies well in advance of the time it would take for the UN to get theirs here. We'll see interviews with UN flood people a few times, and that'll largely be it. America knows more about floods than Europe realizes though, so there won't be much use/need for them. > > > Most of the so-called evacuees were good tax-paying God-fearing citizens > > who went to work each day, paid their bills and tried to live good lives. > > No one, not even scurrilous the crumb-snatchers of society, deserve to be > > treated as poorly as our government are treating people in New Orleans, > > Biloxi and Gulfport. And it's being done in MY name, YOUR name, and in the > > name of good government. > > When talking about the US Federal government, it is an oxymoron > to call it 'good'. Again, immediate disaster relief is necessarily in the hand of the local government. I'll argue against the fed taking that over too. So should you, IMO. Another thing people need to and should take out of this (again), is that reliance on the government for such things is folly of monumental proportions. I'll say right now that if I were in Bush's shoes I'd have waited for the governor(s) to request the help. Hindsight be damned you likely would have done no different. Had Bush "jumped on it" like you and others claim he "should have" and it was not the massive disaster it is, there would have been claims of "wagging the dog" and "mugging for voter approval", assertions of him trying to get focus of of Iraq, and all manner of such things. Many of them likely from this very forum. Now, time for me to relay a little bit of media witness here. Last night, Bill O'Reilly had a woman from NO on. Was she complaining about a lack of food. No. She was complaining the food was cold. A lot. She was complaining about getting cold MREs. I was stunned. Absolutely stunned. I was not stunned that O'Reilly let it go, as he was too focused on attacking the response. The brutal truth of such conditions are that feeding thousands is secondary to rescuing those who will die from the flood waters. Perhaps you feel different, but in my case I much prefer to go hungry and even thirsty for a few days while others who are in more dire straights than I get help. I much prefer my dead rotting body be left alone while others are saved. I much prefer my flooded store or house to burn down or be fully looted if it means more people drown. Sadly, most people in the press and pundits on mailing lists never seem to think about it. The primary goal of the rescue and disaster recovery persons is to get people out of the danger area first. Anything less is sheer stupidity. It is a form of triage - determining who is worst off, who can be saved and going from there. For battlefield medics (for example) and doctors, that sometimes means turning away from the sucking mortal chest wound to fix a compound fracture. In this case, the priority was and should be, to people trapped on rooftops, people trapped under rooftops (where you can determine they are there), and so on. It does not go to looters, it does not go to shipping food instead of search and rescue equipment. This hurricane hit a massively large area. Sure, everyone is focusing on NO, and with good reason. But the area outside of NO was hit "like normal". New Orleans is so bad because it was built BELOW SEA LEVEL, and because contrary to popular belief everything is not built to withstand the worst conceivable disaster. There is not a damned thing the current OR prior administration could have done to prevent this tragedy. Nothing. The scale of such an undertaking (moving to cat 5 protection levels) is monstrous. Iraq or no Iraq, it would not have been done, it could not have been done. Six months ago I doubt anyone here would have supported him if Bush wanted to do it. Be honest with yourselves. You know you would not have. I would not have, and I can admit that. I wouldn't support it today. At best we'd have dismissed it as political pandering, as a massive pork barrel project. A Bush attempt to create more government jobs to prop up a sagging economy for political gain for the 2006 congressional elections. You know it to be true. It would have involved kicking thousands out of their homes to make way for the new stuff. It would have involved an expenditure of billions. Hundreds. Why? It would have involved changing the SPH (Standard Project Hurricane) to a cat 5. This would have mandated ALL hurricane protection projects get upgraded. The cost to do that is staggering at best. http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lch/research/lahurclimo2.htm is a good source of data for those truly interested. I would not support that today, let alone six months ago or last year, war or no war. While we are at it, how many of you know that most of Idaho and parts of Eastern Washington are in a high risk earthquake zone? We are, in fact, in the highest risk rating levels. Same risk rating as Los Angeles. Should we mandate and have the government fund earthquake protection preparedness and resistance to the levels of California? I suspect the answer will be no. And with good reason. We all want to sit around and blame somebody, and as Libertarians we want to blame the government. Some things we can lay at government's feet. Their incessant interference with the economy has lead to increased poverty. Their incessant interference with the economy has lead to a bloated government that for some reason (government propaganda) the people think can work magic in disaster relief. (I've been a disaster relief worker. That has *never* been the case.) The government's incessant interference has contributed heavily to the population density of large cities (P&Z primarily). Incessant government support and funding of turning New Orleans area into a city lead directly to half a million people living in a coastal city that was below sea level. Indeed, the very existence of the levees exacerbated the problem. The very nature of the levees increases the water level of the areas, leading to a higher levee being needed. It is a positive feedback loop - and a black hole for money. The first levees only needed to be, and were, 3 feet high. AS of a week ago they were about 17 feet high. """ Louisiana has few barrier islands; therefore, the problem of overpopulation slowing down evacuation times, e.g. Florida, does not exist. New Orleans has high evacuation times due to a relative lack of major highways out of the city and dense population...I-10 is pretty much the only route of escape. But we do have our own unique problems. A lack of coastal irregularities and a general smooth Gulf of Mexico bottom make Cameron Parish ideal for maximum wave damage along its shores (Morgan). The land in lower sections of Southern Louisiana is slowly sinking and at the same time, quickly eroding away. In some places, the loss can be as much as a foot a year! The construction of levees around the Mighty Mississippi over the centuries has led to a rise in the level of the river, which could make a crevasse through the river not merely a nuisance, but a life-threatening fact of life. Each increase of the height of the river multiplies the havoc that could ensue if a break should occur in its banks. """ -- The NOAA (see link above). So you see, it is a never ending struggle of (geometrically!) increasing intensity. Had the government not subsidized this, I seriously doubt the situation would have been as dire due to far less people being there, or people/industry being much smarter about their construction and preparedness. Incessant government subsidization of living in areas that are not only at risk for extreme environmental and natural disasters, but experience them regularly, has lead to a false belief that "it is ok" to live in these areas. The Earthquake State, Hurricane States (The AKA Hurricane Coast), and "Tornado Alley" are all places that would have far less people living there if it were not for the government paying to rebuild all the time. Now I am not claiming the government should say "don't live there", I'm just saying it should not pay for the losses that *will* be incurred. I am saying that those of us in Idaho, Alaska, Montana, Texas, etc. should not be paying for the rebuilding of New Orleans, or the other areas hit. If the oil industry wants refineries there and the ports to supply them, they can build them. If the coffee industry wants a port there, they can pay for it. If Joe Six pack wants to live there, he can pay for it. If they can't afford it, they can go elsewhere. In fact, I hear tell from friends down there that a massive portion of those who left are not going to return. Indeed, I'd say that outside of that most will not return. It will likely take a good 8 weeks to pump out the water. That is the earliest reconstruction could begin. Then there will be months before significant population needs and infrastructure can be established. By this time, most who evacuated or were evacuated will have found a home elsewhere. Texas just significantly grew in population. And remember, Hurricane season ain't over. While Lee and Maria are not currently threatening land or areas already hit, we still have much of the season left, and Katrina wasn't considered as dangerous as it became in it's last days. Did you know that only half of the homeowners in New Orleans had flood insurance? In condos and apartment complexes, the insurance stuff is far trickier and they can take years to get sorted out. Speaking of Texas ... Texas demonstrates exactly who you should fault if anyone. The State of Louisiana. They failed to prepare for such an eventuality. Texas has planned for *years* for the total obliteration of the port city of Galveston, just as has happened with New Orleans. That is why they have been able to respond the way they have. The cots, the infrastructure, the whole shebang was ready to go as soon as they were given the word. Was LA prepared for this possibility? Nope. Not even close. And they had/have a higher risk factor due to New Orleans being below sea level. So why was Texas (Where Bush came from) prepared for this possibility yet Louisiana had not considered it? No, it wasn't Bush in either case. To lay this at Bush's feet is lunacy on all accounts. The National Guard left it's primary role of state militia and disaster relief long ago when it became part of the US Army. As such, the structure and layout of the NG assets changed dramatically. The decision to build the levees and flood/hurricane protection assets the way they were done was made in 1965-1966. Inter-agency communication was, is, and will always be far less than ideal, and no president -not even a Libertarian one- can change that. There are inherent delays between assessment, communication of status, need determination, requests for needs and assistance, determination of best assets to fill needs, and delivery of assets. The only way to expect it to get any better is for a series of private organizations to come up to provide disaster and emergency management facilities. Ones not limited by politics and government stagnation. Let cities, states, even communities and individuals contract out for the services. One more thing people should take out of this. Congress has too much authority. Decisions about where military bases are placed, where federal financial institutions are placed, etc. do not belong in the hands of the Congress. They do not need to be centralized, and do not need to be put places for political pandering and gain. If the Army decides it doesn't need a base, let them close it. If a risk management entity determines New Orleans is not a safe place to hold the federal government paycheck distribution center, let it go somewhere else. Politics be damned. [Side note: the French quarter will likely be the first rebuilt. Why?It's flooding was far, far less than the rest. Why? You guessed it, it's mainly above sea level.] It would take several decades to reverse the effects of government meddling on a national level. And that is optimistic. At the state level, yes it can be done. But it has to be done individually, state by state. City/County/Ward/Parrish by City/County/Ward/Parrish in some areas. > > The only bright side of this all is that we sent Jesse Jackson to > > Mississippi. Perhaps he will finally do the right thing and try to provide > > decent housing, drinking water and food for 250,000 plus homeless in the > > Deep South. > > Of course, your thoughts may differ. Yeah right. We all know he won't do anything of substance. It would tarnish his self-image. ;) On a side note, my SUV purchase is paying off even more about now. We run E85 in it. We are still paying $1.85 per gallon to fill it up. Last fill up was Tuesday. If the wholesale cost of gasoline doubles, the cost to drive the Suburban goes up 15%. Do I get to be a bit more smug now when I speak with environuts who think spending billions on the fallacy of Hydrogen or think that hybrids are the salvation? Yeah, I think I get to. :^D -- Bill Anderson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- Random Fortune of the moment: A housewife, an accountant and a lawyer were asked to add 2 and 2. The housewife replied, "Four!". The accountant said, "It's either 3 or 4. Let me run those figures through my spread sheet one more time." The lawyer pulled the drapes, dimmed the lights and asked in a hushed voice, "How much do you want it to be?" _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list Libnw@immosys.com List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
