The scandal of the levees
By
Minnie Bruce Pratt
Published Sep 10, 2005 12:21 AM
Louisiana authorities are saying that
10,000 people may have died in the state as the result of Hurricane
Katrina.
Mounting evidence shows the human tragedy and devastation in New
Orleans is a direct result of the U.S. war on Iraq.
The local Times
Picayune newspaper warned in nine articles between 2004 and 2005 that millions
of hurricane and flood-control dollars had been diverted to the war, saying of
looming catastrophe, “It’s a matter of when, not
if.”
President George W. Bush, faced with soaring war costs in Iraq
in early 2004, recommended slashing the budget for engineering at Lake
Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. The breach in the New Orleans levees
allowed water from Pontchartrain to flood the city.
In the last decade,
the Corps of Engineers has worked to implement the Southeast Louisiana Urban
Flood Control Project (SELA), authorized by Congress in 1995.
But when
Katrina hit, $250 million worth of projects remained unfinished. One that a
contractor was rushing was at the 17th Street Canal, the location of the main
breach in the levees. (Editor and Publisher, Aug. 29)
Walter Maestri,
emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, said in 2004: “It appears
that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland
security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay.
Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are
doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for
us.” (Times Picayune, June 8)
During a 2004 forecast exercise,
federal, Louisiana and New Orleans officials saw a fictitious “Hurricane
Pam” produce almost every tragedy now occurring.
But officials
abandoned plans to prepare for the actual disaster because of budget
cuts.
So those familiar with the situation looked on in disbelief when
Bush said Sept. 2 on “Good Morning America”: “I don’t
think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.”
Government
agencies had been well aware of the potential for failure
and the horrific
human cost.
Racism and war on the poor
Brian Wolshon, an
engineering professor at Loui siana State U. and consultant for evacuation
planning, said at least 100,000 people in New Orleans were iden tified as
“low-mobility”—elderly, infirm or impoverished and without
cars. In disaster planning sessions “little attention” was given to
what would happen to these people in the event of a hurricane or flood. When the
question of their needs was raised, he said, “the response was often
silence.” (New York Times, Sept. 2)
People of color make up 70
percent of the New Orleans population—and 28 percent live below the
poverty line. (Black Com mentator) These were the people abandoned to death and
devastation by authorities.
This racism and the criminal disregard of poor
people recall the devastating flood of 1927, when levees broke up and down the
Mississippi River after a spring of torrential rain. In the segregated South,
Black people were “rescued”—and then confined in work camps,
forced into work details to repair white owners’ property. Some were shot
for refusing to be re-enslaved. (Pete Daniel, “Deep’N As It Come:
The 1927 Mississippi River Flood”)
As New Orleans was threatened,
local, state and federal authorities agreed the Corps of Engineers should
dynamite the levees below the city—where the population was mostly poor
and rural. Though promised compensation, very few of the deliberately
flooded-out people ever received a cent. (Judd Slivka, “Another Flood that
Stunned Amer ica,” U.S. News Online, Sept. 2)
London’s
Financial Times reported on this year’s disaster with the headline:
“Bush’s Policies Have Crippled Disaster Response.” But these
policies, including war on Iraq, are a direct outgrowth of capitalist
profit-seeking. Wetlands drained by land-developers and rendered useless as
buffers against storm, the growth in global warming and the rise in sea
level—all are spin-offs from unchecked, rapacious big business.
With
planning and political will, the Gulf Coast lands could have been protect ed.
Because of global warming, the Dutch—who are experts in preventing
floods—have for some time been investing an additional $10 billion to $25
billion in “sea defense.” They are upgrading all their “dikes,
pumping stations and seawalls.” (Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 4,
2001)
But the political will of both the Republicans and Democrats in the
U.S. reinforces only a system of capitalist exploitation. A different answer can
come from a rising storm against that system—one coming from the people
who have lost the most and have the most to gain.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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