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May 18, 2013
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 White House Knew of Levee’s Failure on Night of HurricanePosted on Feb 10, 2006New York Times: WASHINGTON, Feb. 9—In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Bush administration officials said they had been caught by surprise when they were told on Tuesday, Aug. 30, that a levee had broken, allowing floodwaters to engulf New Orleans. But Congressional investigators have now learned that an eyewitness account of the flooding from a federal emergency official reached the Homeland Security Department’s headquarters starting at 9:27 p.m. the day before, and the White House itself at midnight. The Federal Emergency Management Agency official, Marty Bahamonde, first heard of a major levee breach Monday morning. By late Monday afternoon, Mr. Bahamonde had hitched a ride on a Coast Guard helicopter over the breach at the 17th Street Canal to confirm the extensive flooding. He then telephoned his report to FEMA headquarters in Washington, which notified the Homeland Security Department. Advertisement TAGS:
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Letter From Birmingham Jail
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By R. A. Earl, February 12, 2006 at 2:50 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I think it’s obvious to anyone who cares to consider FEMA’s response to Katrina’s damage that “the Administration” wasn’t about to commit major resources to this “lost cause.”
The major damage was occurring, apparently, to housing and infrastructure that in a “cost-benefit” analysis showed a lot of red ink. The bottom line is that it was far cheaper to let ‘em go under than to pour resources into saving them.
Where’s my evidence for saying so? Of course, I don’t have any. That’s the interesting thing about this Administration’s reign… only THEY have the real information… what we get is only what they want us to hear. It will be a few decades yet before “we”... you know, the smucks that get to pay all the bills, will ever hear the actual TRUTH about anything!
Watching GWB wandering in shirt sleeves through the New Orleans wreckage with his arms around a couple of young girls, and praying with them, was about the most hypocritically vulgar and offensive thing he’s done.
All that said, and having never set foot in Louisiana, I found myself muttering something about “those who insist on living below sea level had better have a boat at the ready, or live with the consequences.” This might apply to all of us within a few hundred miles of a coastline if Global Warming melts the ice caps!
Report thisBy rex, February 10, 2006 at 2:53 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency monitored the damage cased by Hurricane Katrina in real time so it seems strange that Marty Bahamonde’s account would be the first anyone in
Report thisthe United States government learned
of the extent of the disaster.
By the time Bahamonde made his helicopter flight NGA had obtained hundreds of satellite images of what was happening and matched them to 3D GPS grids to show exactly where damage was and where people were stranded.
They have an internet magazine called Pathfinder on their website that details
the real-time surveillance of the Katrina disaster but apparently it has not been read by
the Congressional investigators and they are not questioning the NGA people who were involved
which included NGA mobile units in the disaster area.
Check out the September/October issue of Pathfinder at http://WWW.NGA.MIL and see who knew what and when.