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NY Times reprinted Bush's false claim that
nobody "anticipated the breach of the levees"
Media Matters
September 2, 2005
In a September 2 article headlined "Government Saw Flood Risk but Not Levee
Failure," The New York Times printed without challenge President Bush's false
claim, originally made on ABC's Good Morning America, that "I don't think
anyone anticipated the breach of the levees" surrounding New Orleans as a
result of Hurricane Katrina. In fact, dozens of news organizations had reported
on the possibility of a breach well in advance of the hurricane, and even the
Times' lead editorial in the same day's newspaper flatly stated that
"[d]isaster planners were well aware that New Orleans could be flooded by the
combined effects of a hurricane and broken levees."
From the September 2 Times report:
The response will be dissected for years. But on Thursday, disaster
experts and frustrated officials said a crucial shortcoming may have been the
failure to predict that the levees keeping Lake Pontchartrain out of the city
would be breached, not just overflow.
[...]
In an interview Thursday on "Good Morning America," President Bush
said, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." He added,
"Now we're having to deal with it, and will."
Though the Times kept it a secret from its readers, Bush simply wasn't
telling the truth. Many people "anticipated the breach of the levees," as Media
Matters for America has detailed. A September 2 Washington Post editorial
similarly noted:
It is simply not true, as Mr. Bush said yesterday, that nobody
"anticipated the breach of the levees." In fact, experts inside and outside of
government have issued repeated warnings for years about the city's unique
topography and vulnerability, and those warnings were loudly and prominently
echoed by the media both nationally and in Louisiana.
Not only is it not true, as Bush claimed, that nobody "anticipated the
breach of the levees," it seems that nearly everybody anticipated the breach.
The problem wasn't lack of anticipation, it was lack of preparation.
A June 8, 2004, New Orleans Times-Picayune article noted: "For the first
time in 37 years, federal budget cuts have all but stopped major work on the
New Orleans area's east bank hurricane levees." The article quoted the manager
of the Army Corps of Engineers' Lake Pontchartrain levee project saying that
"people should know that this is a work in progress, and there's more important
work yet to do before there is a complete system in place." A Corps senior
project manager added, "When levees are below grade, as ours are in many spots
right now, they're more vulnerable to waves pouring over them and degrading
them." And Jefferson Parish emergency management chief Walter Maestri told the
paper: "It appears that the money [for hurricane-protection efforts] 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."
Los Angeles Times columnist Tim Rutten noted on September 2:
Three years ago, New Orleans' leading local newspaper, the
Times-Picayune, National Public Radio's signature nightly news program, "All
Things Considered," and the New York Times each methodically and compellingly
reported that the very existence of south Louisiana's leading city was at risk
and hundreds of thousands of lives imperiled by exactly the sequence of events
that occurred this week. All three news organizations also made clear that the
danger was growing because of a series of public policy decisions and failure
to allocate government funds to alleviate the danger.
[...]
Since 2002, when all these reports ran, the Times-Picayune has
published no fewer than nine stories reporting that the combination of tax
cuts, the war in Iraq and the demands of homeland security had led President
Bush's administration to repeatedly reject urgent requests from the Army Corps
of Engineers and Louisiana's congressional delegation that it allocate the
money to save New Orleans.
Former Sen. John Breaux (D-LA) told the Associated Press that it was
well-known that the levees could not withstand a major hurricane: "Those levees
are OK under normal times but once every hundred years, that's not enough. ...
We've all said for years that a category 4 or 5 hurricane hit just right on New
Orleans, there was nothing there sufficient to prevent New Orleans from being
20 feet under water."
And Mike Parker, a former Republican congressman from Mississippi who headed
the Army Corps of Engineers in the Bush administration until losing his job
after criticizing the White House budget office, told the AP: "I'm not saying
it wouldn't still be flooded, but I do feel that if it had been totally funded,
there would be less flooding than you have."
On September 1, the Chicago Tribune reported details of some of those budget
shortfalls:
For instance, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers requested $27
million for this fiscal year to pay for hurricane-protection projects around
Lake Pontchartrain. The Bush administration countered with $3.9 million, and
Congress eventually provided $5.7 million, according to figures provided by the
office of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.).
Because of the shortfalls, which were caused in part by the rising
costs of the war in Iraq, the corps delayed seven contracts that included
enlarging the levees, according to corps documents.
A quick search of the Nexis news database reveals no shortage of news
reports about possible levee breaches that could occur in the event of a major
hurricane. Here's a small sampling:
* ABC's Nightline, 9/15/04: "If it sounds overly dramatic, it is not.
This city is surrounded by water on three sides. Lake Pontchartrain to the
north and the Mississippi below. A major hurricane hitting right here would
breach the levees. Water would cascade in, submerging the city. And because of
the levees, it would have no way of escaping."
* Associated Press, 5/16/04: "Officials have warned that if a major
hurricane hits New Orleans, thousands of people could be killed and the city
could be flooded for weeks as flood waters breach the levees ringing the city,
which has the topography of a saucer that dips several feet below sea level in
many places."
* The Advocate, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 9/19/03: "... the Hurricane
Center has developed an 'extremely detailed' map of New Orleans because the
city, which sits about 6-feet below sea level and is surrounded by levees, is a
'worst-case scenario' for a major storm to hit. Knowing how far and how fast
the water in the inlets will rise, evacuations and cleanups can be better
planned, [LSU Hurricane Center director Ivor] van Heerden said. In the case of
south Louisiana, a breach of the levees would trap the flood water on the wrong
side of the bank once the bayous and rivers receded, van Heerden said."
* Richmond Times-Dispatch, 8/6/02: "New Orleans, with more than 460,000
residents, lies entirely below sea level and depends on a system of levees to
hold back the Gulf of Mexico. Some researchers say a Category 3 hurricane could
breach the levees and kill thousands of people."
At least two other news organizations pointed out the contradiction between
Bush's words and reality:
* Cox News Service, 9/1/05: "On ABC-TV Thursday, President Bush
acknowledged the 'frustration' of New Orleans residents, but said, "I don't
think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.' In fact, such a failure has
been forecast for years."
* San Francisco Chronicle, 9/2/05: "'I fully understand people wanting
things to have happened yesterday. I mean, I understand the anxiety of people
on the ground. I can -- I just can't imagine what it's like to be waving a sign
saying "come and get me now,'' ' Bush said. 'But I want people to know there's
a lot of help coming. ... I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the
levees,' he said. That point was fiercely contradicted on blogs and talk radio
Thursday."
When Bush claims nobody "anticipated the breach of the levees," he isn't
telling the truth; he's trying to avoid responsibility for underfunding Army
Corps of Engineers' hurricane-protection projects. And the New York Times is
helping Bush avoid responsibility by repeating his false comments without
contradiction. Indeed, the false claim that nobody anticipated a levee beach
occurs throughout the Times article (headlined "Government Saw Flood Risk but
Not Levee Failure"), with nary a hint that it isn't true.
And yet, if Times readers turned to the editorial page of the same September
2 paper that contains that article, they would see a lead editorial that
declared: "Disaster planners were well aware that New Orleans could be flooded
by the combined effects of a hurricane and broken levees, yet somehow the
government was unable to immediately rise to the occasion."
Times readers with long memories might also remember an August 11, 2002,
Times article in which Times reporter Adam Cohen warned:
New Orleans ... may be America's most architecturally distinctive
and culturally rich city. But it is also a disaster waiting to happen. New
Orleans is the only major American city below sea level, and it is wedged
between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi. If a bad hurricane hit, experts
say, the city could fill up like a cereal bowl, killing tens of thousands and
laying waste to the city's architectural heritage. If the Big One hit, New
Orleans could disappear.
[...]
There is considerable agreement about what the Big One would look
like. A Category 4 or 5 hurricane would move up from the Gulf to Lake
Pontchartrain, forcing lake water over levees and into the city. If the New
Orleans "bowl" filled, the Red Cross says, there could be 100,000 deaths. An
additional 400,000 could be stranded on roofs, surrounded by a witches' brew of
contaminated water. Property loss estimates run as high as $150 billion, though
much of the imperiled architecture -- like the St. Louis Cathedral -- is
priceless.
So far, Washington has done little, and New Orleans's response has
been less than satisfying. The city is focused on evacuating its 500,000
residents. But the roads leading out would flood quickly, stranding those who
lingered. Then there is the thorny issue of the 100,000 residents without cars.
"When I do presentations," said Terry Tullier, head of the New Orleans Office
of Emergency Preparedness, "I start by saying that 'when the Big One comes,
many of you will die -- let's get that out of the way.' "
Mr. Tullier has seen computer models of Canal Street under 20 feet
of water and heard that the floodwaters could stay for weeks, that the National
Guard might bring in thousands of body bags -- and that New Orleans might never
recover. "In this business, we bring no good news," he said. "It's full of
worst-case scenarios."
It's clear that there has long been wide recognition that a large hurricane
could cause exactly the kind of devastation currently being seen in New
Orleans, and that the levee system would not be sufficient to stop it. The Army
Corps of Engineers knew it; the Times-Picayune knew it; countless news stories
over the years have dealt with the possibility; Congress knew it; the former
Republican congressman who lost his job as head of the Corps of Engineers for
complaining about budget cuts knew it -- and The New York Times knew it.
— J.F.
Posted to the web on Friday September 2, 2005 at 8:40 PM EST
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