Selected comments on Hurricane Katrina (August 2005) from email lists Compiled by Ilan Kelman
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Hazardmit(most messages) From : Sent : September 2, 2005 2:39:26 PM To : hazardmit@mitigation.com Subject : [Hazardmit] Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina should be a wake up call for re-emphasis of hazard mitigation and most specifically hazard avoidance. Are we going to fund yet another rebuilding initiative in the high hazard zone? The once 'cornerstone of emergency management' has fallen by the wayside. Why? The war on terror? Or is it that we have reversed course and returned to the notion that we can both control and predict nature? Should we permit the USACE to strengthen and heighten all the levees around New Orleans? Where is the political will to bring about serious hazards avoidance? Will the US taxpayers not living in the high hazard zone be willing to once again subsidize the few who choose to live in the high hazard zone? The massive recontruction effort that follows major disasters is an unparalleled opportunity to redesign an otherwise vulnerable society in a sustainable manner, which includes hazards avoidance. Isanybody with substantive political clout going to advocate for the long view? Or will we perpetuate the short-term thinking that has doomed our society right along? - Christian Stalberg, Hazardmit Moderator _______________________________________________ Hazardmit mailing list Hazardmit@mitigation.com http://www.mitigation.com/mailman/listinfo/hazardmit
Sent : September 4, 2005 12:04:41 PM To : Subject : [Hazardmit] Terror war slows relief to disasters, experts say Article published September 3, 2005 Terror war slows relief to disasters, experts say Aid agency affected by post-9/11 changes By KAREN MacPHERSON BLADE WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON — The Bush Administration’s focus on fighting terrorism over the last few years has weakened the federal government’s ability to respond quickly to natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, some experts said yesterday.
Hazardmit mailing list Hazardmit@mitigation.com http://www.mitigation.com/mailman/listinfo/hazardmit From : Christian Stalberg Sent : September 4, 2005 12:08:13 PM To : Subject : [Hazardmit] Has terror hurt disaster relief?
Some say bureaucracy slows FEMA Saturday, September 03, 2005
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration's focus on fighting terrorism over the past few years has weakened the federal government's ability to respond quickly to natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, some experts said yesterday. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- traditionally the lead federal organization in disaster relief efforts -- has been subsumed into the mammoth U.S. Department of Homeland Security and then hit with budget cuts and an exodus of veteran staffers, these experts say. Now, FEMA officials are shouldering much of the public blame for the slow federal response to the devastation caused by Katrina, a reaction that many disaster management experts say isn't fair to the agency. "I'm afraid that the president may use all of this to put the nail in the coffin for FEMA, when FEMA is not to blame," said Bob Freitag, a 20-year FEMA veteran who now is director of the University of Washington's Institute for Hazard Mitigation Planning and Research. FEMA's response has been hampered by the added layers of bureaucracy that come from being part of the huge Homeland Security Department, Freitag and other disaster management experts say. In fact, the Katrina relief effort now is being led by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. FEMA officials "have responsibility without authority," Freitag said. "And then there's the fact that the leadership is pushing terrorism, and all the money goes to terrorism. We are certainly at risk of terrorism, but we are also at risk of earthquakes and winter storms and flooding, and there needs to be a balance." Kathleen Tierney, director of the University of Colorado's Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center, also stresses that Katrina caused a "catastrophe; it is not a garden-variety disaster. To expect that a system that is well-prepared for disasters is also well-prepared for a catastrophe is an error. "But this isn't the time to jump on any one agency -- it's pointless to get started on the issue of who lost New Orleans," Tierney said. "What we need now is a high-level investigation into what needs to be done to make this nation resilient in the face of natural disasters." Pennsylvania Rep. Bill Schuster, R-Blair, who heads the House subcommittee with oversight over FEMA, said he planned a review of FEMA's role in Katrina relief efforts. "The focus of FEMA should be disaster assistance, and it is my concern that the recent reorganization has diluted FEMA's focus," he said. Since Katrina hit Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi earlier this week, FEMA has become a lightning rod for criticism by local and state officials in the areas battered by the storm. Terry Ebbert, head of New Orleans' emergency operations, was particularly critical, calling the sluggish federal relief effort "a national disgrace. FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control," he said Thursday. Administration officials, from President Bush on down, have acknowledged major problems in federal relief efforts. "The results are not acceptable," Bush said yesterday as he headed off for a tour of the areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama devastated by Hurricane Katrina. But Bush also indicated that he believed federal officials were doing their best, and FEMA Director Michael Brown has said that the agency's pre-planning efforts were overwhelmed by the magnitude of the storm. James Jay Carafano, a senior fellow for national and homeland security at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, argues that "the problem is not a lack of resources, will or the organization to provide assistance. "The problem is how to get it to the tens of thousands of people who need it," he said. "The notion that under these impossible conditions, the dire needs of the city [of New Orleans] could be efficiently addressed in a few days is simple ludicrous." Carafano also dismisses the idea that FEMA has been marginalized in the Homeland Security bureaucracy, and that a focus on terrorism has diminished preparation for natural disasters. "FEMA's role as a responder hasn't changed an iota," he said, insisting that much of the criticism of FEMA's new role under the Homeland Security Department comes from "disgruntled former employees." John Pike, a national security analyst who heads a Virginia think tank called Globalsecurity.org, believes that FEMA always has had trouble getting its act together. "There was possibly a brief period in the Clinton administration when it appeared to have traction, but that was really quite exceptional," he said. "It has always been regarded as being either troubled or mismanaged or a backwater. It's never gotten any respect. But Tierney, like other experts, contends that the administration's focus on terrorism has blunted FEMA's ability to respond to natural disasters. "Natural disasters have never gotten anything like the attention they need. This isn't anything new," she said. "But it appears that the thinking in the Homeland Security Department was that there wasn't anything new to be learned about natural disaster management ... and that FEMA would take care of anything that came along." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Karen MacPherson can be reached at 202-662-7075 or kmacpherson@nationalpress.com.)
Hazardmit mailing list Hazardmit@mitigation.com http://www.mitigation.com/mailman/listinfo/hazardmit From : Christian Stalberg Sent : September 4, 2005 12:29:01 PM To : Subject : [Hazardmit] Great Flood of 1927 in Mississippi Delta
Hazardmit mailing list Hazardmit@mitigation.com http://www.mitigation.com/mailman/listinfo/hazardmit http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/flood/timeline/timeline2.html Timeline 1726 - 1926 | 1927 - 1929 1927 January 1: In Cairo, Illinois, the first of multiple crests breach flood stage on the Mississippi River. The river appears to be on the verge of flooding, but the Mississippi River Commission still insists the levees will hold. March: Huge swells on the Mississippi River move downstream and reach the Delta. Heavy rains fall on the Delta throughout March and continue into April. Some white residents of Greenville, especially women and children, flee the area and head north. March and April: LeRoy Percy and other plantation owners send their farm hands to raise the height of Washington County levees. Other African Americans in the area are pressed into work gangs to heighten and fortify the levees. Police round up African Americans in town at gun point and send them to the levee. Convicts are also pressed into action, and altogether a gang of 30,000 men work to save the levee. April 15, Good Friday: Rains pelt Washington County, and Greenville receives 8.12 inches. The storm covers several hundred square miles, and counties along the Mississippi receive anywhere from 6 to 15 inches of rainfall. LeRoy Percy and other town leaders gather at the home of Seguine Allen, chief engineer of the Mississippi Levee Board in Greenville, to discuss whether the levee will hold. April 16: The Great Flood of 1927 begins. Just 30 miles south of Cairo, Illinois, a1,200-foot length of government levee collapses and 175,000 acres are flooded. In some places the river is carrying 3 million cubic feet of water a second -- an unprecedented volume. April: Communities on both sides of the river know that if the levee breaks on one side, the other side will be spared. Each side of the river fears sabotage, and sets up levee patrols to prevent intruders from dynamiting their levee. The patrols are prepared to shoot to kill. April 21: At 8:00 am, twelve miles up river from Greenville at Mounds Landing, despite the efforts of African American work crews who have been laboring day and night, the levee bursts. With a force greater than Niagara Falls, water gushes through a crevasse three quarters of a mile wide. When the levee collapses, many of the African Americans working at the Mounds Landing site are swept away with the river. April 22: The Great Flood overruns Greenville, Mississippi. Downtown Greenville is covered in 10 feet of water. For 60 miles to the east and 90 miles to the south of the Mounds Landing break, the Delta becomes a turbulent, churning inland sea, leaving tens of thousands of people stranded on rooftops and clinging to trees. LeRoy Percy appoints his son, Will Percy, to head the Flood Relief Committee. Will is 42 years old. April 23: Searching for marooned people in Washington County, rescue boats follow power lines to farms and houses in the countryside, bringing back whomever they find to the high ground on the crown of the Greenville levee. Over 10,000 refugees, mostly African Americans, crowd onto the narrow eight-foot-wide crown with their salvaged possessions and livestock. With the arrival of the refugees, Greenville's population almost doubles. April 25: The situation in Greenville is dire. Thirteen thousand African Americans are stranded on the levee with nothing but blankets and makeshift tents for shelter. There is no food for them. The city's water supply is contaminated. The railway has been washed away, and sanitation is non-existent. An outbreak of cholera or typhoid is imminent. Will Percy decides that the only honorable and decent course of action is to evacuate the refugees to safer ground down river and arranges for barges to pick up and transport the refugees. Many people are reluctant to abandon Greenville, despite the fact that their homes have been submerged. The planters, in particular, oppose Will's plan, fearing that if the African American refugees leave, they will never return, and there will be no labor to work the crops. LeRoy, placing his business interests above his family's tradition of aiding those less fortunate, betrays his son and secretly sides with the planters. Boats with room for all the refugees arrive, but only 33 white women and children are allowed to board. The African American refugees are left behind, trapped on the levee. Later, Will Percy will write that he was "astounded and horrified" by this turn of events. April: To justify his relief committee's failure to evacuate the refugees, Will Percy convinces the Red Cross to make Greenville a distribution center, with the African Americans providing the labor. Red Cross relief provisions arrive in Greenville, but the best provisions go to the whites in town. Only African Americans wearing tags around their necks marked "laborer" receive rations. National Guard is called in to patrol the refugee camps in Greenville. Word filters out of the camps that guardsmen are robbing, assaulting, raping and even murdering African Americans held on the levee. April 26: Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, placed in charge of flood relief by President Calvin Coolidge, visits Greenville and approves the flood relief committee's plans. April 29: The torrent has moved south. With the river almost at the levee tops, New Orleans dynamites the Poydras levee, creating a 1500-foot break at an estimated cost of $2 million, to direct the flood waters away from the city and its half million inhabitants. Movie cameras are on hand to record the momentous scene. The New York Times reports that many people refuse to quit the area to be flooded by the levee break. One woman living in a lighthouse "says she won't quit her post unless Uncle Sam comes to take her away." May: Slowly word of the abuses in the refugee camps reaches the Northern press. Once the situation in the refugee camps hits the national press, Herbert Hoover initiates an investigation of the reports. His investigators confirm numerous instances of abuse, but Hoover chooses to suppress the report. Hoover, known as "the Great Humanitarian," has his eyes set on the presidency. He has ridden a wave of good publicity from his flood relief efforts, and is determined to maintain his positive image. Hoover forms a Colored Advisory Commission of influential African American conservatives, led by Robert Russa Moton, to further investigate the camps. The commission confirms the initial findings. In exchange for keeping the report quiet, Hoover promises that if he wins the election, he will support the advancement of African Americans, including possible agrarian land reform. Moton agrees, and Hoover is never called to account for the treatment of African Americans in Washington County. June and July: As the flood waters recede, Greenville faces the task of digging the town out the mud. Again, the white leadership of the town resorts to conscripting African Americans at gun point. African American community leaders are outraged and refuse to recruit more workers. The Percys convince Hoover to visit Greenville and appeal to the workers, but his speech is a failure and the shortage of workers persists. July 7: James Gooden, a well respected African American in the Greenville community, is shot in the back by a white policeman for refusing to return for a day shift after working all night on the clean-up. Word of his death spreads quickly and work stops. Tensions rise, and both blacks and whites arm themselves with guns and other weapons. Greenville is at a standoff. Will Percy calls a reconciliation meeting of the African American community at a local church, but places the blame on them for the death of their neighbor. August 31: Will Percy resigns from the Greenville Flood Relief Committee and leaves for a trip to Japan the very next day. Late summer: Thousands of African Americans pack up their belongings and leave Washington County. Most head north and within a year, fifty percent of the Delta's African American population will have migrated from the region. Once "the Queen of the South," Greenville will never recover the prosperity it once enjoyed before the flood. 1928
After Hoover is elected president, he turns his back on Robert Moton, the Colored Advisory Commission, and his earlier promises. Burned badly by Hoover, in the next election Moton and the African American community shift their support from the Republicans to the Democratic party and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 1929
LeRoy Percy, his wife dead and his empire in ruins, dies in Greenville. Will Percy takes over as head of the Percy clan in Greenville, works to rebuild his father's empire, and continues to live in his father's home until his death in 1942. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/flood/timeline/index.html Timeline 1726 - 1926 | 1927 - 1929 1726 Residents of New Orleans, near the mouth of the Mississippi River, build artificial levees ranging in height from 4 to 6 feet to protect their young city from the ravages of floods. 1812 Levee building remains in vogue along the Louisiana shores of the Mississippi. As settlers move into the territory north of New Orleans, levees are constructed. By 1812 levees have been built to safeguard 155 miles of land north of New Orleans on the east bank of the river and 180 miles north of the city on the west bank. 1814 As early as 1814 the debate over levee building begins, and proposals are made advocating alternatives to levees such as the creation of artificial outlets, called spillways, to drain floodwaters from the river. 1841 The first of the Percy clan makes his way to the Mississippi Delta. At the age of 20, Charles Percy leaves behind a comfortable life on his Alabama plantation and heads to the Delta to try his luck at reclaiming farmland from the wild river. He puts his roots down in Greenville, Mississippi, establishes a cotton plantation, and begins to build what will become the Percy empire. Much of his success stems from the building of levees to contain the river. 1851 Charles Percy dies and his younger brother, William Alexander Percy, assumes control of the family plantation and business interests. 1858 Levee building remains the dominant form of flood control along the river. By 1858 over 1,000 miles of levee stretch along the banks of both sides of the Mississippi River. Levees cause the river to rise and must be augmented frequently. In some places, levees now stand as tall as 38 feet, the equivalent of a four-story building. 1860 William Alexander Percy's wife, Nannie, gives birth to their first son, LeRoy Percy. 1865 December: Colonel W. A. Percy, nicknamed "the Gray Eagle" during his service in the Confederate Army, returns home to Greenville after the Civil War to revive the family business. He uses his influence in the state government to establish a new levee board to rebuild levees destroyed during the battles of the Civil War and in recent floods. Flood control and African American sharecropper labor are the cornerstones of his plans for developing the Delta region and building the Percy fortune. 1879 African Americans begin leaving the South in the first great migration, heading for Kansas and other points north. All over Mississippi, whites cheer their departure, except in the Delta, where plantation owners are desperate to hold onto their labor force. Some planters resort to intimidation and threats to keep their tenants from leaving. June, 28: Congress establishes the Mississippi River Commission to set policy regarding the river. Although staffed with both military and civilian engineers, the Commission is dominated by the Army Corps of Engineers. Amid debate over the proper course of action for flood control, the Army Corps of Engineers favors a "levees-only policy." Instead of using natural outlets and creating cutoffs, spillways and other means to drain the high water, this policy relies on levees alone to contain the river and prevent flooding. 1885
May 15: Just over seven months after their marriage, LeRoy and Camille Percy give birth to their first son, William Alexander Percy, known as Will. 1888
At the age of 53, Colonel W. A. Percy dies. His son LeRoy Percy, just 28 years old and already a formidable figure in his own right, takes control of the family enterprises. 1890
The state of Mississippi ratifies a new constitution, which institutionalizes discriminatory Jim Crow measures such as a poll tax, literacy tests and secret ballots and disenfranchises African American voters in the state. Early 1900s LeRoy Percy, fearing a shortage of laborers, recruits Italian citizens to come to the Delta and farm the land. While conditions for the Italian tenants are better than those for African Americans, the immigrants don't stay in the Delta. Once again, planters must rely on African American tenants to work the land. 1903
Mississippi elects James K. Vardaman governor. Nicknamed "the Great White Chief," Vardaman achieves political success promoting racism. Vardaman's message plays well in the Mississippi hill country. His declaration that African Americans are "lazy, lying lustful animal[s] which no amount of training can transform into a tolerable citizen" is well received in most circles, but not in Percy's Washington County, where African American labor is vital to the economy. Percy makes it his personal crusade to prevent Vardaman's forces from running African American sharecroppers out of the Delta. 1910
February 23: LeRoy Percy is appointed to the vacant Mississippi seat in the United States Senate, the highest political office achieved in his family's history. His desire to serve is motivated in large part by his opposition to James K. Vardaman and his racial politics. 1911
August 1: Election Day. LeRoy Percy loses his bid for re-election to the Senate to James K. Vardaman. Out of 79 counties in Mississippi, Percy wins only 5 counties in the Delta and places third in a field of 3 candidates. Suffering a humiliating defeat for an incumbent, Percy retreats from politics to private life. 1922
Delta residents get a small taste of what can happen with a "levees-only" policy. The river runs so high that its tributaries actually back up and cover large expanses of 6 Delta counties in flood waters. What would have been a minor flood a century ago, before levees were constructed, now leaves 20,000 residents homeless. March 1: At a Ku Klux Klan rally in the Greenville courthouse, LeRoy Percy stands before the crowd and urges them not to let the Klan into their town. His speech touches a chord in the community, and the town of Greenville passes a resolution condemning the Klan. Percy is hailed as a hero in newspapers around the country. 1926
April: The Army Corps of Engineers, having constructed levees stretching from Cairo, Illinois to New Orleans, publicly declares that the levee system along the Mississippi will prevent future floods. Fall: Violent storms in the northern United States dump tons of water into tributaries throughout the continent that feed into the Mississippi. Directory: resources resources -> General text for tender (recommendations) for Pilkington Profilit™ Contents Page resources -> North Carolina Inclusion Initiative Mapping Where Children with ieps are Being Served Purpose resources -> Practice learning resources -> The Rise of Video Games Section “Word” Matt Spencer resources -> Request for proposal contract form for the transit industry resources -> Request for Proposal [insert date] resources -> The University of York 13th 16th April 2004 resources -> Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program Community Education Initiative resources -> Region III standing regional response team (rrt) meeting williamsburg, Virginia Thursday, January 12, 2012 resources -> Efca eastern District and TouchGlobal, the crisis response ministry of efca Download 0.84 Mb. Share with your friends:
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