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Commentary Too - Sep 12, 2005 - Printable Version
- New Orleans: Mother Nature's Fury.....or Urban Renewal?
by Mark Faulk
Was the massive destruction that was Hurricane Katrina the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States, or was it really just the most ambitious Urban Renewal project ever undertaken? Did our government actually "set up" the destruction of the predominately poor neighborhoods of New Orleans, or are they just turning an unfortunate "accident" into another political giveaway, and yet another financial bonanza for the rich and powerful? Sound crazy? Just another far-fetched tin foil hat conspiracy theory? Not according to many of those who were hit hardest by the fury of the hurricane.....or more accurately, leveled by the flooding that followed, and decimated and broken by the government's unconscionable handling of the rescue operations. Reports and accusations from those inside of the city have been varied and, in many cases, difficult to confirm, but the events unfolding around the tragedy in many cases seem to bear out those accusations.
It was only a matter of days before the disturbing reports began to filter in. No, not the obvious ones - the dead bodies floating like driftwood in the flood waters of New Orleans, the survivors left for days without food or water, the desperate "looting" by those who were left to fend for themselves, the lack of a timely response by federal and state government agencies, and on and on. While the media focused on the human drama unfolding minute by minute, day by day, another drama has been taking place behind the scenes - a drama that features major players on every level, and that embraces a growing sentiment that, whether "planned" or "accidental," this tragedy is a type of cleansing process, a sort of "out with the old, in with the new" opportunity to rebuild the city into a mecca of money, tourism, and even more money, into, as the locals have begun to call it "New New Orleans."
If this scenario has a beginning, it is in the massive federal budget cuts over the past three years that have left the levee and flood control projects underfunded and unfinished. Unlike the money that has flowed like flood waters into the war effort in Iraq, and into domestic terrorist threats that might or might not happen "any day now", everyone.....at all levels of government, federal, state, and local.....knew that a hurricane of this magnitude striking New Orleans was inevitable. Sure enough, after record hurricanes in 2004 brought even more pleas to restore federal funding from local officials and residents, "the inevitable" happened....Hurricane Katrina.
The federal government wasn't the only culprit in misdirecting and misspending money that could have saved New Orleans from mass destruction. For years, former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial and his "allies" have been accused of skimming millions of dollars of taxpayers' money from necessary infrastructure and emergency response projects, and just last month Morial's uncle, Glenn Haydel, was indicted for embezzling $550,000 from the New Orleans Rapid Transit Authority, money that could have, and should have, been spent on setting up an emergency evacuation plan using city buses. In addition, Morial and his cronies were said to have mismanaged much of the $220 million that was supposed to be spent on flood control during his tenure as mayor.
And on a state level, Louisiana is infamous for securing large amounts of federal money and then spending it on pork barrel projects. They lead the nation in overall Corps funding, but much of that money has been spent on questionable projects such as improvements on the Port of New Orleans and efforts to deepen the channels for oil and gas tankers, to "supplement" the major oil companies that drill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Here's where it gets touchy, where cold hard facts give way to speculation, innuendo, and rumors. This much is true: while the hurricane veered off (at least to some degree) at the last moment and seemingly spared New Orleans the brunt of its destruction, the levee system failed, indeed, the entire flood control system suffered a major, and as I said before, predictable breakdown. Not enough money was spent to shore up the flood control system, and the levees broke, flooding the poor neighborhoods, but miraculously sparing to a large degree the French Quarter and many of the more affluent neighborhoods. Another fluke of nature? Or maybe, as many of the extremist fundamentalist Christian groups have begun to chant in unison, God singled out the wicked, the sinful....the poor....and punished them for their evil ways.
Not a chance in hell. Reports have begun to trickle in as to other possible causes for the seemingly "selective flooding." One report says that a barge tied to the levee caused the initial damage that set off the massive flooding. That one has yet to be confirmed.
But today, I heard another story from "inside of the city." Long time New Orleans residents Andrea Garland and Jeffrey Holmes of www.getyouracton.org have been reporting on news that has filtered out of the city from friends who stayed in their homes even after the flooding. A week ago, they told me (and Andrea Garland reported it on her blog), that their sources claim that at least two of the breaks in the levee were caused not by Mother Nature's fury or the government's neglect, but were deliberately dynamited by the US Army Corp of Engineers. I didn't report on it at the time, but in her blog today, Garland repeated her claim:
"'They' are trying to take our city from us. Thousands upon thousands of poor, mostly African American citizens of New Orleans were murdered. Those levee breaks? Dynamite. Don't ask me for proof yet - just give us some time, we will get it to you. The ones that didn't die were starved. The rest, 'evacuated.' To quote one of our state reps, who now claims the quote was taken out of context, they solved the public housing problem in New Orleans."
In an interview with Garland today, as they were preparing to enter New Orleans with supplies for a reported 40-50 residents who stayed behind in their neighborhood of Bywater, she told me that they had heard about the dynamiting from a "reliable source" who has connections with the city, and that the Army Corp of Engineers "dynamited part of the levee after the first section broke to prevent Uptown (the rich part of town) from being flooded. Apparently they used too much dynamite, thus flooding part of Bywater. So now I know who is responsible for flooding my house - not Katrina, but our government."
Louisiana Green Party Co-chairperson Leenie Halbert, a ten year resident of New Orleans, gave me a little background on the area. First, let's begin with the relevant history of Bywater and the surrounding areas. This is from the Bywater Neighborhood Association's website:
The Inner Harbor Navigation Canal and Lock (IHNC) was completed in 1921, cutting Bywater off from it's downriver neighbors. Commonly known to New Orleans residents as "The Industrial Canal," The IHNC connects the Mississippi river and Lake Pontchartrain, The lock, 31.5 feet deep, 75 feet wide and 640 feet long, has been a bottleneck to shipping for many years. The average delay to pass through the lock is 10 hours, but can range up to 24 or 36 hours in very busy times.
In 1956, the Army Corp of Engineers approved the widening of the Industrial Canal (basically building a "new" canal), but the resulting designs brought about decades of controversy because of the proposed destruction of acres of wetland in St. Bernard's Parish and nearby homes in historic Bywater and Holy Cross. Then, under President Clinton, plans were finally approved in 1998 that included $37 million in Community Impact Mitigation funds to satisfy the concerns of city residents, and the Community-Based Mitigation Committee was established to work with the affected neighborhoods and the Army Corp of Engineers. Construction began in 2001, and the entire project was scheduled for completion in 2015.
There was only one problem. Once again due to federal funding cuts, only $600,000 was available for the mitigation projects in 2004, and millions more would be needed to satisfy neighboring residents, not to mention the money that would have to be spent buying up homes on either side of the project. According to Halbert, residents in a two block wide area on either side of the lock were to be bought out and displaced....until last week, when the levee conveniently "collapsed" at exactly the spot where the houses were to be bought and destroyed, and all of the targeted residents were displaced....by the flooding.
A controlled explosion gone awry? Crashed barge? Or just a defective, neglected levee system? Whichever version turns out to be accurate, in the end the results were the same - total destruction of the poorest neighborhoods, while the major tourist and historical sites, and the surrounding affluent neighborhoods, were spared.
Okay, now that the poorest neighborhoods have been destroyed by "Mother Nature" (winkwink), what next? That's an easy one. Starve out the victims who are still trapped in the city, and lock them into the public buildings they've been moved to, if necessary. Make their lives for the next few days so miserable that they'll most likely never want to return, and then, move them to other locations so far away that the poorest won't be able to make their way back to New Orleans, even if they want to. Evacuate them, and then absorb them into the nation's urban areas in smaller, more manageable groups. Use the exact same tactics against New Orleans' poor minorities that are employed to control unruly mobs and inner-city gangs - disperse them, spread them out into smaller, easier to control groups.
Barbara said it best, in classic Bush style, last week at the Astrodome:
"Almost everyone I’ve talked to says 'we're going to move to Houston.' What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."
A couple of days later on Hannity and Colmes, Newt Gingrich got his two cents worth in:
"Those children who are now scattered across America - we have to worry about their getting a real education and, candidly, in some cases they may get a better education, if we put our minds to it, than they would have gotten trapped in areas of poverty, with schools that were failing, with nobody in the community who was able to be a role model so I think the time right now is to look forward in a positive way."
And that's exactly what has happened. The "evacuees" were moved enmasse to the Astrodome in Houston, the Reunion Arena in Dallas, and to shelters and missions all across America. To their credit, Texas stepped up big, taking more victims than the rest of the states combined. And here's a potential fringe benefit that even the White House might not have considered: now that Texas has all that "extra" cheap labor, maybe we can start shipping the illegal aliens (who don't pay any payroll taxes) back to Mexico without disrupting the state's economy. See, this is working out very well.....just not for "them", not for those who have been forced out of their city in the largest forced mass evacuation since.....well, since the Israelis cleared out residents of the Gaza Strip at gunpoint over the past few weeks.
Cheap labor isn't the only plan for these evacuees. Apparently, the military held a Job Fair last week as well. That's right, fresh blood for the war effort in Iraq. Draft? We don't need no stinkin' draft! http://la.indymedia.org/news/2005/09/135047.php Dry clothes, regular meals, and a warm bed? A steady paycheck? "Join the Army, travel to exotic places, meet interesting people....and kill them." See? This is "working out very well for them."
A message on the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau website from president Steven Perry echoed the refrain of those jockeying for position for a chance to cash in on the misery and losses of the poor and displaced citizens of one of America's oldest cities.....and make no mistake, that's exactly what they are - citizens. Not refugees, not evacuees, not victims, not "poor black people" - citizens, citizens of the richest nation in the world (although many are among the richest nation's poorest citizens), cast adrift in a sea of uncertainty, not knowing when, or even if, they will ever be allowed to return home, or if their homes will even be there to return to.
The tourism leadership is committed to helping lead the greatest urban rebuilding project in our nation's history. We have a historic opportunity to be a living laboratory for taking disaster, infrastructure degradation, and social ills and rebuilding a new city that remains historic and unique, but is a model for rebirth socially and structurally
The historic character of the most important neighborhood in America has survived wonderfully. Its buildings have suffered far less wind damage than those in other parts of the city. The Quarter is dry and free from water. Many parts of the Vieux Carre show little evidence that a catastrophic hurricane just passed.
The Baltimore Sun on Sunday had this to say:
The scope of Hurricane Katrina's damage in New Orleans is still hidden by millions of gallons of floodwater, but J. Stephen Perry, president of the city's Convention and Visitor's Bureau, is already calling the impending reconstruction "the greatest urban rebuilding project in our nation's history."
Planners and reconstruction specialists envision a city vastly and fundamentally changed, centered on the historic French Quarter, which largely survived the flooding, and with perhaps half its former population of 480,000. They imagine raising the grade of entire neighborhoods and turning others into parks or wetlands.
While the rotting carcasses of the dead still float aimlessly around the flooded streets, and even before vital services like electricity and clean running water (as opposed to disease infested flood water) have been restored, even before the poisoned waters have been drained from the streets and buildings, "planners and reconstruction specialists", and big business after big business, are already lining up for a chance to rebuild old New Orleans into "New New Orleans".
After hiring former FEMA director Joe Allbaugh in March (Allbaugh got HIS job as FEMA director because he was Bush's campaign manager when he ran for governor of Texas and during his 2000 presidential campaign, and then recommended Michael Brown, his former childhood friend and college room mate, as his replacement at FEMA. See how this works?), Halliburton scored big with a $500 million contract to begin clean up in New Orleans, adding to the $10.7 billion worth of contracts that they've already received in the Iraqi War effort. Halliburton denied that Allbaugh helped them to secure their most recent contracts, and said that had never even heard of Dick Cheney (okay, I made that last part up).
When it comes to cashing in on the good ol' boy network, Halliburton isn't alone. Other companies http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091105C.shtml with strong White House ties that have secured their share of the taxpayers' money already being tossed around like confetti by the Bush Administration for post-Katrina projects include the Shaw Group (another Allbaugh client) and Bechtel National Inc. And the giveaways haven't even begun in earnest yet. The Bush Administration has treated this like a military operation almost from the beginning, so it only stands to reason that they would treat the demolition and rebuilding process as spoils of war.
And pay close attention to another major player who is making his move as well. When the New Orleans Police Department was pulled from the city in a state of near exhaustion, they were sent to Las Vegas for a week or R&R. And who generously picked up the tab for that little group excursion? None other than the Donald himself. Can a bid for a Trump Casino in New New Orleans be far behind?
Oh, one more thing. Look for New New Orleans to make liberal use of the Supreme Court "imminent domain" ruling from June that allows local governments to force property owners to sell out and make way for private economic development when officials decide it would benefit the public, and pay the owners fair market value. Hmmmm.....I wonder what the "fair market value" of a pile of rubble under eight feet of rancid flood water is. Or for that matter, what is the fair value of a house still standing, but located in the heart of a demolished city? My guess....developers will snatch up every desirable piece of property for pennies on the dollar.
When everything is said and done, and the bacteria-infested waters are finally parted to reveal the truth, this tragedy will be remembered as a failure on all levels - federal, state, and local. But if the people of America and the media take the time to dive below the murky surface, they will likely discover that the hurricane that decimated New Orleans and the surrounding area was only the beginning of this disaster, and that, in fact, the worst may be yet to come. And that would be the biggest tragedy of all.
Editor's Update: Sept. 12, 2005: I just received this article confirming that traces of explosives were found on debris collected from the ruptured levees. I believe that the numerous confirmations prove beyond a doubt that explosives were used to flood the Bywater Neighborhood and surrounding area.
Here is an excerpt from that article:
EXPLOSIVE RESIDUE FOUND ON FAILED LEVEE DEBRIS!
Ruptured New Orleans Levee had help failing
By: Hal Turner
New Orleans, LA -- Divers inspecting the ruptured levee walls surrounding New Orleans found something that piqued their interest: Burn marks on underwater debris chunks from the broken levee wall!
One diver, a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, saw the burn marks and knew immediately what caused them. When he surfaced and showed the evidence to his superior, the on-site Coordinator for FEMA stepped-in and said "You are not here to conduct an investigation as to why this rupture occurred, but only to determine how best to close it." The FEMA coordinator then threw the evidence back into the water and said "You will tell no one about this."
At that point, the diver went back down to do more inspection of the levee. On the second dive, he secreted a small chunk of the debris inside his wet suit and later arranged for it to be sent to trusted military friends at a The U.S. Army Forensic Laboratory at Fort Gillem, Georgia for testing.
According to well placed sources, a military forensic specialist determined the burn marks on the cement chunks did, in fact, come from high explosives. The source, speaking on condition of anonymity said "We found traces of boron-enhanced fluoronitramino explosives as well as PBXN-111 embedded in the debris. This would indicate at least two separate types of explosive devices."
To read that article in its entirety, go to:
http://www.halturnershow.com/DiversFindExplosiveResidueOnRupturedLevy.html
And here is an ABC interview of a witness who claims that he heard the explosions:
http://www.halturnershow.com/EarWitnessVideo.html
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