The Levees Before, During, and After Katrina: A Failure of Leadership by the Bush Administration

August 29th is the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall. While the natural destructive power of Hurricane Katrina was awesome, much of the responsibility for the many failures before, during and after Katrina rests squarely with the Bush Administration and Congressional Republicans. Prior to America’s worst natural disaster, the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress repeatedly cut and froze funding that would have strengthened the levee system. While the city flooded in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, Bush Administration officials ignored warnings about the strength of the levees. And during the twelve months of rebuilding in New Orleans, President Bush and Congressional Republicans have repeatedly made decisions that delay and weaken New Orleans’ levee protection.

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Bush “Essentially Froze” Monies Needed By the Army Corp of Engineers. The Washington Post wrote, “Since coming to office, Bush has essentially frozen spending on the Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for protecting the coastlines, waterways and other areas susceptible to natural disaster, at around $4.7 billion.” [Washington Post, 9/2/05]

Project Cuts Created Vast Damage During Hurricane Katrina. The Ponchatrain Levee Project and the West Bank Levee Project were both underfunded by the Bush Administration, receiving fractions of the monies requested by the Amery Corp of Engineer after internal deliberations. The flaws in the Ponchatrain Levee Project, which included both the 17th Street canal and the London Avenue, were responsible for equalizing the water level in Lake Ponchatrain and the city, all the way from the Industrial Canal to the Orleans-Jefferson parish border and from Lake Ponchatrain to the Mississippi River. The West Bank levees also sustained substantial, though less devestating, damage. Concrete slopes, making up the West Bank levees, were cracked by Katrina when they were hit by barges and a dry dock tossed from the Mississippi by Hurricane Katrina. [Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 9/23/05; http://www.nola.com/katrina/graphics/flashflood.swf, accessed 08/10/06; Washington Post, 9/2/05; Times Picayune (New Orleans), 2/8/05]

• 2005: Bush Cut Monies To Vital Ponchatrain Levee Project. The Washington Post wrote “in recent years, Bush repeatedly sought to slice the Army Corps of Engineers’ funding requests to improve the levees holding back Lake Pontchartrain, which Katrina smashed through, flooding New Orleans. In 2005, Bush asked for $3.9 million, a small fraction of the request the corps made in internal administration deliberations. Under pressure from Congress, Bush ultimately agreed to spend $5.7 million.” [Washington Post, 9/2/05]
• 2005: Bush Cut Money To Construct West Bank Levees. While Bush’s budget does listed the West Bank hurricane protection levee construction project as a priority, Bush’s budget provided less than half the funds necessary for the project. The $28 million included in Bush’s budget was less than half the $63 million the corps said is needed for fiscal year 2006. [Times Picayune (New Orleans), 2/8/05]
• 2005: For fiscal year 2006, the corps’ New Orleans division was allocated $290 million, a $34 million reduction from the amount allocated for fiscal year 2005 by Congress. This figure was almost $300 million less than the district said it needed to complete proposed and ongoing construction projects. [Times Picayune (New Orleans), 2/8/05]

Decreased Funding Was Known To Increase Hurricane Risk. A 2004 Times Picayune article entitled, “Shifting federal budget erodes protection from levees; Because of cuts, hurricane risk grows,” warned of the danger of the Bush administration and Republican Congress’ actions. The article stated, “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, a complex network of concrete walls, metal gates and giant earthen berms that won’t be finished for at least another decade..” Al Naomi, the corps’ senior project manager, said, “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.” [Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 6/8/06]

• 2004: Army Corps Warned Of A Levee Breach. In 2004 Corps’ project manager Al Naomi noted, “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… We’re not below storm-surge elevation yet, but we will be if we stop raising our levees as they subside.” [New Orleans Times-Picayune, 6/8/04]
• 2004: Emergency Management Official Said Levees Couldn’t Be Finished Because Money Diverted To Iraq. IIn June of 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish told the Times-Picayune: “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.” [Editor and Publisher, 8/31/05]
• 2004: Bush Funding Cuts Stopped Necessary Construction On Levees. Until 2004, construction on the Lake Pontchartain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project, the levee system whose failure cause the massive flooding, had been ongoing for 37 years. But due do lack of funding from the Bush Administration, construction was halted in 2004. [Knight-Ridder, 8/31/05; New Orleans Times-Picayune, 6/8/04; New Orleans City Business, 6/6/05]
• 2002: Times-Picayune Warned Of Impending Disaster. “The tragedy that destroyed a vibrant metropolitan area that was home to 1.4 million people and the city proper that was a national cultural treasure was not simply imagined but foreseen with a prescience that now seems eerily precise. Three years ago, New Orleans’ leading local newspaper, The Times-Picayune, reported that the very existence of the Big Easy was at risk and hundreds of thousands of lives imperiled by exactly the sequence of events that occurred this week.” [Los Angeles Times, 9/2/05]
• 2002: Head Of Army Corps Fired For Criticizing Funding: If Projects Had Been Funded By Bush Flooding Wouldn’t Be So Bad. “Mike Parker, a former Mississippi congressman who was booted as civilian head of the Corps in 2002 after criticizing the White House budget office, said Hurricane Katrina was so powerful that flooding was inevitable. But it might not have been as bad. ‘I’m not saying that this would not have occurred in New Orleans in this situation,’ Parker told The Associated Press. ‘I am saying that there would have been less flooding if all the projects had been funded.’” [Associated Press, 9/1/05]
• 2001: FEMA Ranked Hurricane Hitting New Orleans As One Of The Three Most Likely Catastrophes To Hit The U.S. In 2001. In 2001, a FEMA report ranked a massive New Orleans hurricane as one of the three most likely catastrophes facing the US, along with a San Francisco earthquake and a Terrorist Attack in New York. “[If] a Category 3 storm or greater with at least 111 mph winds [were to hit the city] the results would be cataclysmic, New Orleans planners said.” [Houston Chronicle, 12/1/01]

Emergency Preparedness Director Furious With Bush’s Hurricane Protection Cuts. A study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane was shelved. Terry Tullier, the New Orleans emergency preparedness director, said he was furious but not surprised to hear that study had been cut from the Bush budget. “I’m all for the war effort, but every time I think about the $87 billion being spent on rebuilding Iraq, I ask: What about us?” he said. “Somehow we need to make a stronger case that this is not Des Moines, Iowa, that we are so critical that if it hits the fan in New Orleans, everything this side of the Rockies will feel the economic shock waves.” [Times-Picayune, 9/22/04; New Orleans City Business, 6/6/05]

Bush Administration Claimed No Knowledge That Levee System Not Up To Par. Administration officials, including President Bush and Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff, publicly announced their surprise that the levees failed. [ABC, 9/1/05; NBC, 9/4/05; National Journal, 9/10/05]

• Bush: “I Don't Think Anybody Anticipated the Breach of The Levees.” President Bush said in an interview with ABC News on September 1st said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." [ABC, 9/1/05; National Journal, 9/10/05]
• Chertoff: The Levee Breach “Caught Everybody by Surprise.” On September 4th, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told NBC News that the massive flooding following the levee breach "caught everybody by surprise." [NBC, 9/4/05; National Journal, 9/10/05]

Bush Was Warned About Water Overtopping Levees in New Orleans; Called Very Grave Concern. Video of a teleconference prior to the storm shows the National Hurricane Center’s Max Mayfield warning Bush and the others that the levees could be topped. Mayfield called it a “very, very grave concern.” Bush was monitoring Katrina’s progress from his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Former FEMA Chief Michael Brown said Bush and other top officials knew from those briefings there was a serious chance that New Orleans’ levees would be breached. “Everybody else knew and clearly on our conference calls it was being discussed.” Bush asked no questions at the briefing. [AP, 3/9/06]

• Levee Breaches In New Orleans Caused By Water Overtopping Levees. “The levees of New Orleans suffered more than a dozen breaches because of the hurricane, and most involved water coursing over the tops of levees and floodwalls and scouring away the supporting earth on the other side, leading to collapse.” [New York Times, 10/19/05]
• Levees Along Industrial Canal Topped By Storm Surge, Leading to Levee Failure. The civil engineers society sent a team of investigators to the area at about the same time to gather information for a preliminary report on the causes of widespread flooding in Katrina’s aftermath…That initial report said weak soils beneath levee walls along the 17th Street and London Avenue canals likely contributed to wall failures there, while the levee wall along the Industrial Canal may have been topped by storm surge in several locations, leading to its failure. [emphasis added] Levees in St. Bernard Parish may have been rapidly eroded by surge in part by the use of sand in their construction, that report said, and levees elsewhere were simply overwhelmed by storm surge. [Times Picayune, 12/23/05]
• White House Report Says Breach Is “Difficult To Differentiate” From Overtopping. A White House Report issued in February of 2006 states that “Overtopping is a term used to describe the situation where the water level rises above the height of the levee or floodwall and consequently overtops, or flows over the structure. A breach is a break in the levee or floodwall. A prolonged overtopping can actually cause a levee or floodwall breach…it is often difficult to differentiate a breach from an overtopping.” [AP, 3/9/06]

Army Corp of Engineers “Knew” That The Levees Would Be Overwhelmed By Katrina and Announced This Publicly. TThe Army Corps of Engineer’s chief of engineers, Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, during a September 2 briefing, said “The intensity of this storm [Katrina] simply exceeded the design capacity of this levee... We knew that a [Category] 4 or 5 hurricane would overwhelm this levee, and so we evacuated the city.” [The National Journal, 9/10/05]

Lack Of Immediate Federal Help Incomprehensible. “Martha A. Madden, former secretary of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, said she believes a critical systemic breakdown occurred the moment the levee broke. She said contingency plans have been in place for decades but were either ignored or improperly executed. Madden, now a national security and environmental consultant, said the lack of immediate federal help, specifically in the form of military assistance, was ‘incomprehensible.’ ‘How many people are going to die, per hour, before you get 40,000 troops in there?’ Madden asked yesterday. ‘I think it has cost lives. . . . They can go into Iraq and do this and do that, but they can't drop some food on Canal Street in New Orleans, Louisiana, right now? It's just mind-boggling.’” [Washington Post, 9/2/05, emphasis added]

Army Corps Of Engineers Commander Said More Funding For Flood Protection Would Have Resulted In A Quicker Response. Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, acknowledged that more funding for the Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Project would allow the Corps to more quickly pump out the floodwaters inundating New Orleans. “Had we had the SELA project finished ... we could more efficiently move the water out of the system because it’s a big drainage project,” Strock said. [Associated Press, 9/1/05]

Bush Waited Two Months Before Asking for Money For Levee Repair and Then Asked for An Inadequate Amount. Bush did not ask Congress to allocate any money at all for levee repair until Oct. 28, two months after Katrina. The requested amount, $1.6 billion, was less than a quarter of what the Corps had already stated was necessary. [Fortune, August 21, 2006]

Bush Only Requested Appropriation For Levees Following Public Disapproval Of Katrina’s Absense From His State of the Union. Bush devoted merely 160 words to discuss America’s worst natural disaster in the first State of the Union after the event. This prompted public outrage. To quell outrage, Bush publically requested that Congress appropriate $1.36 billion. This number was below the amount Congress eventually appropriated. [Fortune, August 21, 2006]

GOP Congress Shunted Money Requested By Bush For Levee Repair To Less Pressing Projects. In mid-December Bush asked Congress for another $1.5 billion for levee repair. The Republican controlled Congress allocated this amount but quickly shunted it to other, less badly affected parts of the Gulf Coast. [Fortune, August 21, 2006]

Republican Congress Waited 10 Months from Katrina and 4 Months After Being Asked By the President To Make A Major Appropriation for Levee Repairs. The Republican controlled Congress waited until June to make an appropriation that included a significant amount for levee repair. They appropriated $3.7 million in June of 2006, ten months after Katrina hit and four months after Bush made his post-State of the Union request. [Fortune, August 21, 2006]

Rebuilt Levee Slumped Because Weak Soil Used By Army Corp of Engineers. The Army Corps of Engineers announced that a 400-foot section of earthen hurricane protection levee being rebuilt near Buras High School in Plaquemines Parish slumped by more than 6 feet overnight. Engineers were concerned after test results showing softer-than-expected soil conditions beneath levee repairs but called the incident “an unexpected event” and “disappointing.” The slump amounted to a serious setback. [Times Picayune (New Orleans), 5/30/06]

Levee Repairs Delayed Because Army Corp of Engineers Didn’t Fill Out Proper Forms. “A plan to replace existing sheet piles with longer, stronger steel panels, to straighten out some meandering wall sections, to close gaps that must otherwise be sandbagged, and make other engineering improvements along the eastern lakeshore levee was not started eleven months after Katrina because the process of documenting exactly how post-Katrina money from Congress will be spent – which the corps is required to do by federal law – was not complete. That documentation must be finished, and new operating agreements must be signed between the corps and its local government and levee board sponsors, before construction contracts can be awarded, corps officials said.” The delay caused a scramble to engage in temporary repairs, as the inaction left much of the suburbs of Kenner and Metarie very vulnerable when a tropical storm entered the Gulf in August of 2006.” [Times Picayune (New Orleans), August 4, 2006]

Levees Only Repaired Where Completely Broken, Leaving City “Vulnerable.” Ed Link, the University of Maryland professor who headed the the Army Corp of Engineers’ Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force, said that post-Katrina repairs have strengthened the parts of the levee system that failed. But he warned that until undamaged parts of the system are improved, “the New Orleans metropolitan area remains vulnerable to any storm creating surge and wave conditions similar to those of Katrina.” [Times Picayune (New Orleans), 6/6/06]