Katrina Down the Memory Hole

March 10, 2006 - Slow are the eddies of justice. That's a law of nature, and nature also dictates: The greater the gravity of the thing, the more slowly will its turns be. Katrina, among the panoply of crimes and outrages, both through commission and omission, lying rotten as a three-week old corpse in the Louisiana heat at the feet of the Bush administration, is the Elephant's whale in the swimming pool, but even so, the collective stench surrounding the state of the United States of America is so great, maldorous Katrina too has managed to blend into the atmosphere.

Last week, video of an audience with the Commander in Chief BEFORE Katrina's landfall was hoped in some quarters to raise more than eyebrows. The video clearly reveals the president receiving likely, and worst case scenarios for the Gulf Coast; receiving data later denied.

Why the G.W.B. administration would deny these documented briefings in the days after the disaster isn't curious, given that group's abhorrence of truth and personal responsibility, (as witness ingenue, Condi Rice's famous response to 9/11 failures of intelligence: "No-one could have imagined someone would use an airplane as a weapon..." gem), but more worrisome than the Bush administration's wilful ignorance is the fog of war's forgetfulness of the populace that can hear Bush's accusations and excuses today, and not quite remember the facts as they were at the moment.

For that they, and you and I, can be forgiven; there has been a rather lot going on lately.

Happily, I'm no mystic, expert, or genius. Here's one from the files, hours before Katrina made landfall that belies any claim to "honest ignorance" the Bush people hope to hide behind. After all, if a guy of moderate intelligence and application can see which way the wind is blowing... - lex

New Orleans Sinking? Mammoth Katrina Spurs Evacuations

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - The storm Floridians discounted as minor last week has spent the weekend gathering strength over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane Katrina has now ballooned to an unprecedentedly large and powerful Catagory 5, with sustained wind speeds nearing 280 kph, and gusts topping 300kph.

www.pej.org

August 28, 2005

[update: 10:50 pdt- Evacuation orders have been given for more than a million people living in and around New Orleans and a State of Emergency for the entire coastal region of Louisiana has been declared by the federal government. The storm is expected to make landfall near the historic city at approximately 1pm local time tomorrow.]

If timing estimates are correct, that would see Katrina hitting the low-lying city at the peak of high tide. New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin has warned the storm surge, massive ocean waves driven by the hurricane, could top 8 metres, overwhelming the network of levees and dykes protecting one of America's most vital seaports.

In an ominous announcement, the Mayor warned of what he termed an unprecedented threat to the city saying,

"Ladies and gentlemen, I wish I had better news for you but we are facing a storm that most of us have feared. This is a threat that we've never faced before."

The storm is currently about 350 kilometres offshore, moving landward toward the Mississippi River delta at roughly 20 kph. The National Hurricane Center has issued warnings of destructive winds stretching along the Gulf coast from Florida to Alabama.

The threat of the evacuation of oil and gas rigs in the Gulf is already effecting record high gasoline prices. Energy producers say oil output from their Gulf operations has been reduced by a third.

The storm Floridians dubbed, "Little Andrew" in deference to that disastrous 1992 hurricane, the costliest in U.S. history, has now matched Andrew's Category 5 status and could yet prove a more damaging storm than its namesake.


Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. He also serves as contributing editor to PEJ.org. You can check out the GR Blog here.

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