Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Telling the truth 2/10/06

Despite White House claims that they neither expected levee breaches in New Orleans nor knew of them in time to mobilize effective and timely rescue and relief efforts, reports this morning indicate that the news of the levee failure(s) was reported by  "28 federal, state and local agencies" on August 29th, the day of Katrina's Monday morning landfall (ABC News). From this morning's release:

The first internal White House communication about levee failures came at 11:13 a.m. on Aug. 29 in a "Katrina Spot Report" by the White House Homeland Security Council.

"Flooding is significant throughout the region and a levee in New Orleans has reportedly been breached sending 6-8 feet of water throughout the 9th ward area of the city," the internal report said.

With tens of thousands left homeless, a major city in shambles, over a thousand people known dead, and, by all accounts, more than three thousand still missing, Katrina stands as the largest failure of national security in our history, a continuing failure, compounded daily, as vast areas remain in ruin and their lost citizens scattered across the country with no way to go home. Americans want to see a leader stand up and take some responsibilty and do something to make it better. We can't go back and have good flood protection (built and maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) that holds up to (or disperses or prevents) the force of Katrina's wave surging up the MR-GO, exploding the Industrial Canal levee that morning, causing the first breach in a series that led to the flooding of 80% of New Orleans, but we can start telling the truth about what happened then and what's happening, now.

The temptation is to look away, as what we see when we look closely isn't pretty: all the ordinary people and businesses, unable to begin the task of reclaiming their lives and livlihoods because they can't know if they'll be protected going forward, and all the residents and college students who've returned to a city without a working trauma center, or adequate services (power, gas, internet, 911, basic and emergency healthcare). It is our obligation to these, our fellow citizens, to those who died, and those who are lost and may never be accounted for, and, perhaps most importantly, to those who are down there now toiling to rebuild the Gulf Coast and New Orleans, to bring to, as the President called it, "that part of the world" a new normalcy. It is our obligation to look at it, to pay attention to it, to make the effort that it takes to learn the truth, and to hold our leaders accountable for their actions and, most especially, their lies.

One voice that has been steadfast since August 29th is that of the Times-Picayune, bringing us updates the day of the storm until they were forced by rising waters to evacuate their offices, quickly setting up elsewhere and continuing to this day to speak the truth about what is happening in New Orleans for the rest of the world to hear. Among the most visceral, poignant, painfully honest and surprisingly humorous of those voices is that of columnist Chris Rose, whose powerful post-Katrina columns have been released in book form, 1 Dead In Attic.

I don't think that Americans like being lied to. I especially don't think that we like to be lied to by those who claim that their advantage, their moral superiority, their strength versus the weaknesses of their opponents, is their abiding sense of Christian ethics and their mastery of matters of national security. It's time to tell the truth.

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