SEPTEMBER 2005

HalTurnerShow.com EXPLOSIVE RESIDUE FOUND ON FAILED LEVEE DEBRIS!
Ruptured New Orleans Levee had help failing
By: Hal Turner
September 9, 2005 - 3:36 PM EDT
 

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.  He secreted a small chunk of the cement inside his diving 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.  This would indicate at least two separate types of explosive devices."

The levee ruptures in New Orleans did not take place during Hurricane Katrina, but rather a day after the hurricane struck.  Several residents of New Orleans and many Emergency Workers reported hearing what sounded like large, muffled explosions from the area of the levee, but those were initially discounted as gas explosions from homes with leaking gas lines.

If these allegations prove true, the ruptured levee which flooded New Orleans was a deliberate act of mass destruction perpetrated by someone with access to military-grade UNDERWATER high explosives.

More details as they become available . . . . .

Could the levees in New Orleans have been INTENTIONALLY blown out in order to save sections of the city deemed to be more important? The locals certainly seem to think so, yet, as usual, the mainstreammedia is barely picking up on this wave of opinion, so it is left to usonce again to bring the issue into the open.

When Katrina hit, it drifted 15 miles to the east of where forecasters said it would strike. Therfore it wasn't quite the monster described. The storm passed through with relatively minor damage, it was the the storm surge from the Gulf that caused Lake Pontchartrain to rise three feet and the subsequent flooding. Katrina hit early on Monday 29th August, the levees broke in three places - along the Industrial Canal, the 17th Street Canal(above), and the London Street Canal. The main storm surge from Hurricane Katrina washed into Lake Pontchartrain at around 7AM on August 29th when the counterclockwise motion of Katrina was pushing water from the Gulf of Mexico into the lake.
The first levee broke just a few hours after the hurricane hit on the same morning. The breach of the 17th Street Canal levee resulted in the failure of a crucial pumping station nearby, according to a statement made by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. However, it seems that this exact scenario was expected and ignored. In an interview with New Orleans radio station local radio station WWL-AM,
Nagin revealed how irate he was that this had been allowed to happen: Nagin: You know what really upsets me, Garland? We told everybody the importance of the 17th Street Canal issue. We said, "Please, please take care of this. We don't care what you do. Figure it out." WWL: Who'd you say that to? Nagin: Everybody: the governor, Homeland Security, FEMA. You name it, we said it. And they allowed that pumping station next to Pumping Station 6 to go under water. Our sewage and water board people ... stayed there and endangered their lives. And what happened when that pumping station went down, the water started flowing again in the city, and it starting
getting to levels that probably killed more people. In addition to that, we had water flowing through the pipes in the city. That's a power station over there. So there's no water flowing anywhere on the east bank of Orleans Parish. So our critical water supply was destroyed because of lack of action.


It has emerged though that some kind of work was carried out on the 17th Street Canal levee. Reports have suggested that the funding was not there to complete the job, but some work had been done: "The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late. One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer was a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on Monday." Of course we know that it was the White House that slashed funding for such projects in order to pump more money into the war in Iraq.

According to the New York Times, Dr. Shea Penland of the Pontchartrain Institute was surprised because the break was "along a section that was just upgraded. It did not have an earthen levee, it had a vertical concrete wall several feet thick." It also seems that the broken section of the Industrial Canal levee was
having "construction" work done on it recently. New York Times science reporter Dr. Andrew Revkin has stated of the 17th Street Canal that "officials and [Army Corps] engineers said that after they had found the widening gap in the concrete wall on the eastern side of the canal, they had no quick-response plan to repair it." Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, commander of the corps, said "plugging the gap was a lower priority." The corps is directed by FEMA. "It is FEMA who is
really calling the shots and setting priorities here," Alfred C. Naomi, a senior project manager for the corps, was quoted in the same article as saying "there were still no clear hints why the main breach in the flood barriers occurred along the 17th Street Canal, normally a conduit for vast streams of water pumped out of the perpetually waterlogged city each day and which did not take the main
force of the waves roiling the lake. He said that a low spot marked on survey charts of the levees near the spot that ruptured was unrelated and that the depression was where a new bridge crossed the narrow canal near the lakefront."

Many locals have come forward to suggest that the levees were breached on purpose by the authorities. Resident Andrea Garland, now re-located to Texas, wrote in her blog: "Also heard that part of the reason our house flooded is they dynamited part of the levee after the first section broke - they did this to prevent Uptown (the rich part of town) from being flooded. Apparently they used too much dynamite, thus flooding part of the Bywater. So now I know who is responsible for flooding my house - not Katrina, but our government." This scenario is not so crazy as it sounds, in fact this exact thing has happened before in the same city. In 1927, the Mississippi River broke its banks in 145 places, depositing water at depths of up to 30ft over 27,000 square miles of land.
The disaster changed American society, shifting hundreds of thousands of delta-dwelling blacks into northern cities and cementing the divisions and suspicions that benign neglect has ensured remain today. New Orleans' (mainly white) business class pressurised the state to dynamite a levee upstream, releasing water into (mainly black) areas of the delta. Black workers were forced to work on flood relief at gunpoint, like slaves. Two parishes, St. Bernard and Plaquemines, which had a combined population of 10,000, were destroyed. Just before Katrina, these parishes had about 10 times the 1927 population. Both parishes are now under many feet of water. This information is covered in depth in a book by John M. Barry entitled "Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and how it Changed America, 1997" which has incidentally become heavily in demand after Katrina.

Furthermore, levees were also intentionally broke after Hurricane Betsy struck New Orleans in 1965, admittedly with less of an impact. The tactic of breaking the dikes is not uncommon, as this CNN report on China's floodplains highlights. Engineers have now punched holes in several levees in parts of New Orleans where flood levels were higher than the water in drainage canals leading to Pontchartrain, in order to let water flow out. Did the authorities decide to sacrifice the poor folks and blow the levees in order to save the French Quarter of New Orleans which houses the richer residents, the lucrative historical buildings and thousands of businesses?

There were reports of many explosions heard in New Orleans, officials say they were transformers blowing up. Total Information Analysis has reported a claim by intelligence expert Tom Heneghen that 25 earwitnesses cited explosions immediately before the levee breach. Similar reports are now appearing in many web blogs: "He also mentioned that right before the mass flood there was a loud sound like an explosion." - News from St. Bernard "I'll tell you the worst thing I've heard and I heard it from my mother. She said she heard several blasts - big booms - right before the levees broke. Several blasts and then all the water came pouring in." - aangirfan

ABC World News Tonight carried a report which contained an interview with a local, who described how a flloating barge had rammed the levee. The man seemed convined that the levee was purposefully broken. A transcript of which has appeared on the net: David Muir: "Was it solely the water that broke the levee? Or was it the force of this barge that now sits where homes once did? Joe Edwards says neither. People are so bitter, so disenfranchised in this neighborhood, they actually think the city did it, blowing up the levee to save richer neighborhoods, like the French Quarter." Muir to Edwards as they stand on a bridge: "So you're convinced-" Edwards: "I knows it happened." Muir: "-that they broke the levee on purpose?" Edwards: "They blew it." Muir: "New Orleans' Mayor says there's no credence to this." Mayor Ray Nagin: "That storm was so powerful and it pushed so much water -- there's no way anyone could have calculated -- would dynamite the
levee to have the kind of impact to save the French Quarter." Muir concluded: "An LSU expert who looked at the video today, says that while the barge may have caused it, it was most likely the sheer force of the water that brought the levee, along the lower 9th ward, down." The mysterious barge story has also been reported by many other local residents. "The evacuees who witnessed the barge striking the levee also want to know why the major media is not covering this story."

The London Observer carried an intriguing story of a man named Correll Williams, a 19-year-old meat cutter. The article states that: "Williams only left his apartment after the authorities took the decision to flood his district in an apparent attempt to sluice out some of the water that had submerged a neighbouring district. Like hundreds of others he had heard the news of the decision to flood his district on the radio. The authorities had given people in the district until 5pm on Tuesday to
get out - after that they would open the floodgates." So it's clear that barriers WERE being broken in an attempt to protect areas of the city.

Some final intruiging footage reveals a journalist questioning former President Bill Clinton as to why many locals feel that the levees were purposefully broken. This was during the press conference with Clinton and George Bush Snr announcing their combined "relief effort" for New Orleans. Ignore the first 15 minutes of sickening joking and backslapping between the two and skip to the last minute of footage. Upon hearing the question Clinton appears to be surprised and then simply walks off.

Locals from Lakeview subdivision of New Orleans report that after Katrina passed a loose barge struck levee causing breach that flooded city.  

WMR has just been informed by evacuees in Baton Rouge from Lakeview, a well-to-do New Orleans neighborhood, that the flooding of the city was caused by a loose barge striking the levee on the 17th Street Canal. The breach was not caused by rising flood waters as reported by FEMA and other agencies. Lakeview is some 1.5 miles down Veterans Boulevard from the 17th St. Canal breach.

Distraught evacuees want to know why the Coast Guard or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not secure the barge. The evacuees who witnessed the barge striking the levee also want to know why the major media is not covering this story. It is not known what company owns the barge but if it is a major campaign contributor to the GOP, the answer is self-evident.

It is the Army Corps of Engineers that has been responsible for the dwindling of the coastline that has required the levees to be constantly reinforced with higher walls. But no one bothered to do this since 1965. The Corps' levee management, the history of which was documented by Mark Thornton following the last flood in 1999.It is critical to keep in mind that none of this was caused by Hurricane Katrina as such. It was the levee break that led to the calamity. As the New York Times points out: "it was not the water from the sky but the water that broke through the city's protective barriers that had changed everything for the worse.... When the levees gave way in some critical spots, streets that were essentially dry in the hours immediately after the hurricane passed were several feet deep in water on Tuesday morning."...There is some dispute about precisely when the levees broke. There was no warning system. There is no question that plenty of time was available between their breakage and the flooding to enable people to make other arrangements - and perhaps for the levees to be repaired. People were relieved that the rain subsided and the effects of Katrina were far less overwhelming than anyone expected. That's when the disaster struck. ....The Army Corp of Engineers apparently had no viable plan, even to make repairs. They couldn't bring in the massive barges and cranes needed because the bridges were down and broken, or couldn't be opened without electricity. They dumped tons of sand into one breach even as another levee was breaking. ...........Many bloggers had the sense that the public sector essentially walked away. But the police and their guns and nightsticks were out in full force, not arresting criminals but pushing around the innocent and giving mostly bad instructions. The 10,000 people who had been corralled into the Superdome were essentially under house arrest from the police who were keeping them there, preventing them even from getting fresh air. A day later the water and food were running out, people were dying, and the sanitary conditions becoming disastrous. Finally someone had the idea of shipping all these people Soviet-like to Houston to live in the Astrodome, as if they are not people with volition but cattle. The State and the Flood,> by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. ,> [September 02, 2005]>

Homeland Hysteria Searching Residents, Not Evacuating Them UPDATE AT BOTTOM OF PAGE + shocking refusal of US government of outside help:

Being kept from these American people also by their Military Rulers have been the uncounted offers of assistance from Nations all around the world, including: Venezuela has offered their Medical Airlift Command for the evacuation of peoples trapped in these devastated regions; Holland has offered the resources of their Public Works Ministry (and who are the acknowledged World Experts for below sea level water evacuation procedures); Russia has offered over 100,000 temporary living structures, along with Military Personal to assist their American counterparts; Iran has offered 1 Billion US Dollars in immediate assistance and guaranteed 5,000,000 barrels of oil at $35.00 US Dollars; China has offered their Military Rescue Forces (Who are acknowledged as one of the best in the world for rescuing peoples in flood ravaged areas.)

All of these offers, and more, the Military Leaders of the United States have declined, and for the their previously stated reason: “The United States Government and its People Respectfully Decline your offer of assistance and refer you to our previous State Department Bulletin (NCO:13788) in which we had stated that this remains an internal action.”   

Read the New Orleans Times Picayune for all the human stories"This is 2005," John Murray shouted, standing in the street near Mr. Harris' body. "It should not be like this for no catastrophe. This is pathetic." www.nola.com

Date: 8/28/05 3:37:34 PM Mountain Daylight Time

Louisiana: 

Where's FEMA? Where's the National Guard?

Where's FEMA? Where are the C130 transport planes that could have taken the city's poor, elderly and ill to appropriate shelter at military bases or hospitals outside the path of what is probably the worst
hurricane ever to hit the US?  Why are local police having to commandeer *private* trucks and cars to transport people to the Superdome?

What few National Guard troops there are seem to be assigned to set up metal detectors and to search everyone's clothing and bags as they enter the Superdome, where they are told to wait, like sitting ducks, for the storm to hit. (here is the national guard! metal detectors to the ready......Everyone entering was patted down, went through a metal detector and watched National Guard members search their bags. It was a thorough search -- people had to put hands on head and even clothing seams were checked.General Ralph Lupin said 360 guardsmen were in the dome and 200 more were on the way.Associated Press)

This storm has been predicted since 1965, the last time the levees were breached.  Nothing has been done to prepare for it, to strengthen the levees, to improve the pumps.

Katrina has been on a path toward New Orleans for days. The city and state waited too long to order a general evacuation.

The half-wit from the White House used yesterday's radio address to yap about "staying the course" in Iraq.  Today he is prattling on about the great "progress" represented by a failed Constitution-drafting process.

Fidel Castro would have been on the airwaves for the last two days informing the population at risk about what steps were being taken, and why, to protect life and property in the path of the hurricfane. Fidel Castro would have deployed all the military and civil defense resources available to carry out Cuba's well-plnned and well-rehearsed disaster preparedness program.  Fidel Castro would have been marching around the City of New Orleans overseeing preparations to protect the population. But not the dry drunk of Crawford, Texas.  He's too busy cursing Cindy Sheehan and sending his goon squads out to persecute antiwar protestors and spy on their internet posts.

Now the redneck flag-wavers in Alabama and Louisiana will find out just how much the regime they support cares about them and their welfare, as they watch their property and their prosperity take a huge hit. Unfortunately, too many completely blameless poor people who don't support the
mass-murdering administration may have to die in the process.-NYTransfer

                            
Medical Probems

NEW ORLEANS--They hobbled in on crutches and canes. They were wheeled in on stretchers. If they were physically fit, they lined up outside the Superdome, clutching their belongings. With Hurricane Katrina bearing down, New Orleans' poor and infirm sought the only shelter available.By the time the Superdome opened, the line stretched for blocks outside the main entrance, some with problems like dialysis were moved to hospitals and other facilities, some to other cities. Dr. Kevin Stephens Senior, director of the city health department, says officials learned from previous evacuations, and is confident the patients can be kept comfortable for three or four days. He says the dome was staffed by local doctors and 25 more were flying in from Washington. Dr. Sandra Robinson was meeting with small groups of the evacuees, warning them they needed enough medicine for several days.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Well what about this resolution in June that must be significant so substantially now ??!!:

New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers faces   Jun 6, 2005

In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding. It would be the largest single-year funding loss ever for the New Orleans district, Corps officials said.

I've been here over 30 years and I've never seen this level of reduction, said Al Naomi, project manager for the New Orleans district. I think part of the problem is it's not so much the reduction, it's the drastic reduction in one fiscal year. It's the immediacy of the reduction that I think is the hardest thing to adapt to. There is an economic ripple effect, too. The cuts mean major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now......

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4200/is_20050606/ai_n14657367

new letters:
As a Louisiana resident who has spent the better part of two days trying to help those here who are in need, I think its hardly appropriate to joyfully announce that we "redneck flag wavers" are about to get what someone thinks we deserve.   Anyone who gave this matter even a fleeting moment of thought would realize that those most at risk, those most likely to die if this thing goes as predicted will likely be those who did not support what is called here "a murderous administration."  

From: "Henri" The writer of the criticism - whose email address is not given - makes some very valid points. The common man should not look for help from the Federal govt, it's too busy wheeling and dealing with those who are power brokers. All one can get from D.C. is sound bites and tricky promises. And, yes, Fidel Castro (and Hugo Chavez, also) would use all his government's equipment and facilities to help the people in a natural disaster of this kind. That is their mindset. The mindset of Washington, D.C. is entirely of the opposite mold. Shall we suspend telling it "as it is" because of a storm? Isn't that exactly the time to make clear our thoughts?  H.  

Hurricane Katrina: Crunch Time

Hutton Commentaries Bulletin (After Katrina - How viable remains the U.S. link To The world?)
Date: 8/29/2005 9:57:36 AM Pacific Daylight Time

Hurricane Katrina continues to rage over southern Louisiana. The storm already has left the primary oil and natural gas production regions and is assaulting the mainland itself.

First, the good news. An 11th hour burst of relatively dry air succeeded in taking (a touch of) the wind out of Katrina's sails. In technical terms, this means the storm has been downgraded to a Category 3 hurricane; however, as of 10 a.m. local time, 100 mile-per-hour winds are still hitting New Orleans.

Another small bit of good information is that the storm did shift course to the east in the early hours of Aug. 29 and is traveling due north. Though parts of New Orleans will still be in the "eyewall" -- the most dangerous part of the storm -- the city itself seems posed to just barely avoid a direct hit. As of 9:30 a.m. local time, Katrina's eye was even with New Orleans on an east-west axis

Very soon, the focus will shift from stunned awe at Mother Nature's raw power to the dreary and painstaking work of damage assessment and repair. The storm passed directly over the Mississippi River's mouth, raising the prospect that the main channel has shifted. Such a development would delay the reopening of the river until the channel could be resurveyed and likely dredged. Depending on the silting, that could take a few hours -- or a few weeks. Add in damage to critical energy infrastructure and initial damage estimates, before a single assessor has put foot on soggy Louisianan ground, are at a floor of $30 billion.




It is difficult to predict the damage -- and impossible to underestimate the significance -- of what the United States faces. The city of New Orleans, the Port of South Louisiana and Port Fourchon combined serve as the hub of trade and energy collection and distribution for the middle third of the country. All have been hit -- and hit badly. But, for a few hours, we will not know specifically how badly.

Which means that we are now in the realm of logistics, and if what few scattered reports out of New Orleans are correct, there will be few people available to do the work necessary to repair the damage.

The northwest quadrant of the hurricane is currently whipping waves south and southwest across Lake Pontchartrain. With storm surges expected to hit as high as 20 feet -- before the waves are taken into account -- the expectations are that water is already gushing across the northern levees protecting New Orleans from the Mississippi. Needless to say, no one is standing on said levees reporting live. The world will have to wait a couple of hours until winds drop back into the double digits before a few brave souls can venture out and assess how bad a shape the city is in -- particularly whether the levees held at all.

That remains the question. In addition to the humanitarian disaster -- there are scattered reports that several evacuation centers have sustained heavy damage -- there is at least one report of a barge breaking free of its moorings. Should it strike the levee in the current conditions, the rupture would put the viability of the city in doubt. At present, there is at least one report that one levee has been breached already, although it is not clear if the barge caused the breach.

Assuming that all were well in the world and that the New Orleans pump system were safe above water (it is not), operating at full capacity the city could drain itself in three weeks. A more likely figure is six months. If New Orleans is out of the equation, then repair efforts will need to be based from further inland at a slow pace and higher cost. The next few days will be a race against time to get everything in working order again. What is not clear at this point is whether there will even be a city from which to base the effort.

MARTIAL LAW DECLARED IN NEW ORLEANS

Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005

Martial law was declared in New Orleans midday Tuesday as the city continued flooding from at least two levees damaged by Hurricane Katrina. WWL-TV, New Orleans, which evacuated its studios earlier, reported airlifts of sandbags had been ordered as water flooded along the city's landmark Canal Street. No one but emergency personnel was allowed into the city, whose two airports were under water. Looting was reported. Mayor Ray Nagin said bodies have been seen floating in floodwaters, although neither city nor Louisiana state officials had issued a preliminary death toll. Nagin said the city's Twin Span Bridge is "totally destroyed" and that 80 percent of the city is underwater. New Orleans is 6 feet below sea level and reliant on levees to hold back water from Lake Ponchartrain. He also predicted there would be no electricity in the city for four to six weeks. Natural gas leaks were also reported throughout the city, CNN reported. (c)2005 by United Press International.

Officials: Katrina Devastation 'Overwhelming' NewsMax.com Wires
Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005

GULFPORT, Miss. -- Rescuers in boats and helicopters searched for survivors of Hurricane Katrina and brought victims, wet and bedraggled, to shelters Tuesday as the extent of the damage across the Gulf Coast became ever clearer. Mississippi's governor said the death toll in one county alone could be as high as 80. "At first light, the devastation is greater than our worst fears. It's just totally overwhelming," Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the morning after Katrina howled ashore with winds of 145 mph and engulfed thousands of homes in one of the most punishing storms on record in the United States. More than 1,600 Mississippi National Guardsmen were activated to help with the recovery, and the Alabama Guard planned to send two battalions to Mississippi. "We know that last night we had over 300 folks that we could confirm were on tops of roofs and waiting for our assistance. We pushed hard all throughout the night. We hoisted over 100 folks last night just in the Mississippi area.

Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi said there were unconfirmed reports of up to 80 deaths in Harrison County - which includes devastated Gulfport and Biloxi - and the number was likely to rise. An untold number of people were also feared dead in Louisiana. At least five other deaths across the Gulf Coast were blamed on Katrina. "We know that there is a lot of the coast that we have not been able to get to," the governor said on NBC's "Today Show." "I hate to say it, but it looks like it is a very bad disaster in terms of human life." As for the death toll in Louisiana, Blanco said only: "We have no counts whatsoever, but we know many lives have been lost." The biggest known cluster of deaths was at the Quiet Water Beach apartments in Biloxi, a red-brick beachfront complex of about 100 units. Harrison County, Miss., emergency operations center spokesman Jim Pollard said about 30 people died there.

Along the Gulf Coast, tree trunks, downed power lines and trees, and chunks of broken concrete in the streets prevented rescuers from reaching victims. Swirling water in many areas contained hidden dangers. Crews worked to clear highways. Along one Mississippi highway, motorists themselves used chainsaws to remove trees blocking the road. As of Monday night, more than 37,000 people were in American Red Cross shelters along the Gulf Coast, the organization reported. The hurricane knocked out power to more than 1 million people from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, and authorities said it could be two months before electricity is restored to everyone.

In New Orleans, meanwhile, water began rising in the streets Tuesday morning, apparently because of a break on a levee along a canal leading to Lake Pontchartrain. New Orleans lies mostly below sea level and is protected by a network of pumps, canals and levees. Many of the pumps were not working Tuesday morning. Officials planned to use helicopters to drop 3,000-pound sandbags into the breach, and expressed confidence the problem could be solved within hours. In New Orleans, a city of 480,000 that was mostly evacuated over the weekend as Katrina closed in, those who stayed behind faced another, delayed threat: rising water. Failed pumps and levees apparently sent water from Lake Pontchartrain coursing through the streets. The rising water forced one New Orleans hospital to move patients to the Louisiana Superdome, where some 10,000 people had taken shelter, and prompted the staff of New Orleans' Times-Picayune newspaper to abandon its offices, authorities said. Downtown streets that were relatively clear in the hours after the storm were filled with 1 to 1 1/2 feet of water Tuesday morning. Water was knee-deep around the Superdome. Canal Street was literally a canal. Water lapped at the edge of the French Quarter. Clumps of red ants floated in the gasoline-fouled waters downtown.

Looting broke out in Biloxi and in New Orleans, in some cases in full view of police and National Guardsmen. On New Orleans' Canal Street, the main thoroughfare in the central business district, looters sloshed through hip-deep water and ripped open the steel gates on the front of several clothing and jewelry stores.

Some people:Mike Spencer of Gulfport made the mistake of trying to ride out the storm in his house. He told NBC that he used his grandson's little surfboard to make his way around the house as the water rose around him.Finally, he said, "as the house just filled up with water, it forced me into the attic, and then I ended up kicking out the wall and climbing up to a tree because the houses around me were just disappearing." He said he wrapped himself around a tree branch and waited four or five hours.

Anne Anderson said she lost her family home in Gulfport. "My family's an old Mississippi family. I had antiques, 150 years old or more, they're all gone. We have just basically a slab," she told NBC. She added: "Behind us we have a beautiful sunrise and sunset, and that is going to be what I'm going to miss the most, sitting on the porch watching those." © 2005 The Associated Press

FEMA ? YES, here is their comment:FEMA Head: Katrina Was 'Catastrophic' NewsMax.com Wires
Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005

WASHINGTON - The nation's top disaster relief official said Tuesday that Hurricane Katrina wrought "catastrophic" damage to low-lying portions of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama and that additional medical personnel were being moved in to treat evacuated hospital patients. The damage is "very, very sobering," Brown said. "And of course the flooding is just everywhere ... New Orleans, all through Mississippi and Alabama. This storm is really having a catastrophic effect," Brown said on CBS' "The Early Show." FEMA sent medical teams, rescue squads and groups prepared to supply food and water into the disaster areas and Brown said it would be "quite a while" before those displaced by the hurricane can return to damaged areas, especially in those areas near downtown New Orleans. "It's the parishes and wards south and east of New Orleans, it's Biloxi, Miss., and the region," Brown said on NBC's "Today" show. "All those low-lying areas are just devastated."

NATIONAL GUARDS??Some 6,000 National Guard personnel from Louisiana and Mississippi who would otherwise be available to help deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina are in Iraq. Even so, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said the states have adequate National Guard units to handle the hurricane needs.

UPDATE:First the most important assesment published of the Bush ~Government's neglect of New Orleans district reports which can categorically be described as the reason that this catastrophe has occurred:

Report from Inside New Orleans Hospital: "Who is Left Behind?...The Sickest, The Oldest, The Poorest, The Youngest"

As the devastation left in the wake of hurricane Katrina continues to unfold, we go to New Orleans to speak with law professor Bill Quigley of Loyola University. Quigley, who is volunteering at Memorial Hospital, said, "The people who are in New Orleans are - in all honesty - dying and there could be a lot more casualties unless there's a lot of help, real fast."

On Tuesday the city's mayor Ray Nagin had to be airlifted from City Hall due to the rising waters. Officials are now planning to evacuate everyone inside the SuperDome where at least 20,000 have sought refuge. The emergency generators at the sports complex are now failing, there is no air conditioning and the building is surrounded by water.

Meanwhile both city airports are underwater. The staff of the city's newspaper the Times-Picayune had to flee its newsroom Tuesday due to the rising waters. The paper has been forced to publish only electronic versions of its newspaper. The city's main public hospital is no longer functioning and being evacuated. The U.S. military is reportedly helping to evacuate more than 1,000 people from Tulane University Hospital.

Doctors are also concerned about the possibility of outbreaks of disease spread through sewage contamination of drinking water, spoiled food, insects, and bites from snakes and other animals.

The Times-Picayune reported the catastrophic flooding is expected to worsen over the next few days after rainfall from the hurricane flows into Lake Pontchartain from upstream rivers and streams. With the levees broke, the water will keep rising in the city of New Orleans until it is at same level as the lake and Mississippi River. (IT IS FROM THIS LAKE THAT ALLIGATORS AND SNAKES ETC ARE ENTERING NEW ORLEANS. THIS LAKE WAS ALREADY RELEASING WATER TOWARD NEW ORLEANS BUT THE CANCELLATION OF MONEY FOR REPAIR, AS REPORTED ABOVE, IN JUNE THIS YEAR, MEANT NEGLECT IS NOW ACCELERATING THE TRAGEDY. ALSO THE FACT THAT THE DYKES KEEPING OUT THE SEA HAVE BEEN LET GET SO FRAGILE IS UTTERLY INCREDIBLE. ARE AMERICANS GOING TO REALISE THAT THE WHOLE WORLD IS NOW AWARE OF MASSIVE INCOMPETENCE NOT ONLY WITHIN THEIR GOVERNMENTS AND THEIR MILITARY DISCIPLINE, BUT ALSO NOW ON A HORRIFIC SOCIAL SCALE? JBRADDELL,EDITOR)

Over the past decade the Army Corps of Engineers has spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations. But another $250 million in work remained. According to press accounts, the federal funding largely froze up in 2003. Over the past two years the Times-Picayune paper has run at least nine articles that cite the cost of the Iraq invasion as a reason for the lack of hurricane and flood control funding. Earlier this year President Bush proposed significantly reducing the amount of federal money for the project. He proposed spending $10 million. Local officials said six times as much money was needed.

• Bill Quigley, law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans who is volunteering at Memorial Hospital.

A TELEPHONE CALL WAS RECEIVED FROM 22 RUSSIAN STUDENTS MAROONED ON A ROOFTOP OF THEIR LODGINGS. NO HELP HAS BEEN RECEIVED AT LAST REPORT THIS MORNING.
"President Bush announced he would cut short his vacation by two days and return to Washington today. He spoke on Tuesday in San Diego. "Right now our priority is on saving lives and we are still in the midst of search and rescue operations," (AND WE READ OF EMPTY TRUCKS LEAVING THE POVERTY STRICKEN ON THE STREETS, AND REQUESTS FOR RESCUE BEING IGNORED AND OFFICIALS PAUSING TO "PRIORITISE" TO WHOM THEY WILL GIVE EVEN A BLANKET. jb,editor)

  Original Message To: "Undisclosed-Recipient:;Thursday, September 01, 2005 5:45 PM
Don't Give Your Hurricane Donations to the Red Cross
  Something to consider, my daddy told me that when he was a gunner on a 50 mm anti-aircraft machine gun on a destroyer in the Pacific, and after three weeks of battle for Wake Island, when they came to port they stepped off the ship and there was the Red Cross, passing out hot cups of coffee and portable shave kits....As he walked through the line, he got his cup of coffee and then his shave kit and as he walked up to the last person in that line they wanted his service #.....He asked why? They replied, "So we can deduct the costs from your next months pay voucher", my dad said he handed back the cup of coffee & the shave kit and then informed them what he and his gun crew had just went through in the taking of Wake Island.....He told me they seemed not to care........He felt that he and his crew had risked their lives, and it wasn't even worth a cup of coffee and a razor with a couple of blades....He never thought much of the Red Cross........


Establishment charities have history of withholding disaster funds

Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones | September 1 2005

As the aftermath of hurricane Katrina continues to wreak mayhem and havoc amid reports of mass looting, shooting at rescue helicopters, rapes and murders, establishment media organs are promoting the Red Cross as a worthy organization to give donations to.

The biggest website in the world, Yahoo.com, displays a Red Cross donation link prominently on its front page.

Every time there is a major catastrophe the Red Cross and similar organizations like United Way are given all the media attention while other charities are left in the shadows. This is not to say that the vast majority of Red Cross workers are not decent people who simply want to help those in need.

But what the media fails consistently to remember in their promotion of the organization is that the Red Cross have been caught time and time again withholding money in the wake of horrible disasters that require immediate release of funds.

The Red Cross, under the Liberty Fund, collected $564 million in donations after 9/11. Months after the event, the Red Cross had distributed only $154 million. The Red Cross' explanation for keeping the majority of the money was that it would be used to help 'fight the war on terror'. To the victims, this meant that the money was going towards bombing broken backed third world countries like Afghanistan and setting up surveillance cameras and expanding the police state in US cities, and not towards helping them rebuild their lives.

Then Red Cross President Dr. Bernadine Healy arrogantly responded when questioned about the withholding of funds by stating, "The Liberty Fund is a war fund. It has evolved into a war fund."

Despite the family members of victims of 9/11 complaining bitterly to a House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight panel, the issue seemed to be brushed under the carpet and the mud didn't stick.

The Red Cross' scandalous activities reach back far before 9/11.

After the devastating San Francisco earthquake in 1989, the Red Cross passed on only $10 million of the $50 million that had been raised, and banked the rest.

Similar donations after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the Red River flooding in 1997 were also greedily withheld.

Smaller charities that were involved with the 2004 Tsunami relief project went public to say that large charities like Red Cross and United Way were engaged in secret backroom negotiations with each other that meant a large portion of the donation money was purposefully restricted from reaching the most needy areas affected by the disaster.

The history is clear, the Red Cross and other large so-called charities are in actual fact front group collection agencies for the military industrial complex.

Many informed historians have even alleged that the Red Cross was used as a Skull and Bones cover to overthrow The Russian Czar and pave the way for the rise of the Bolsheviks.

Do not give any money to the Red Cross unless you support the expansion of empire abroad and police state at home. Find a smaller trustworthy organization in the local area of New Orleans and make your donation to them.

MONEY:
Hurricane Katrine took centre stage over the recent past as it swept over the Gulf of Mexico and hitting New Orleans. Yet, the equity markets rallied and Gold was kept in check thanks to the relentless effort by the Working Group of Financial Markets to “stabilize” the markets. Ever since 9/11 the PPT has stepped in to prevent the public from selling out due to “fear” concerns. The intervention was highly visible this time and it started the night before when the Euro hit 1.2350 vs. the US Dollar in Asian trading following the weak U.S. economic figures the day before. Equity markets in Europe were hit hard the next morning and the Future contract for the Dow Jones was trading down close to 100 points What followed was a textbook rescue operation. What you have here is a massive Working Group of Financial Markets derivatives operation, set in motion to affect the daily activity of the major traders on Wall Street. Price action makes market commentary! The high oil price was talked to be “good” for the global economy since a high price reflects strong demand! The insurance stocks rallied since the damage was estimated at the famous “low end” of USD 20 bln. To top it off, the comment was that the hurricane would give the insurance companies the opportunity to raise their premiums in the near future which is good for the sector….what a colossal joke! Of course, no word was mentioned in the market commentary about the state of emergency in the heating-oil, and gasoline trading pits……We are absolutely convinced that the USD 20 bln will explode to the upside – only today the media shows the truth about the tragedy in the southern States.Day by day, investors are led like pigs to the trough. Unfortunately, the majority does not realize what is really going on – that the stock market has lost its fundamental role as the “distributor of capital to the economy”. What we have today is a giant casino run by the central banks and the government in which every player is promised to win!

“For They That Sow the Wind Shall Reap the Whirlwind” 

By Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

09/01/05 -- --As Hurricane Katrina dismantles Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, it’s worth recalling the central role that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour played in derailing the Kyoto Protocol and kiboshing President Bush’s iron-clad campaign promise to regulate CO2.

In March of 2001, just two days after EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman’s strong statement affirming Bush’s CO2 promise former RNC Chief Barbour responded with an urgent memo to the White House.

Barbour, who had served as RNC Chair and Bush campaign strategist, was now representing the president’s major donors from the fossil fuel industry who had enlisted him to map a Bush energy policy that would be friendly to their interests. His credentials ensured the new administration’s attention.

The document, titled “Bush-Cheney Energy Policy & CO2,” was addressed to Vice President Cheney, whose energy task force was then gearing up, and to several high-ranking officials with strong connections to energy and automotive concerns keenly interested in the carbon dioxide issue, including Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Commerce Secretary Don Evans, White House chief of staff Andy Card and legislative liaison Nick Calio. Barbour pointedly omitted the names of Whitman and Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, both of whom were on record supporting CO2 caps. Barbour’s memo chided these administration insiders for trying to address global warming which Barbour dismissed as a radical fringe issue.

“A moment of truth is arriving,” Barbour wrote, “in the form of a decision whether this Administration’s policy will be to regulate and/or tax CO2 as a pollutant. The question is whether environmental policy still prevails over energy policy with Bush-Cheney, as it did with Clinton-Gore.” He derided the idea of regulating CO2 as “eco-extremism,” and chided them for allowing environmental concerns to “trump good energy policy, which the country has lacked for eight years.”

The memo had impact. “It was terse and highly effective, written for people without much time by a person who controls the purse strings for the Republican Party,” said John Walke, a high-ranking air quality official in the Clinton administration.

On March 13, Bush reversed his previous position, announcing he would not back a CO2 restriction using the language and rationale provided by Barbour. Echoing Barbour’s memo, Bush said he opposed mandatory CO2 caps, due to “the incomplete state of scientific knowledge” about global climate change.

Well, the science is clear. This month, a study published in the journal Nature by a renowned MIT climatologist linked the increasing prevalence of destructive hurricanes to human-induced global warming.

Now we are all learning what it’s like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence which Barbour and his cronies have encouraged. Our destructive addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East and--now--Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children.