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Subject: [NYTr] Hurricane Katrina: 'Homeland Security' Missing in Action
Date: 28 Aug 2005 15:28:28 -0500
From: nytr@olm.blythe-sy

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 

Hurricane Katrina: "Homeland Security" Missing in Action

[Katrina's unprecedented Category 5 threat is not only to New Orleans (where
the airports have alrady shut down, and tens of thousands are fleeing,
leaving behind the poor, the elderly, and the sick -- who have no
transportation. Its 28-foot storm surge also poses an enormous risk of
environmental disaster, since if the levees are washed away, the low-lying
"bowl" that is New Orleans and Lake Ponchetrain nearby could become
inundated with the toxic wastes of factories and refineries hit by the
storm, with its 175 mph winds (crrently). Oil platforms in the Gulf could be
knocked out of operation for an extended period. And large-scale destruction
to the Port of Southern Louisiana and its access roads -- critical to US
imports and exports to the world -- could wreak havoc on the US, and world,
economy. (See Stratfor's Red Alert below.)

Meanwhile, those poor, sick and elderly who cannot leave are being told to
hobble over to the Superdome on their walkers, with medication and 5 days'
worth of food. (What happens if it, too, is severely damaged?)

No one in the mainstream media is asking one of the most obvious questions:
Where is the National Guard? What are they doing to attempt to shore up the
levees (perhaps useless, but perhaps life-saving if th storm veers slightly
away from the predicted path)? Apparently, precious little. How are they
helping to evacuate those thousands of people stuck in the city? Answer:
They aren't.  The impact of the National Guard troops' deployment to Iraq
remains to be seen, but if Bush's Iraq Crusade is blamed for a major failure
by the regime to provide adequate "homeland security" in this situation, we
may see the whole house of cards come tumbling down vry fast indeed. - NY
Transfer]

Associated Press - Aug 28, 2005
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HURRICANE_KATRINA?SITE=MAFAL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

New Orleans Braces for Powerful Katrina

By ALLEN G. BREED
Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Monstrous Hurricane Katrina barreled toward the Big 
Easy on Sunday with 175-mph wind and a threat of a 28-foot storm surge, 
forcing a mandatory evacuation, a last-ditch Superdome shelter and 
prayers for those left to face the doomsday scenario this 
below-sea-level city has long dreaded.

"Have God on your side, definitely have God on your side," Nancy Noble 
said as she sat with her puppy and three friends in six lanes of one-way 
traffic on gridlocked Interstate 10. "It's very frightening."

Katrina intensified into a Category 5 giant over the warm water of the 
Gulf of Mexico on a path to come ashore early Monday in the heart of New 
Orleans. That would make it the city's first direct hit in 40 years and 
the most powerful storm ever to slam the city.

"I'm really scared," resident Linda Young said as she filled her gas 
tank. "I've been through hurricanes, but this one scares me. I think 
everybody needs to get out."

Rain began falling on southeastern Louisiana by midday Sunday, the first 
hints of a storm with a potential surge of 18 to 28 feet, topped with 
even higher waves, tornadoes and as much as 15 inches of rain.

"We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared," Mayor Ray 
Nagin said in ordering the mandatory evacuation for his city of 485,000 
people, surrounded by suburbs of a million more. "The storm surge will 
most likely topple our levee system."

Conceding that as many as 100,000 inner-city residents didn't have the 
means to leave and an untold number of tourists were stranded by the 
closing of the airport, the city arranged buses to take people to 10 
last-resort shelters, including the Superdome.

Nagin also dispatched police and firefighters to rouse people out with 
sirens and bullhorns, and even gave them the authority to commandeer 
vehicles to aid in the evacuation.

"This is very serious, of the highest nature," the mayor said. "This is 
a once-in-a-lifetime event."

For years, forecasters have warned of the nightmare scenario a big storm 
could bring to New Orleans, a bowl of a city that's up to 10 feet below 
sea level in spots and dependent on a network of levees, canals and 
pumps to keep dry. It's built between the half-mile-wide Mississippi 
River and Lake Pontchartrain, half the size of the state of Rhode Island.

Estimates have been made of tens of thousands of deaths from flooding 
that could overrun the levees and turn New Orleans into a 30-foot-deep 
toxic lake filled with chemicals and petroleum from refineries, and 
waste from ruined septic systems.

Katrina's eye was expected to make landfall around sunrise Monday on the 
southeastern Louisiana coast, although Mississippi also was in danger, 
said Ed Rappaport, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center in 
Miami. Because Katrina was such a big storm with hurricane-force wind of 
at least 74 mph extending up to 105 miles from the center, areas far 
from the eye's landfall could still be devastated.

At 2 p.m. EDT, Katrina's eye was about 180 miles south-southeast of the 
mouth of the Mississippi River. The storm was moving toward the 
west-northwest at nearly 13 mph and was expected to turn toward the 
north-northwest.

A hurricane warning was in effect for the north-central Gulf Coast from 
Morgan City, La., to the Alabama-Florida line, the hurricane center 
said. Tropical storm warnings extended east to Indian Pass, Fla., and 
west to Cameron, La., a spread of about 480 miles.

Despite the dire predictions, a group of residents in a poor 
neighborhood of central New Orleans sat on a porch with no car, no way 
out and, surprisingly, no fear.

"We're not evacuating," said 57-year-old Julie Paul. "None of us have 
any place to go. We're counting on the Superdome. That's our lifesaver."

The Superdome, the 70,000-seat home of football's Saints and the New 
Year's Sugar Bowl, opened at daybreak Sunday, giving first priority to 
frail, elderly people on walkers, some with oxygen tanks. They were told 
to bring enough food, water and medicine to last up to five days.

In the French Quarter, even bars that stayed open through the threat of 
past hurricanes were boarded up and the few people on the streets were 
battening down their businesses and getting out.

Don Russina has lived in the city for 20 years and never evacuated for a 
hurricane, until his wife told him early Sunday that Katrina had been 
upgraded to Category 5. "This is the first one that's been a direct hit. 
When the boss says 'no' I've got to go," he said as he took down the 
hanging signs from his Irish-themed gift shop.

Airport Holiday Inn manager Joyce Tillis spent the morning calling her 
140 guests to tell them about the evacuation order. Tillis, who lives 
inside the flood zone, also called her three daughters to tell them to 
get out.

"If I'm stuck, I'm stuck," Tillis said. "I'd rather save my second 
generation if I can."

But the evacuation was slow going. Highways in Louisiana and Mississippi 
were jammed as people headed away from Katrina's expected landfall. All 
lanes were limited to northbound traffic on Interstates 55 and 59, and 
westbound on I-10.

Katrina was "unmitigated bad news" for motorists across the nation 
because it shut down offshore production of at least 1 million barrels 
of oil daily and threatened refinery and import operations around New 
Orleans, said oil analyst Peter Beutel. He predicted crude oil could top 
$70 a barrel by Monday or Tuesday.

Hotels were spared from evacuation orders to give tourists and locals a 
place for "vertical evacuation."

Tina and Bryan Steven, a couple from Forest Lake, Minn., who came to 
attend a conference of emergency medical services, sat glumly on the 
sidewalk outside their hotel in the French Quarter.

"We're choosing the best of two evils," said Bryan Steven. "It's either 
be stuck in the hotel or stuck on the road. ... We'll make it through it."

His wife, wearing a Bourbon Street T-shirt with a lewd message, 
interjected: "I just don't want to die in this shirt."

Only three Category 5 hurricanes - the highest on the Saffir-Simpson 
scale - have hit the United States since record-keeping began. The last 
was 1992's Hurricane Andrew, which at 145-mph leveled parts of South 
Florida, killed 43 people and caused $31 billion in damage.

New Orleans has not taken a major direct hit from a hurricane since 
Betsy in 1965, when an 8- to 10-foot storm surge submerged parts of the 
city in seven feet of water. Betsy, a Category 3 storm, was blamed for 
74 deaths in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida.

Rappaport warned that Katrina, already responsible for nine deaths in 
South Florida as a mere Category 1, could be far worse for New Orleans.

"It would be the strongest we've had in recorded history there," 
Rappaport said. "We're hoping of course there'll be a slight tapering 
off at least of the winds, but we can't plan on that. ... We're in for 
some trouble here no matter what."

[Associated Press reporters Mary Foster, Adam Nossiter and 
Brett Martel in New Orleans contributed to this report.]

On the Net:
National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

) 2005 The Associated Press.

                                 ***

Stratfor Red Alert - Aug 28, 2005
http://www.stratfor.com

The Geopolitics of Katrina

A Category 5 hurricane, the most severe type measured, Katrina has been 
reported heading directly toward the city of New Orleans. This would be 
a human catastrophe, since New Orleans sits in a bowl below sea level. 
However, Katrina is not only moving on New Orleans. It also is moving on 
the Port of Southern Louisiana. Were it to strike directly and 
furiously, Katrina would not only take a massive human toll, but also an 
enormous geopolitical one.

The Port of Southern Louisiana is the fifth-largest port in the world in 
terms of tonnage, and the largest port in the United States. The only 
global ports larger are Singapore, Rotterdam, Shanghai and Hong Kong. It 
is bigger than Houston, Chiba and Nagoya, Antwerp and New York/New 
Jersey. It is a key link in U.S. imports and exports and critical to the 
global economy.

The Port of Southern Louisiana stretches up and down the Mississippi 
River for about 50 miles, running north and south of New Orleans from 
St. James to St. Charles Parish. It is the key port for the export of 
grains to the rest of the world -- corn, soybeans, wheat and animal 
feed. Midwestern farmers and global consumers depend on those exports. 
The United States imports crude oil, petrochemicals, steel, fertilizers 
and ores through the port. Fifteen percent of all U.S. exports by value 
go through the port. Nearly half of the exports go to Europe.

The Port of Southern Louisiana is a river port. It depends on the 
navigability of the Mississippi River. The Mississippi is notorious for 
changing its course, and in southern Louisiana -- indeed along much of 
its length -- levees both protect the land from its water and maintain 
its course and navigability. Dredging and other maintenance are constant 
and necessary to maintain its navigability. It is fragile.

If New Orleans is hit, the Port of Southern Louisiana, by definition, 
also will be hit. No one can predict the precise course of the storm or 
its consequences. However, if we speculate on worse-case scenarios the 
following consequences jump out:

# The port might become in whole or part unusable if levees burst. If 
the damage to the river and port facilities could not be repaired within 
30 days when the U.S. harvests are at their peak, the effect on global 
agricultural prices could be substantial.

# There is a large refinery at Belle Chasse. It is the only refinery 
that is seriously threatened by the storm, but if it were to be 
inundated, 250,000 barrels per day would go off line. Moreover, the 
threat of environmental danger would be substantial.

# About 2 percent of world crude production and roughly 25 percent of 
U.S.-produced crude comes from the Gulf of Mexico and already is 
affected by Katrina. Platforms in the path of Katrina have been 
evacuated but others continue pumping. If this follows normal patterns, 
most production will be back on line within hours or days. However, if a 
Category 5 hurricane (of which there have only been three others in 
history) has a different effect, the damage could be longer lasting. 
Depending on the effect on the Port of Southern Louisiana, the ability 
to ship could be affected.

# A narrow, two-lane highway that handles approximately 10,000 vehicles 
a day, is used for transport of cargo and petroleum products and 
provides port access for thousands of employees is threatened with 
closure. A closure of as long as two weeks could rapidly push gasoline 
prices higher.

At a time when oil prices are in the mid-60-dollar range and starting to 
hurt, the hurricane has an obvious effect. However, it must be borne in 
mind that the Mississippi remains a key American shipping route, 
particularly for the export and import of a variety of primary 
commodities from grain to oil, as well as steel and rubber. Andrew 
Jackson fought hard to keep the British from taking New Orleans because 
he knew it was the main artery for U.S. trade with the world. He was 
right and its role has not changed since then.

This is not a prediction. We do not know the path of the storm and we 
cannot predict its effects. It is a warning that if a Category 5 
hurricane hits the Port of Southern Louisiana and causes the damage that 
is merely at the outer reach of the probable, the effect on the global 
system will be substantial.

       
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