What’s the probability of another hurricane hitting just east of New Orleans and having its soft side bring north winds over Lake Pontchartrain the way Katrina did on the morning of August 29, 2005? That’s what George W. Bush and his gang are gambling will not happen again, at least not while they are in office.

Bush and his minions have yet to admit that New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen; that the levees designed, built, and maintained by the federal government’s Army Corps of Engineers were inadequate; that one of three “Category Three” hurricanes to visit the Gulf Coast in 2005 proved that conclusively. It’s so much easier just to avoid the subject and the responsibility while pretending that Katrina was an unusual hurricane and to be doing everything to help the victims.

Of course, Bush wasn’t in office when the levees were built and supposedly designed to withstand a Category Three hurricane, and he’s only one of the presidents that put the Southeastern Louisiana Flood Control project (SELA) on the back burner while supplying just enough money to pay salaries year after year, but he is the president that promised to rebuild New Orleans “bigger and better than ever” in “the greatest reconstruction effort the world has ever seen.”

One year later and about to enter another September peak hurricane season, the city still resembles the shambles of Iraq. We are still clearing debris while thousands have been displaced and the levees have been shored up to the same condition they were in before Katrina with little if any thought given to rebuilding 350 miles of these dykes to truly protect one of our major cities.

After many photo-ops and promises, Bush retreated to the position of waiting to see what the local people wanted to do. "After all, it is their city" said our Commander-in-Chief. But when the local Committee to Rebuild New Orleans met in Baton Rouge, the major consensus was that they wanted the levees rebuilt to withstand a Category Five hurricane claiming it would take that to get most of the former population to move back and estimated the cost at $22 billion – considerably less than Bush borrows every month.

Bush responded with an offer of $6 billion prompting the governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, to rightfully say that “you can’t fix a $22 billion problem with $6 billion” and that’s where it stands today. Now, the locals are glad to get any help at all, stumbling over themselves in political appreciation.

Unlike what they do in Iraq, the media has concentrated on the human suffering and the debacles of FEMA (Failing Everyone Miserably Again) which is also the unmentioned major under funded supplier of flood insurance.

To their credit, the media seems to have finally learned something about storm surge, but they (CNN) explained it in terms of Dennis, a smaller hurricane that came into the Florida Panhandle much earlier in the 2005 season. So far, they’ve dutifully stayed away from any proper hurricane analysis or comparison between Katrina and the two other Category Three hurricanes that came ashore in Texas and South Florida during the same 2005 season.

For instance, before Rita came ashore just east of the Galveston-Houston area there had been a lot of talk about and pictures of the homes that had been built on the manmade spit south of Galveston and whether they would survive the impending storm. This is a large spit built after the devastating hurricane of 1900. Instead, they concentrated on the traffic jams and something we learned long ago in the Cold War; i.e., major American cities cannot be evacuated without more than a week’s notice of impending threat.

Follow up on how this “spit” protected Galveston during Rita’s onslaught is sadly lacking as well as any follow up on how South Florida later fared under hurricane Wilma, much less how the Delta that runs more than a hundred miles southeast of New Orleans to the “mouth” of the big river dropped Katrina from a Category Four to a Category Three hurricane before it made its second Gulf landfall in Mississippi.

On these subjects the loyal media has been obediently silent, as well as the fact that Rita presented her “hard side” to the Bayous west of New Orleans and caused a second flooding of that city before the levees could be shored up.

What’s more

Until Bush made an unprecedented trip to NOAA’s headquarters in South Florida, another branch of the federal government, the only people to fly into hurricanes to report strength and conditions had been reporting the "sustained" winds over New Orleans during Katrina at 95 miles per hour – barely giving occasional "gusts" the strength of a Category Two hurricane.

Do you think Bush went down there to remind them where their funding comes from and to check on the probability of another strong storm hitting New Orleans?

Ninety-five mile per hour winds are nothing to sneeze at unless you’re behind seawalls that are supposed to withstand winds of at least 111-to-130 mph as the government claimed the levees were capable of withstanding

These 95 mph north winds were enough to take out the bridge over Lake Pontchartrain and by hammering at the levees knocked them down, letting the water of the lake flow into New Orleans after most residents thought they had survived the brunt of fast moving Katrina.

It’s also interesting to note that Lake Pontchartrain is reported to be two feet above sea level at its surface while most of New Orleans is well below sea level except the famous French Quarter that flooded only a foot or two. In other words, the famous “high ground” of the French Quarter must be very close to sea level. Once the water level between the lake and the city evened out, the former hideout of Jean Lafitte suffered the least damage and is now touted as the “reopened” New Orleans.

Further, we can’t really blame the Army Corps of Engineers for the entire problem with the levee system. After all, they are a government entity and subject to all that’s wrong with the bureaucracy and its pressures. They’ve been in untenable situations before.

For instance, pressured by developers to “straighten out” the Kissimmee River in northern Florida, the result was “sink holes” appearing all over the place and a very expensive project to put the river back the way it was, or as close as possible.

Who would the locals hire if they raised the money and took on the levee rebuilding job themselves? Not exactly the most ethical state in the union, Louisiana has always had its own corruption and New Orleans revels in the legends of piracy. Is it any wonder Halliburton is the major contractor currently in New Orleans as well as Iraq?

In summary

The Bush administration is not going to spend the money necessary to save one of our major historic cities, not when there are invasions to be fought and an Empire to expand.