The Guardian: The money to strengthen the dams of the new Orleans George Bush sent to the war in Iraq

It is possible that the coast of Louisiana was so badly damaged by the hurricane due to the fact that artificial engineering structures in the delta led to erosion of natural barriers, the American society of civilian engineers said. Over the past 100 years, the work in the construction of the Mississippi river thousand kilometers of dams and water barriers to protect settlements and navigation routes led to the disappearance of natural barriers that traditionally protected from storm waves and hurricanes, writes The Guardian (translation on the website inopressa.ru ).

Back in 2004, one of the documents of the American Society of Civil Engineers stated: "Human activities over the past 50 years have directly or indirectly led to a violation of 2400 km of natural coastal barriers. Human activity has become a significant factor in soil erosion on the coast of Louisiana, and also led to its settlement, salinization of water resources and relative changes in the sea level." The members of the society warned that "the new Orleans and the surrounding areas will now be faced with the complete force of hurricanes, including storm waves that will break through the dams system and cause serious floods and powerful winds."

The huge damage caused to the city this time may be due to the fact that the White House reduced the financing of the protection system from hurricanes, throwing funds into the sphere of protection against terrorist threats, the publication said.

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Lloyd Dwes, a professor of political economics at Texas University in Dallas, criticized the government’s inability to organize a more effective evacuation. "It is noteworthy that after a wide restructuring of the federal government, which occurred after the Ministry of Internal Security, they did not have more thought out plans to evacuate cities such as the New Orleans," he said. "The emphasis should be made on multi -purpose plans, such as the evacuation of large cities and in the case of a terrorist attack, and in the event of a natural disaster." “During the Cold War, plans for the evacuation of large cities were drawn up in a few days,” he recalled.

Professor Doumes added that the issue of helping to the poor population was not thought out. “People who do not have personal cars have hardly been given attention,” he said. “I did not hear anything about school or city buses to evacuate from the city.” According to him, there are practically no plans to assist people with low incomes who will not be able to return to their homes for at least two months, and they will have to pay for accommodation in hotels.

The war in Iraq also played a role in the federal reaction to the crisis. Many members of the National Guard, who were usually quickly mobilized and sent to the disaster areas to promote evacuation, are now in Iraq. Although representatives of the Air Force, the Navy and the army units were sent to the rescue, the resources of the local National Guard were depleted by the war in Iraq, the newspaper writes.

The new Orleans is located below the sea level by an average of 2 meters and is theoretically protected by the most progressive system of dams in the world. According to the American corps of military engineers, who is responsible for protection against floods, about 2 thousand km of dams and protective walls were erected in the New Orleans area. The corps has long wanted to strengthen some dams that were sagged, and on the eve of his website said that he plans to build another 118 km of protective structures. But, as local media write, in 2004 the White House refused additional financing for this project, saving means to strengthen internal security measures to protect against terrorism.

“In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in financing the project to protect the southeast Louisiana from hurricanes. Bush has borrowed $ 10.4 million, that is, a sixth part of what local officials requested,” said Newhouse News Service.

In 2004, Walter Maersta, head of the city of Emergency Situations of the city of Jefferson-Parish, Louisian, told Times-Picayune: “It seems that money (to strengthen dimes) in the presidential budget was thrown into internal security and war in Iraq, and I believe that we will pay our price for this. Everything is impossible to complete that it is impossible to complete that it is impossible The construction of dams, and we do everything to convey to the authorities, that for us this is a matter of security. "

In June 2004, the project manager of the Corps of Military Engineers El Naomi addressed the local East Jefferson Levee Authority Dams to allocate 2 million for “urgent work” that Washington is not able to pay. “Dams are drowned,” he said. “He is drowning, and if we do not get money and do not have time to raise it, we can’t stay afloat.”

Thus, if Washington had seriously received warnings about the acute need for additional protection against hurricanes, including the construction of dams and repairing existing ones, the damage could be many times less, the publication concludes.