Informed Speculation

Long-time reader and very generous relief contributor Clint points me to this press release from the Army Corp of Engineers that should definitively lay to rest claims that Bush’s funding cuts led to the disaster in New Orleans:

Three major pending projects are in various stages of development: two hurricane protection projects — the West Bank and Vicinity project and the remaining portions of the Lake Ponchartrain project, and the Southeast Louisiana flood damage reduction project. Even if these three projects in development were completed and in place, they would not have prevented the breach and the flooding caused by the breach. Like the levee that was breached, the hurricane protection projects were designed to withstand forces of a hurricane that has a .5% chance of occurrence in any given year. This translates to what is now classified as a Category 3 hurricane.

The translation: no plans were in any stage of completion or near completion that would have prevented the disaster, regardless of perceived cuts, an issue that is also addressed in the release, along with the idea that diverted funds to the GWOT hurt funding elsewhere. Quite frankly, this document is the opposite of a smoking gun – in fact, it provides complete exoneration for the claim that the levee breach could have been avoided had the evil George W. Bush not slashed the budget. Of course, it doesn’t speak, nor does it pretend to, to the catastrophically slow response from FEMA and state and local officials…