Spike Lee's Film
Spike Lee's Film
I just watched Spike Lee's documentary on Hurricane Katrina, and to this I say **** YOU Mr. Bush, Dr. Rice, Mr. Cheney, and anyone else who downplayed the importance or the devestation of a city, not a 16 acres of land, but a CITY. To anyone who finds fault in this, go sit in New Orleans East and the Ninth Ward for a few days. For anyone who finds my words harsh, you can go to hell.
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anastrophe
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Spike Lee's Film
of course, no condemnation for the incompetent public servants at the local level who did practically *NOTHING* to help themselves in this natural disaster.
oh, wait, they did do something to help themselves - they pointed the finger at the federal government, when they failed to adequately prepare for it.
bah.
oh, wait, they did do something to help themselves - they pointed the finger at the federal government, when they failed to adequately prepare for it.
bah.
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Spike Lee's Film
You mean adequately prepare by getting the federal dollars to help strengthen the levees back in 1965? By telling the FEMA and Bush to wait on sending help when they knew about the storm before it hit? How about this, you go spend some time in New Orleans where there were people that couldn't afford to get out. Go ahead and spend some time with some of those people down in the Ninth Ward or the East or St. Bernard Parish and spout off about it being the local government's fault. Your presence will not be appreciated. But before we engage in personal attacks, please tell me what your precious federal government did so well? Oh yeah, go to San Diego and talk about a war that isn't necessary, go to the Ferragamo store in New York, and that's about it. I'm so glad I have a C student for a president, a vice president with a heart that's about as good as his eyesight (gotta love a man that shoots another because he thought he was a small game bird), and a token sec. of defense.
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anastrophe
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Spike Lee's Film
Lennox wrote: You mean adequately prepare by getting the federal dollars
to help strengthen the levees back in 1965?
i see. so it's bush's fault that the levees - known to be inadequate for FORTY YEARS - failed. right.
By telling the FEMA and Bush to wait on sending help when they knew about the storm before it hit? How about this, you go spend some time in New Orleans where there were people that couldn't afford to get out.
yeah. and how about those dozens and dozens of CITY schoolbuses that were left, abandoned, for the floods, rather than being used to get those very people out who couldn't afford to get out.
the hurricane was bearing down on the city for days. there was plenty of time to get people to safer ground. the local authorities failed, completely, and so rather than accept their failures honorably, they cried that it was the federal government's fault.
never mind that it was a *natural* disaster. the only reason people are crying so much about it is because it's convenient for those suffering BDS - bush derangement syndrome. this was an unprecedented natural disaster. considering the devastation, the loss of life - about 1,800 people - was incredibly small. the lower mississippi river flooded in 1927. 300,000 people died, 700,000 were left homeless. one life lost is too many, but the reality is that natural disasters kill people, despite worst or best efforts.
Go ahead and spend some time with some of those people down in the Ninth Ward or the East or St. Bernard Parish and spout off about it being the local government's fault.
actually, no, i didn't say it was local government's fault. i'm saying the local government didn't do a fraction of what they could have done. i blame the weather. that's the reality.
Your presence will not be appreciated. But before we engage in personal attacks, please tell me what your precious federal government did so well?
whatever. you're the one engaging in personalizations - so why bother?
Oh yeah, go to San Diego and talk about a war that isn't necessary, go to the Ferragamo store in New York, and that's about it. I'm so glad I have a C student for a president, a vice president with a heart that's about as good as his eyesight (gotta love a man that shoots another because he thought he was a small game bird), and a token sec. of defense.
and those characteristics have what to do with hurricane katrina? nothing. they're just personal attacks on those people. what does cheney's heart problems have to do with it?
am i to understand that you're taking spike lee's documentary as an objective and historically accurate representation of the events - like "news" or some such journalistic source, sworn to unbiased reporting? it sounds to me like you're taking his personal view of what took place as being the gospel, and it sure as **** has you inflamed - which is precisely what spike's desired effect is.
to help strengthen the levees back in 1965?
i see. so it's bush's fault that the levees - known to be inadequate for FORTY YEARS - failed. right.
By telling the FEMA and Bush to wait on sending help when they knew about the storm before it hit? How about this, you go spend some time in New Orleans where there were people that couldn't afford to get out.
yeah. and how about those dozens and dozens of CITY schoolbuses that were left, abandoned, for the floods, rather than being used to get those very people out who couldn't afford to get out.
the hurricane was bearing down on the city for days. there was plenty of time to get people to safer ground. the local authorities failed, completely, and so rather than accept their failures honorably, they cried that it was the federal government's fault.
never mind that it was a *natural* disaster. the only reason people are crying so much about it is because it's convenient for those suffering BDS - bush derangement syndrome. this was an unprecedented natural disaster. considering the devastation, the loss of life - about 1,800 people - was incredibly small. the lower mississippi river flooded in 1927. 300,000 people died, 700,000 were left homeless. one life lost is too many, but the reality is that natural disasters kill people, despite worst or best efforts.
Go ahead and spend some time with some of those people down in the Ninth Ward or the East or St. Bernard Parish and spout off about it being the local government's fault.
actually, no, i didn't say it was local government's fault. i'm saying the local government didn't do a fraction of what they could have done. i blame the weather. that's the reality.
Your presence will not be appreciated. But before we engage in personal attacks, please tell me what your precious federal government did so well?
whatever. you're the one engaging in personalizations - so why bother?
Oh yeah, go to San Diego and talk about a war that isn't necessary, go to the Ferragamo store in New York, and that's about it. I'm so glad I have a C student for a president, a vice president with a heart that's about as good as his eyesight (gotta love a man that shoots another because he thought he was a small game bird), and a token sec. of defense.
and those characteristics have what to do with hurricane katrina? nothing. they're just personal attacks on those people. what does cheney's heart problems have to do with it?
am i to understand that you're taking spike lee's documentary as an objective and historically accurate representation of the events - like "news" or some such journalistic source, sworn to unbiased reporting? it sounds to me like you're taking his personal view of what took place as being the gospel, and it sure as **** has you inflamed - which is precisely what spike's desired effect is.
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Spike Lee's Film
His film has nothing to do with the way that I feel. I felt this way last year on September 1st. I've felt this way the entire time.
As far as things go, you keep on saying it was a natural disaster. The storm was the natural disaster the lack of a response was due to man's negligence. Mother nature, God, no higher deity had anything to do with this.
The storm was indeed bearing down for days, but we are brought back to what did your precious government do? NOTHING!!
It isn't Bush's fault the levees failed, it was the fault of the national government for failing to bolster those levees. Levees are federally funded structures.
We go back to this, what has George W. done that was so good?
As far as things go, you keep on saying it was a natural disaster. The storm was the natural disaster the lack of a response was due to man's negligence. Mother nature, God, no higher deity had anything to do with this.
The storm was indeed bearing down for days, but we are brought back to what did your precious government do? NOTHING!!
It isn't Bush's fault the levees failed, it was the fault of the national government for failing to bolster those levees. Levees are federally funded structures.
We go back to this, what has George W. done that was so good?
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anastrophe
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Spike Lee's Film
sorry, you're ignoring the important points i made. likely due to BDS. no point in engaging further.
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Accountable
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Spike Lee's Film
The condition of the levees were the federal government's fault, because the Army Corps of Engineers took over their upkeep. The state gov't requested it.
Responsibility for the evacuation snafu lies squarely on the mayor and governor's shoulders. The fed gov't can't just come in and declare maritial law. They must wait for the state to request assistance.
The hurricane? Blame God.
As a Red Cross volunteer (there's a thread here about it somewhere), I met hundreds of evacuees from New Orleans. Nobody ever thought it will happen to them. Stay put and let the storm blow over, just as it has done so many times before. Some didn't want to leave their homes because they knew the looting that was bound to happen and didn't want to lose their stuff.
As days passed, I noticed two schools of thought at work. (1) Act! Find family/friends, find work and a place to live. Move on with life. (2) Wait. Find out what benefits were available from the gov't. Alternately complain or be patient until the promised money came.
The first group were gone and moving on with their lives fairly quickly, leaving the second group to wail about their pitiful situation and wonder when someone would do something to remedy their hardships.
Lennox, you're from New Orleans, right? find a lawyer to bring a class action law suit for not keeping the levees up to code. Isn't that the American way? In this case, you could help thousands who wouldn't help themselves. You might consider going back down there (assuming you haven't already) and helping people rebuild.
My point is: DO SOMETHING! Blaming Bush for something largely out of his control (though he bungled what was) is only whingeing
Responsibility for the evacuation snafu lies squarely on the mayor and governor's shoulders. The fed gov't can't just come in and declare maritial law. They must wait for the state to request assistance.
The hurricane? Blame God.
As a Red Cross volunteer (there's a thread here about it somewhere), I met hundreds of evacuees from New Orleans. Nobody ever thought it will happen to them. Stay put and let the storm blow over, just as it has done so many times before. Some didn't want to leave their homes because they knew the looting that was bound to happen and didn't want to lose their stuff.
As days passed, I noticed two schools of thought at work. (1) Act! Find family/friends, find work and a place to live. Move on with life. (2) Wait. Find out what benefits were available from the gov't. Alternately complain or be patient until the promised money came.
The first group were gone and moving on with their lives fairly quickly, leaving the second group to wail about their pitiful situation and wonder when someone would do something to remedy their hardships.
Lennox, you're from New Orleans, right? find a lawyer to bring a class action law suit for not keeping the levees up to code. Isn't that the American way? In this case, you could help thousands who wouldn't help themselves. You might consider going back down there (assuming you haven't already) and helping people rebuild.
My point is: DO SOMETHING! Blaming Bush for something largely out of his control (though he bungled what was) is only whingeing
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Adam Zapple
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Spike Lee's Film
First, let me say that Spike Lee is a racist of the first order.
Second, Lennox is correct in that there were many people who did not have the means to evacuate. Even if they had a vehicle, they wouldn't have been able to afford the gas or provisions to ride hundreds of miles to a shelter.
Third, as a Louisianian I am disappointed in the response of the federal government but I am more angry and disappointed with state officials and Ray Nagin. I am going to copy and paste excerpts of comments I made on another board about the response to Hurricane Katrina. At points, it may seem confusing since I am making direct responses to other comments on that board. My comments will be in italics, I am responding to comments in the quote box:
Starting here:
The National Hurricane Center’s Mayfield told the final briefing before Katrina struck that storm models predicted minimal flooding inside New Orleans during the hurricane but he expressed concerns that counterclockwise winds and storm surges afterward could cause the levees at Lake Pontchartrain to be overrun.
“I don’t think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not but that is obviously a very, very grave concern, Mayfield told the briefing.
So even as the storm was about to hit, they were still predicting minimal flooding in N.O. This was the information Bush got at the briefing. The main concern was that the levees may be "overrun", not breached. There is a big difference. Think of a bathtub - it can overrun and cause a little mess or it can collapse and cause a real disaster. The concern expressed to Bush and FEMA was Lake Ponchatrain surging over the levees, not the levees collapsing. Nowhere does the AP give evidence that anyone anticipated a breach of the levees before the storm hit.
He later clarified, saying officials believed, wrongly, after the storm passed that the levees had survived. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility even before the storm and Bush was worried too.
The first sentence is true. Gov. Blanco told Bush that the levees had not breached even after they had done so. Blanco had been given inaccurate information. Again, the transcripts show concern of the levees overrunning, not breaching. Either these reporters don't understand the difference between breaching and overrunning or they are being deliberately dishonest in their reporting.
White House deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Brown discussed fears of a levee breach the day the storm hit.
One snippet captures a missed opportunity on Aug. 28 for the government to have dispatched active-duty military troops to the region to augment the National Guard.
Chertoff: “Are there any DOD assets that might be available? Have we reached out to them?
Brown: “We have DOD assets over here at EOC (emergency operations center). They are fully engaged. And we are having those discussions with them now.
Chertoff: “Good job.
In fact, active duty troops weren’t dispatched until days after the storm. And many states’ National Guards had yet to be deployed to the region despite offers of assistance, and it took days before the Pentagon deployed active-duty personnel to help overwhelmed Guardsmen.
I posted a link in one of these threads before; Blanco did not accept NG help from other states (Bush has no say so in that matter). Blanco refused to allow Bush to send in federal troops initially. She didn't want to turn the situation over to the feds. Nagin was quoted as saying that Bush had pleaded with Blanco to allow feds troops in but that Blanco told him she needed 48 hrs to think about it. There is absolutely nothing in this AP story that is accurately critical of Bush. The worst that can be said is that-
Bush didn’t ask a single question ..Bush appeared from a narrow, windowless room at his vacation ranch in Texas, with his elbows on a table..A relaxed Chertoff, sporting a polo shirt,...
Is that what they call reporting these days? What I really want to know is whether Bush was the trigger man in the Kennedy assassination or just a lookout.
Then a poster reponds that I am missing the point and veers off into the old-stanby Bush lied, people died routine. I respond:
With all due respect, I don't think I am missing the point at all. The AP printed a story that said Bush had been warned that the levees may breach but they failed to provide evidence.
Scientists have been warning about the "big one" for years, generations. Yet people continued to build in the bowl. People continued to move into housing below sea level without flood insurance. The state dilly-dallied for decades on shoring up the levees and procurring proper funding to build new levees that would give maximum protection to the city.. As Katrina approached people were given a mandatory order to evacuate. Yet they stayed because they just didn't believe the big one would ever come. Nursing home owners cared more about the bottom line than about the lives of the seniors in their care. Nagin and Blanco never implemented the disaster plan. Nagin let buses sit idle and told people to mosey on down to the Superdome where they would be safe and cared for. Blanco rejected outside help for several days and refused to allow the feds to have contol. The waters came. People just sat on bridges rather than walk to safety (as a few did btw). Looters stole TVs and laptops and decried the racist govenment response. News organizations exaggerated false stories of mayhem to sell advertizing and increase their viewer share, sent crews in to film the inhumanity but didn't get a single victim out. Yet we keep going back to the idea that Bush was warned but didn't pull a Pat Robertson and make the hurricane turn back to sea.
Assuming Bush had been told point blank that the levees would collapse, what would you have had the man do?
Skipping a few exchanges in the debate, I'll post my final comments in that discussion which relate directly to Lennox"s complaint::
Ok, tom. I think we've reached the point of diminishing returns in this conversation. You seem intent in ignoring reality and facts in order to stick it to Bush one more time. Basically, what it all boils down to is that Katrina was a bigger hurricane than the levees were built to withstand. Even if Bush hadn't reduced funding, the Corp of Engineer's future projects to shore up the levees still were designed only for a Cat 3 at best and the projects would not have been completed before Katrina anyway. Katrina was a huge storm, the "big one" many feared, and a mandatory evacuation was ordered. Nothing was going to stop the flooding from this storm.
First let's put the Bush lied myth to rest: Greg Breerword, a deputy district engineer for project management with the Army Corps of Engineers, told the New York Times, "We knew if it was going to be a Category 5, some levees and some flood walls would be overtopped. We never did think they would actually be breached."
Schaden provided evidence that shows that it would have taken decades to improve the levees beyond the Cat 3 threshold. There's nothing Bush could have done to hold Katrina back for 20 years. So specifically speaking of Katrina, funding in the last four years didn't matter.
Funding and improvements to the levees in the last few decades however did matter. One of the reasons that capital improvement projects were halted was environmental concerns. Environmental groups from the Wildlfie Federation to the Sierra Club to the Audubon Society opposed the levee system and did every thing they could to impede the building of them. In the mid-90s the Army Corps had plans to upgrade over 300 miles of levees along the Mississippi River but environmental groups sued to stop it. The Corps eventually settled and agreed to stop improvements until an environmental impact study could be completed. We know that takes several years. Many of the environmental groups actively campaign for the removal of the levees. The Bush adminsitrations flood control efforts throughout the country have been criticized by environmentalists and liberal politicians as damaging to nature and wildlife. I'm totally convinced that if Bush had begun to fortify the levees to withstand a Cat 5, he would have been pounded as destroying the natural environment by many of the same people who criticize him post-Katrina for not doing that very thing.Damned if he did, damned if he didn't.
So why weren't the levees fortified before Bush cut funding? Perhaps because the Levee Boards are corrupt and don't spend the money where it is supposed to be spent. For decades the local and state governments haven't used federal funding earmarked for levee improvements for that purpose nor have they managed to secure matching funds that would have generated even more federal dollars. In 1995 the N.O. Levee Board bragged about all the federal dollars they had collected and promised that gaps in the levees would be plugged by 1999. But less than a year later, the board was nearly bankrupt, the state auditor denied them authority to reorganize their debts due to illegal financial practices, and the board failed to spend matching funds for the purpose intended. In 1998, the state government had a $2 billion construction budget but less than one-tenth of one percent was set aside for levee improvements. The next year the legislature did much better and appropriated nearly 50 milliion for the levees but put it in a Priority 5 status, making it among the least likely items to receive full or immediate funding. When revenue shortfalls existed in 2001-2002, NO residents defeated a tax increase to provide funding for the levee projects. Because the state didn't provide funding for the levees, as much as 65 percent of matching federal dollars went unspent. However the state manage to find plenty of money to build golf courses,convention centers, and the like. In 2005 the levee board spent 2.5 million to restore a fountain in a park.
So in summary, in the decade and then some leading up to Katrina environmental groups opposed and delayed work on the levees, the state failed to provide adequate funding and take advantage of all the federal funding that was available, the levee boards didn't spend what money it had on the levees, and the citizens of New Orleans rejected much-needed funding measures to protect their own homes. Then Katrina hit, the city flooded. Of course, this is all Bush's fault.
Second, Lennox is correct in that there were many people who did not have the means to evacuate. Even if they had a vehicle, they wouldn't have been able to afford the gas or provisions to ride hundreds of miles to a shelter.
Third, as a Louisianian I am disappointed in the response of the federal government but I am more angry and disappointed with state officials and Ray Nagin. I am going to copy and paste excerpts of comments I made on another board about the response to Hurricane Katrina. At points, it may seem confusing since I am making direct responses to other comments on that board. My comments will be in italics, I am responding to comments in the quote box:
Starting here:
The National Hurricane Center’s Mayfield told the final briefing before Katrina struck that storm models predicted minimal flooding inside New Orleans during the hurricane but he expressed concerns that counterclockwise winds and storm surges afterward could cause the levees at Lake Pontchartrain to be overrun.
“I don’t think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not but that is obviously a very, very grave concern, Mayfield told the briefing.
So even as the storm was about to hit, they were still predicting minimal flooding in N.O. This was the information Bush got at the briefing. The main concern was that the levees may be "overrun", not breached. There is a big difference. Think of a bathtub - it can overrun and cause a little mess or it can collapse and cause a real disaster. The concern expressed to Bush and FEMA was Lake Ponchatrain surging over the levees, not the levees collapsing. Nowhere does the AP give evidence that anyone anticipated a breach of the levees before the storm hit.
He later clarified, saying officials believed, wrongly, after the storm passed that the levees had survived. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility even before the storm and Bush was worried too.
The first sentence is true. Gov. Blanco told Bush that the levees had not breached even after they had done so. Blanco had been given inaccurate information. Again, the transcripts show concern of the levees overrunning, not breaching. Either these reporters don't understand the difference between breaching and overrunning or they are being deliberately dishonest in their reporting.
White House deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Brown discussed fears of a levee breach the day the storm hit.
One snippet captures a missed opportunity on Aug. 28 for the government to have dispatched active-duty military troops to the region to augment the National Guard.
Chertoff: “Are there any DOD assets that might be available? Have we reached out to them?
Brown: “We have DOD assets over here at EOC (emergency operations center). They are fully engaged. And we are having those discussions with them now.
Chertoff: “Good job.
In fact, active duty troops weren’t dispatched until days after the storm. And many states’ National Guards had yet to be deployed to the region despite offers of assistance, and it took days before the Pentagon deployed active-duty personnel to help overwhelmed Guardsmen.
I posted a link in one of these threads before; Blanco did not accept NG help from other states (Bush has no say so in that matter). Blanco refused to allow Bush to send in federal troops initially. She didn't want to turn the situation over to the feds. Nagin was quoted as saying that Bush had pleaded with Blanco to allow feds troops in but that Blanco told him she needed 48 hrs to think about it. There is absolutely nothing in this AP story that is accurately critical of Bush. The worst that can be said is that-
Bush didn’t ask a single question ..Bush appeared from a narrow, windowless room at his vacation ranch in Texas, with his elbows on a table..A relaxed Chertoff, sporting a polo shirt,...
Is that what they call reporting these days? What I really want to know is whether Bush was the trigger man in the Kennedy assassination or just a lookout.
Then a poster reponds that I am missing the point and veers off into the old-stanby Bush lied, people died routine. I respond:
With all due respect, I don't think I am missing the point at all. The AP printed a story that said Bush had been warned that the levees may breach but they failed to provide evidence.
Scientists have been warning about the "big one" for years, generations. Yet people continued to build in the bowl. People continued to move into housing below sea level without flood insurance. The state dilly-dallied for decades on shoring up the levees and procurring proper funding to build new levees that would give maximum protection to the city.. As Katrina approached people were given a mandatory order to evacuate. Yet they stayed because they just didn't believe the big one would ever come. Nursing home owners cared more about the bottom line than about the lives of the seniors in their care. Nagin and Blanco never implemented the disaster plan. Nagin let buses sit idle and told people to mosey on down to the Superdome where they would be safe and cared for. Blanco rejected outside help for several days and refused to allow the feds to have contol. The waters came. People just sat on bridges rather than walk to safety (as a few did btw). Looters stole TVs and laptops and decried the racist govenment response. News organizations exaggerated false stories of mayhem to sell advertizing and increase their viewer share, sent crews in to film the inhumanity but didn't get a single victim out. Yet we keep going back to the idea that Bush was warned but didn't pull a Pat Robertson and make the hurricane turn back to sea.
Assuming Bush had been told point blank that the levees would collapse, what would you have had the man do?
Skipping a few exchanges in the debate, I'll post my final comments in that discussion which relate directly to Lennox"s complaint::
Ok, tom. I think we've reached the point of diminishing returns in this conversation. You seem intent in ignoring reality and facts in order to stick it to Bush one more time. Basically, what it all boils down to is that Katrina was a bigger hurricane than the levees were built to withstand. Even if Bush hadn't reduced funding, the Corp of Engineer's future projects to shore up the levees still were designed only for a Cat 3 at best and the projects would not have been completed before Katrina anyway. Katrina was a huge storm, the "big one" many feared, and a mandatory evacuation was ordered. Nothing was going to stop the flooding from this storm.
First let's put the Bush lied myth to rest: Greg Breerword, a deputy district engineer for project management with the Army Corps of Engineers, told the New York Times, "We knew if it was going to be a Category 5, some levees and some flood walls would be overtopped. We never did think they would actually be breached."
Schaden provided evidence that shows that it would have taken decades to improve the levees beyond the Cat 3 threshold. There's nothing Bush could have done to hold Katrina back for 20 years. So specifically speaking of Katrina, funding in the last four years didn't matter.
Funding and improvements to the levees in the last few decades however did matter. One of the reasons that capital improvement projects were halted was environmental concerns. Environmental groups from the Wildlfie Federation to the Sierra Club to the Audubon Society opposed the levee system and did every thing they could to impede the building of them. In the mid-90s the Army Corps had plans to upgrade over 300 miles of levees along the Mississippi River but environmental groups sued to stop it. The Corps eventually settled and agreed to stop improvements until an environmental impact study could be completed. We know that takes several years. Many of the environmental groups actively campaign for the removal of the levees. The Bush adminsitrations flood control efforts throughout the country have been criticized by environmentalists and liberal politicians as damaging to nature and wildlife. I'm totally convinced that if Bush had begun to fortify the levees to withstand a Cat 5, he would have been pounded as destroying the natural environment by many of the same people who criticize him post-Katrina for not doing that very thing.Damned if he did, damned if he didn't.
So why weren't the levees fortified before Bush cut funding? Perhaps because the Levee Boards are corrupt and don't spend the money where it is supposed to be spent. For decades the local and state governments haven't used federal funding earmarked for levee improvements for that purpose nor have they managed to secure matching funds that would have generated even more federal dollars. In 1995 the N.O. Levee Board bragged about all the federal dollars they had collected and promised that gaps in the levees would be plugged by 1999. But less than a year later, the board was nearly bankrupt, the state auditor denied them authority to reorganize their debts due to illegal financial practices, and the board failed to spend matching funds for the purpose intended. In 1998, the state government had a $2 billion construction budget but less than one-tenth of one percent was set aside for levee improvements. The next year the legislature did much better and appropriated nearly 50 milliion for the levees but put it in a Priority 5 status, making it among the least likely items to receive full or immediate funding. When revenue shortfalls existed in 2001-2002, NO residents defeated a tax increase to provide funding for the levee projects. Because the state didn't provide funding for the levees, as much as 65 percent of matching federal dollars went unspent. However the state manage to find plenty of money to build golf courses,convention centers, and the like. In 2005 the levee board spent 2.5 million to restore a fountain in a park.
So in summary, in the decade and then some leading up to Katrina environmental groups opposed and delayed work on the levees, the state failed to provide adequate funding and take advantage of all the federal funding that was available, the levee boards didn't spend what money it had on the levees, and the citizens of New Orleans rejected much-needed funding measures to protect their own homes. Then Katrina hit, the city flooded. Of course, this is all Bush's fault.