NEWS: Hurricane Simulation Predicted 61,290 Dead

Innovative Emergency Management Inc. of Baton Rouge, hired by FEMA, in July 2004 conducted a 8 day simulation of a Category 3 hurricane making a direct hit on New Orleans. The chilling prediction of the models were at least over 61 thousand dead and 380,000 wounded. The fictitious Hurricane Pam was to have overwhelmed the levee system and predicted as much as a year to make some areas safe to live in.



Chilling is the right word. There was a follow up and the exercise included state and local officials as well as federal level representation. Thier recommendations and plans are complete in some areas and clearly still being developed in others. According to the article it made no mention of looting or the general lawlessness that was seen in New Orleans as well. I have to wonder if such a plan exists for the SF Bay area int he event of a major quake or will we see much of the same from our Federal and elected officials?

Since the huricane season 2004, I've been paying attention to New Orleans, they feared this would happen back then and now it did happen, fortunatly the storm didn't hit new orleans head on, otherwise the prediction would have been alot more accurate...

Originally posted by GrOuNd_ZeRo
fortunatly the storm didn't hit new orleans head on, otherwise the prediction would have been alot more accurate...

The prediction may still be accurate... or even not as bad as the reality. We don't know yet and we may never really know how many died in this catastrophe. The actual hurricane really had little to do with the deaths in NOLA.

So then what this means is that they let it happen just like 9/11 and more to come. They want us dead.

Originally posted by dgtempe
So then what this means is that they let it happen just like 9/11 and more to come. They want us dead.

Yeah, they "let" it happen. Those meanies. I guess they should have used their magic weather machine to stop it. How could they let this happen?

New Orleans has know this was coming for some time, it's an intenal issue. They could have used state funds and the Army Corps on Engineers to beef up the levee system. They had the money, they had the people, they chose to put it off. They were unprepared, plain and simple.

Originally posted by dgtempe
So then what this means is that they let it happen just like 9/11 and more to come. They want us dead.

sure sounds that way, and will fit many theorists of global depopulation which isn't such a fictitious cry if you believe aids was manufactured and assaults on our soil are being neglected/allow to happen.

makes you wonder ey?

It is incompetence pure and simple. The reason I don't believe most conspiracies like the Bush administration was involved in 9/11 or that they deliberately let this happen is they simply don't have the imagination to invision it muchless do it. All you have to do is look at their legislative agenda to know they don't have any imagination. No, they are simply arrogant, insensitive, blinded by their own propaganda and incompetent which is all the more reason to remove the buggers from office.

Originally posted by dgtempe
So then what this means is that they let it happen just like 9/11 and more to come. They want us dead.

Yeah, I mean, what were they thinking when they gave permission to the hurricane to make landfall?

The government may have been incompetent and unprepared, but that doesn't mean that they purposely did so to make sure people died. Did you actually bother to read the article? The report wasn't finished, and was wrong on a number of facts. And in fact, there were plans to prepare for such a disaster, with the deadline beign in a month. The problem is that Katrina hit a year too soon.

So from now on, whenever something bad happens, we need to blame "them." Of course, we won't actually define "them", we won't explain what "their" motives are, and we won't explain how "they" even exist. Just like religion, where every disaster is a part of God's Plan or to be blamed on God's Wrath, we can now just blame those in hgiher places. Maybe it's because it's easier to pretend that someone actually is repsonsible, and that it wasn't just human error and the universe's complete disregard for us.

And how exactly do you pull the 9/11- Katrina connection? Besides both showing the *failure* of the government (certainly can't make "them" look very good), there really isn't anything of substance that I can even imagine being misinterpereted as a connection. It used to be one thing when people blamed 9/11 on the government, at least you could attempt to make some sort of argument. But this was a Force of Nature, unless you think that "they" are using a weather machine (odd they didn't use one on Iraq, or North Korea, or any other place that would make a hell of alot more sense than having your military deployed and depleted).

I can't really go on, just posts like this (and others, related to the hurricane) utterly astound me. I'd like to know where exactly ATS is going, and why it's in this handbasket.

Originally posted by yadboy
New Orleans has know this was coming for some time, it's an intenal issue. They could have used state funds and the Army Corps on Engineers to beef up the levee system. They had the money, they had the people, they chose to put it off. They were unprepared, plain and simple.

Well, there's plenty of blame to go around, but they didn't have the money, they didn't choose to put it off. And, they actually did put an effort into being prepared. They even ran simulations.

From:
www.fema.gov...

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Hurricane Pam brought sustained winds of 120 mph, up to 20 inches of rain in parts of southeast Louisiana and storm surge that topped levees in the New Orleans area. More than one million residents evacuated and Hurricane Pam destroyed 500,000-600,000 buildings. Emergency officials from 50 parish, state, federal and volunteer organizations faced this scenario during a five-day exercise held this week at the State Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge.

The exercise used realistic weather and damage information developed by the National Weather Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the LSU Hurricane Center and other state and federal agencies to help officials develop joint response plans for a catastrophic hurricane in Louisiana.

"We made great progress this week in our preparedness efforts," said Ron Castleman, FEMA Regional Director. "Disaster response teams developed action plans in critical areas such as search and rescue, medical care, sheltering, temporary housing, school restoration and debris management. These plans are essential for quick response to a hurricane but will also help in other emergencies."

"Hurricane planning in Louisiana will continue," said Colonel Michael L. Brown, Deputy Director for Emergency Preparedness, Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. "Over the next 60 days, we will polish the action plans developed during the Hurricane Pam exercise. We have also determined where to focus our efforts in the future."

From:
www.factcheck.org...

In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year…forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze.

From here, and this fact sheet is dated May 23:

www.mvn.usace.army.mil...

FY 2005 BUDGET/EFFORT. The President’s budget for fiscal year 2005 was $3.9 million. Congress increased it to $5.5 million. This was insufficient to fund new construction contracts. Engineering design, and construction supervision and inspection efforts are also included. Seven contracts are being delayed due to lack funds. They include the floodgate at the Canadian National Railroad and the Gulf South Floodwall and Reach 2A and 2B levee enlargement, all in St. Charles Parish; Reach 1 and Reach 4 Levee Enlargements in Jefferson Parish; Pump Station No. 3 Fronting Protection, Robert E. Lee Bridge replacement and the New Orleans East Back Levee enlargement, all in Orleans Parish; and the Bienvenu to Dupre Levee Enlargement in St. Bernard Parish. The Pontchartrain Levee District is providing funds to construct the Gulf South Pipeline floodwall in St. Charles Parish. The East Jefferson Levee District is providing funds to construct the Reach 1 and Reach 4 levee enlargements in Jefferson Parish. Louis Armstrong International Airport is funding the Canadian National Railroad floodgate as part of the rehabilitation of the east-west runway.

FY 2006 BUDGET/EFFORT. The President’s budget for fiscal year 2005 is $3.0 million. This will be insufficient to fund new construction contracts. We could spend $20 million if the funds were provided. These funds are necessary to maintain the project schedule and to meet our contractual and local sponsor commitments.

IMPACTS OF BUDGET SHORTFALL. In Orleans Parish, two major pump stations are threatened by hurricane storm surges. Major contracts need to be awarded to provide fronting protection for them. Also, several levees have settled and need to be raised to provide the design protection. The current funding shortfalls in fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year 2006 will prevent the Corps from addressing these pressing needs.

There's also a long history of complaints of not having enough money to deal with this problem.

October 13, 2001: The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that “federal officials are postponing new projects of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Program, or SELA, fearing that federal budget constraints and the cost of the war on terrorism may create a financial pinch for the program.” The paper went on to report that “President Bush’s budget proposed $52 million” for SELA in the 2002 fiscal year. The House approved $57 million and the Senate approved $62 million. Still, “the $62 million would be well below the $80 million that corps officials estimate is needed to pay for the next 12 months of construction, as well as design expenses for future projects.”

April 24, 2004: The Times-Picayune reported that “less money is available to the Army Corps of Engineers to build levees and water projects in the Missisippi River valley this year and next year.” Meanwhile, an engineer who had direct the Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration Study – a study of how to restore coastal wetlands areas in order to provide a bugger from hurricane storm surges – was sent to Iraq "to oversee the restoration of the ‘Garden of Eden’ wetlands at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers,” for which President Bush’s 2005 gave $100 million.
June 8, 2004: Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, told the Times-Picayune:
Walter Maestri: It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq , and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.

September 22, 2004: The Times-Picayune reported that a pilot study on raising the height of the levees surrounding New Orleans had been completed and generated enough information for a second study necessary to estimate the cost of doing so. The Bush administration “ordered the New Orleans district office” of the Army Corps of Engineers “not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money.”

June 6, 2005: The New Orleans CityBusiness newspaper reported that the New Orleans district of the Corps was preparing for a $71.2 million reduction in overall funding for the fiscal year beginning in October. That would have been the largest single-year funding loss ever. They noted that money “was so tight" that "the New Orleans district, which employs 1,300 people, instituted a hiring freeze last month on all positions,” which was “the first of its kind in about 10 years.”

From wecomeinpeace, 9/7

"...FEMA had run simulated hurricane drills for New Orleans that were very successful in all aspects. Both men expressed disbelief and bewilderment after witnessing the agency's dismal response to the crisis. The revelation follows in the footsteps of allegations by people on the ground in New Orleans that FEMA was actively refusing aid and personnel resources that would have helped to alleviate the crisis."

Former FEMA Officials Speak Out