Political effects of Hurricane Katrina
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- This article deals with political effects of Hurricane Katrina other than those related to Criticism of government response to Hurricane Katrina, which are contained in a separate article.
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The devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina has already begun to have significant political effects manifested in criticism of the government response. In addition to this immediate response, commentators have discussed the likely effects of the disaster on a wide range of political issues, and potentially on future elections and legislation.
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[edit] Political controversies and electoral consequences
Political disputes have arisen over several issues:
[edit] Issues relating to the cause of the hurricane itself
Whether emission policies allegedly contributing to global warming led to the increased temperature of surface waters in the Gulf of Mexico, thereby strengthening the hurricane.
[edit] Issues relating to the cause of the damage to New Orleans
- Whether cutbacks in federal funding for flood prevention contributed to the disaster (see section below).
- Whether loss of funding for coastal wetland and coastal restoration programs resulted in more flooding further inland.
- Whether lax regulations for the storage of toxic chemicals has increased the contamination of flood waters.
- Whether the proliferation of arms causes or prevents violence after the hurricane, or whether the character of the people involved is the deciding factor.
[edit] Issues relating to government response
[edit] Long-term issues
- Whether it makes sense to rebuild New Orleans in its current location below sea level, in regard to possible future hurricanes.
- Whether policies that affect the poor, such as bankruptcy legislation, should be changed to make it easier for those in poverty to respond to such a disaster.
- Whether favoritism is evident in the awarding of government reconstruction contracts.
- What electoral district changes, if any, will be made to accommodate the large migration of displaced people, and what accommodations will be made for absentee ballots.
- How permanent migrants may affect the political makeup of recipient areas.
[edit] Policies affecting hurricane defenses
[edit] Prevention and evacuation issues
According to the National Response Plan, the Department of Homeland Security "will assume responsibility on March 1st [2005] for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort" [1]. The state evacuation plan (Part 1 Section D7) states [2], evacuation is the responsibility of the local parish. In Orleans Parish that responsibility fell to Mayor Ray Nagin. Many critics have noted that while Mayor Nagin gave a mandatory evacuation order on August 28, before the storm hit, they did not make sufficient prevention and provisions to evacuate the homeless, the poor, the elderly, the infirm, or the car-less households. Hospitals, nursing homes, group homes, were supposed to have pre-determined evacuation and/or refuge plans in place. [3] Foreign nationals without transport claimed that the police refused to evacuate them, giving bus places only to American citizens. [4]
Prior to this, on August 27 the White House issued a statement [5], effective August 26, authorizing federal emergency assistance for Louisiana. The statement authorized the DHS and FEMA to coordinate disaster relief and "...required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the parishes of Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, Caldwell, Claiborne, Catahoula, Concordia, De Soto, East Baton Rouge, East Carroll, East Feliciana, Evangeline, Franklin, Grant, Jackson, LaSalle, Lincoln, Livingston, Madison, Morehouse, Natchitoches, Pointe Coupee, Ouachita, Rapides, Red River, Richland, Sabine, St. Helena, St. Landry, Tensas, Union, Vernon, Webster, West Carroll, West Feliciana, and Winn." This includes all the parishes in the state of Louisiana except the coastal parishes which are inherently exposed to the most destructive forces of a hurricane. The President had not yet authorized FEMA to enter the coastal areas despite the governor's request including those parishes. [6] The governor activated the National Guard with her August 26, State of Emergency Declaration page II-4 Red Cross relief in New Orleans remains forbidden by the Governor. [7]
According to the Louisiana Evacuation plan, evacuation was mainly left up to individual citizens to find their own way out of the city. It was known that many residents of New Orleans lacked cars. It is also believed that many citizens, having survived previous hurricanes, did not anticipate the impending catastrophe and chose to ride out the storm. Even so, a 2000 census revealed that 27% of New Orleans households, amounting to approximately 120,000 people, were without privately owned transportation. Additionally, at 38%, New Orleans has one of the highest poverty rates in the United States. These factors may have prevented many people from being able to evacuate on their own. Consequentially most of those stranded in the city are the poor, the elderly, and the sick.[8][9]
State and city evacuation plans ([10] Part 1 Section C and part II-2) mention use of school buses for evacuation. With the following language: "The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating." Several hundred school buses were left parked on low ground where they would be easily flooded with storm water and then later by the levee flooding making their use impossible in the emergency evacuation. It is not clear whether these buses were owned by the city or by a private contractor to which the city had outsourced school bus services. Mayor Nagin testified in his hearing in Washington that those buses were owned by the school board and that he had no control over them. The precise number of buses available has been cited anywhere from a couple of hundred to a likely exaggerated 2,000 [11].
During non-emergency times, drivers of school buses must own and maintain a class D commercial license or better depending on the exact size and weight of the bus. During an emergency any driver is suitable as long as approved by the Governor. In spite of risks and his lack of formal training or license, 20-year-old Jabbar Gibson commandeered a New Orleans school bus and rescued 70 people from the rising floodwaters before making the 13-hour drive to Houston's Reliant Astrodome, arriving on Wednesday evening. [12][13] A day later a commercially licensed driver's bus filled with evacuees flipped, resulting in one death and many injuries after a passenger fought with the driver. [14]
In a phone call to WWL radio made after the idle school and RTA buses were flooded[15], Mayor Nagin called for 500 Greyhound buses to be sent from outside the city to help evacuate. Coordination of transportation from outside the Parish is the responsibility of the Governor according to the State Evacuation Plan (Part 1 Section D).[16] Governor Blanco had yet to exercise this responsibility.
Some evacuees report that the drive from New Orleans to Baton Rouge took anywhere from five hours to nine hours; this drive usually takes up to an hour. Reports from the Associated Press state that 80% of the near 500,000 had evacuated safely from New Orleans prior to the hurricane's landfall. Even if licensed drivers had been available and the available buses had been used to evacuate the remaining approximately 150,000 people, they may not have made it to safety before landfall.
This massive migration is the largest since the Dust Bowl of the 1930's sent about 300,000 people from the Great Plains States to other regions of the U.S., most notably California.
[edit] Funding of New Orleans flood defenses
Early questions were raised about proper funding for the Army Corps of Engineers, which is in charge of many hurricane-protection programs across the United States, in light of warnings issued by scientists.
Certain funds that were earmarked for strengthening the New Orleans levee were cut, although these particular funds would have been earmarked for multi-year projects focused on different parts of the levee system than those which have failed. Many claims faulted President Bush for cutting some of these funds.
The levees themselves were only designed to protect New Orleans from a Category 3 hurricane. Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, chief of engineers of the corps was quoted as saying, "I don't see that the level of funding was really a contributing factor in this case. Had this project been fully complete, it is my opinion that based on the intensity of this storm that the flooding of the business district and the French Quarter would have still taken place."[1]
Sidney Blumenthal, from the Clinton Administration, appeared as a guest on BBC's The World on September 1, 2005. He said that the Bush Administration had specifically diverted tens of millions of US dollars in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from water and storm protection efforts to be used instead by the Corps in Iraq. As a result, Blumenthal said, the Corps had performed only last-minute and substandard reinforcement of levees, some of which subsequently failed. The levees that did fail were those that had been built up to the full standards needed to survive a Category 3 hurricane, not an extremely strong Category 4 like Katrina, as it was statistically more likely for a Category 3 to strike the city and so was most cost effective to build first.
Questions have been raised about proper funding for the Army Corps of Engineers, which is in charge of many hurricane-protection programs across the United States. In February 2005, following in the tradition of past presidents including Presidents Carter and Clinton, President Bush proposed cutting the Corps budget by 7%, and in 2004 proposed a 13% cut.[2] However, corps officials stated that a decrease in funding was not to blame. The levees themselves were only designed to protect New Orleans from a direct hit by a Category 3 hurricane and that this decision was made by the corps decades ago "based on a cost-benefit analysis", according to Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, chief of engineers of the corps.[3]
Though the levee system as a whole had yet to be completed, those that failed, most notably the 17th Street Canal, were already up to the standards required to survive a Category 3 hurricane. Claims have appeared that, although completed, the 17th Street levees had not been compacted, planted or sealed with rock or concrete because of funding shortfalls and were therefore prone to failure.[4]
"These [projects] were not funded at the full ability of the Corps of Engineers to execute the project," said Lt. Gen. Strock. "But the important question is, 'Would that have made a difference?' And my assessment is, no, it would not." Strock also said "I'm not sure that had the SELA been completely intact, that it really would have helped this, because this was about a levee breach."
"I fought every [...] administration when they tried to use the Corps of Engineers as a piggy bank to pay for other projects," said former House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston, a Louisiana Republican who represented the New Orleans suburbs for more than 20 years. "I had major battles with the Clinton administration. Going back to Carter. They've all sought to draw down the Corps of Engineers and put it elsewhere," he said.
The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back in the spring of 2005 with the steepest reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project was reduced to $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million.[5] The money would have gone into funding studies about the feasibility of upgrading the current levees to withstand Category 4 and 5 hurricanes instead of just Category 3. It is worth noting that, even if the Corps had had full funding, no work beyond finishing the study and making plans for levee upgrades would have been accomplished by the time of Katrina's arrival.
New Orleans' emergency operations chief, Terry Ebbert, is cited as saying, "This is a national disgrace. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans," referring to the US humanitarian relief for the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.[6]
[edit] Federal wetlands policy
There has been criticism of the federal policy, since 2003, of again turning wetlands over to developers.
Louisiana has a long history, under both parties, of approving private developments in wetlands with consequent destruction of wetlands across coastal Louisiana.[7] "Wetlands create friction and reduce high winds when hurricanes hit. They also absorb hurricane storm surges. Scientists estimate that every 2.7 miles of wetlands absorbs one foot of storm surge."[8]
The Bush Administration, contrary to campaign promises and a wetland protection policy maintained since 1990, ended federal wetlands protection.[9]
Although the storm surge which struck the New Orleans levees crossed the open waters of Lake Ponchartrain, that is not the case in surrounding parishes, where the destruction would have been reduced by maintenance of the ban on wetland development. [10] [verification needed]
[edit] Political effects of population displacement
In the days following the evacuation of New Orleans, Reuters reported that "[i]nterviews with refugees in Houston, which is expecting many thousands of evacuees to remain, suggest that thousands of blacks who lost everything and had no insurance will end up living in Texas or other U.S. states,"[11] and Forbes Magazine notes that "those left homeless will take part in the biggest internal migration of people since the days of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression."[12]
This and other reports ([13][14]) suggest that the hurricane will have demographic consequences, particularly in and around Louisiana. Prior to the hurricane, Louisiana was one of a handful of states projected by the U.S. Census department to become a majority-minority state within the next two decades. Because a majority of displaced Louisiana residents are black, this occurrence will likely be delayed in Louisiana, accelerated in nearby Florida and Georgia, and increased in Texas, which itself became a majority-minority state in mid-2005.
It has been noted that the displacement of a significant portion of black people from Louisiana is likely to shift the politics of that state in a more conservative direction,[15] though in-state displacement may have jeopardized one Republican seat in the U.S. House. Blacks may have lost the capacity to elect a Member of Congress in the 2nd district, currently represented by Rep. Bill Jefferson. This puts Louisiana at risk of suit under the Voting Rights Act. Republicans are likely to claim the 3rd district, held by Rep. Charlie Melancon. At the same time, an influx of refugees to the 6th district may have put Rep. Richard Baker, a Republican, in jeopardy. Districts of different populations violate the Supreme Court norm of "one person, one vote". [16] Louisiana may also lose a vote in the Electoral College following the 2010 U.S. Census. The bulk of the evacuees have been taken to Texas, where they are unlikely to significantly impact the solidly conservative politics of that very populous state, [17], although they may affect local elections in some cities.[18]
[edit] Effects on the structure of government
[edit] FEMA funding and leadership
Many local emergency managers defended FEMA, pointing out that the Bush Administration has since 9/11 reduced the agency's budget, mission, and status. FEMA, which was elevated to cabinet-level status under Bill Clinton, was demoted to undersecretary status after the creation of DHS, which placed higher priority on countering terrorism than planning for natural disaster. Some members of the International Association of Emergency Managers had predicted that FEMA could not adequately respond to a catastrophe, citing flaws in other disaster responses since 9/11.
George W. Bush has also been criticized for his choice of Michael D. Brown as FEMA head. Prior to joining FEMA, Brown had no experience whatsoever in disaster relief. Brown had even been fired from his previous job as a supervisor of judging at the International Arabian Horse Association.
[edit] Policy matters arising during the recovery
[edit] Giving Tax money to faith based organizations
FEMA said that it will use tax money to reimburse faith based organizations that have aided survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. [19]
[edit] Reports of contract awards
Halliburton, the company formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, quickly received reconstruction and damage assessment contracts for naval facilities in Mississippi and New Orleans affected by Katrina. [20] This was the first of several companies that had been politically supportive of President Bush receiving lucrative reconstruction contracts through FEMA and other federal agencies under the authority of the Bush Administration. [21] Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, is doing major repairs at Navy facilities along the Gulf Coast that were damaged by the hurricane. That work is being done under a $500 million contract with the Defense Department. Other no-bid contracts were awarded to the Fluor Corporation of California, a major donor to the Republican Party, and The Shaw Group of Baton Rouge, La. Shaw is a client of Joe M. Allbaugh, a consultant who was President Bush's campaign manager in 2000 and his first FEMA director. Shaw's CEO, however, is the chairman of Louisiana's Democratic party. On 2005-09-13, officials vowed investigation of possible fraud and waste [22]. The Shaw Group disclosed, in it's annual report filed in July 05, that it is the subject of what the company describes as an "informal inquiry" by the Securities and Exchange Commission, http://www.sec.gov The SEC has declined to comment. Federal securities class-action cases are also proceding and accuse the Shaw Group and it's executives of defrauding investors with misleading statements concerning the company's finances and management. [http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/2005-09-14-katrina-contracts_x.htm According to the Wall Street Journal (9/12/05), other companies that had received no-bid cost-plus contracts included Bechtel National, a unit of Bechtel Corporation (temporary housing), Denver-based CH2M Hill Cos. (housing), and Kenyon Worldwide Disaster Management (to collect human remains). FEMA has primary responsibility for spending more than $50 billion in aid, 60 times its budget in 2003.
The Shaw Group, Inc., which won two federal rebuilding contracts, each worth $100 million, has a history of obtaining no-bid contracts through contacts to Democratic politicians in Louisiana. "Shaw's chief executive officer, Jim Bernhard "is the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Shaw Group Inc., a Fortune 500 company," and Chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party. The Shaw group and Mr. Jim Bernhard is/was also a major supporter and contributor to Gov. Blanco and other Major Louisiana Democrat politicians. It should also be noted that The Shaw group contract was no a bid contract. Mr. Bernhard has since resigned as his position as the Louisiana as Chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party, so as to avoid a "conflict of interest" with these state contracts. [23]. Another Shaw executive, Jeff Jenkins, was the governor's (Kathleen Blanco) campaign manager." [24]
[edit] Speculations for the cause of Hurricane Katrina
A political impact is likely to result from various suggested causes for the hurricane itself. Though most global climate experts concur that global warming is not responsible for the increase in frequency and intensity of hurricanes during the 1990's and 2000's, and instead hold accountable cyclical changes in ocean currents, commentators immediately began discussing global warming in the wake of the hurricane [25], with increased debate that global warming significantly increases the number and intensity of extreme weather events. [26] [27] [28]
Less rational speculation has asserted that the hurricane was divine retribution for any of a number of provocations, including politically divisive international issues such as the War in Iraq[29], (most famously by New Orleans' own mayor Ray Nagin in a 2006 MLK day speech), and U.S. pressure for the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza[30]; and domestic issues such as abortion, and tolerance for homosexuality.[31][32]
