Bush and the Levees

[tylerdurden]

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

(Bush on Good Morning America September 1st)

Bush was immediately denounced as a moron for this statement [1].

I went back and checked all of the scenarios predicting what would happen in New Orleans when a big storm rolled through [2]. None of them mention levee failure. They all assume that flooding will be caused not by breaches but by storm surge simply going OVER the levees. That didn't happen with Katrina, so I'm guessing that those in charge declared the danger over after the storm passed, relatively early on Monday. As best as I can tell, the 17th street canal levee didn't break until around 6:00PM monday evening. The industrial canal may have been somewhat earlier than that, but still well after the bulk of the storm had passed.

I certainly don't want to make excuses for Bush, and this seems like a nit, but, not having seen the entire interview from which that statement was excerpted, I don't think this particular criticism is fair. There's plenty of other stuff to beat up Bush with.

[1] http://tinyurl.com/9dx88

[2] http://tinyurl.com/8grc7