Fun with hindsight

The press is once again trying to beat Bush over the head with his Katrina failures following release of some new information. It's like a sport.

Such criticism operates under the charming and humorous notion that government bureaucracies will operate perfectly during disasters, especially one of Katrina's magnitude, leaving critics utterly flabbergasted when they don't. Actually, the storm was an object lesson in the failure of big government when handling local problems.

It's pointless to waste more time rehashing all the errors, so I'll only tinker with a couple. First, the decision makers needed to trust the Hurricane Center. They probably thought Max Mayfield was going a little overboard, especially after the end-of-the-world hurricane statement was issued (which turned out correct).

Perhaps there is a gray area deserving further sociological study, as most politicians tend to be optimists while most scientists are pessimists. The tendency is to disbelieve the worst-case forecast, since it's common knowledge weather forecasters tend to get it wrong from time to time.

Second, regarding the levees:

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.

The fact the press is still harping on this proves they don't have the mental capacity to understand the difference between "breach" and "overtop". The storm surge forecast by the Hurricane Center DID NOT MATERIALIZE. Bush was told this Monday morning when it intially appeared the city had escaped major damage.

Indeed, the NWS later reclassified the storm's winds to Cat 3, which placed more blame on the levees themselves:

To some local analysts, the report was further evidence that human error was primarily to blame for New Orleans's flooding. ''We had a catastrophic structural failure," Ivor Van Heerden, an LSU professor and leader of a team of Louisiana investigators probing the cause of the levee breaches. ''This is a further indication that the levees' design was flawed, given the soil conditions," Van Heerden said.

From all we've been told, Mayfield never predicted the levees would simply fall over if the surge didn't materialize.

Bottom line, unless criminal negligence can be proven by these post mortems (as opposed to errors in judgment) their main usefulness continues to be helping us learn from our mistakes. And that's it.

MORE 3/2/06

Via Instapundit, Patterico comes up with the same argument made here (and by many others during the height of the storm), concluding this latest story is just an attempt to lower Bush's already dismal poll numbers using a tried and true method.

Since I've chosen to remain anonymous I can't very well offer readers a good reason to put anymore stock in my opinion of this compared to others. That's the obvious drawback, but being anonymous allows me an unfettered voice in blogland without causing unwanted side effects. Let's just say I'm known in other circles as "McCloud".

MORE

In the final analysis, even if the COE or others told Bush the levees might fail due to compression of water by hurricane force west winds on the backside of the storm, the actual surge and winds WERE RATED CATEGORY 3. The levees were designed to withstand a Cat 3, no matter which wind direction they sustained.

Therefore the press should be directing its investigatory howitzers towards the bureaucrats who were apparently sold a bill of goods on the levee guarantees, or the politicians who took money from lobbyists to get the contracts, or the contractors themselves who didn't build the walls to spec.

MEA CULPA? 3/3

Drudge is flashing an AP blurb which seems to correct earlier stories that suggested Bush lied about the levees during Katrina. It reads in part:

The Army Corps of Engineers considers a breach a hole developing in a levee rather than an overrun. The story should have made clear that Bush was warned about floodwaters overrunning the levees, rather than the levees breaking.

Finally! Geez, it only took em six months, but better late than never. The blogosphere had it straightened out almost from the get-go, a feather in the cap no doubt. But, if most Americans get their news from the mainstreams, even on the internet, what difference does it make? As Drudge points out, the AP issued the correction on Friday evening, a notorious time for burying things.

MORE 3/4/06

Powerline has an excellent wrap-up here.

YEAH, BUT WHAT ABOUT MISSISSIPPI? 3/7/06

C R Mountjoy asks the question, and it's a good one. We've heard no reports that anyone accurately predicted the level of devastation from Mobile to Slidell. For instance, I don't recall angry reporters frothing that Bush ignored Mayfield's warning that "the Casinos in Biloxi would be free floating up and down Highway 90", inferring that IF ONLY Bush would have acted, someone could have dropped a bigger anchor.