Good Luck, Gulf Coast

They've got this bearing down on them:

Hurricane Gustav, courtesy NOAA.gov

And they're being protected by this:

Newspaper image courtesy MixedInk.com

Seriously:

“It blows my mind.”

Those are the words St. Bernard parish president Craig Taffaro used to watch videotape Eyewitness News showed him, of floodwalls built to protect his parish.

“That should be criminal,” Taffaro continues.

What he's talking about was witnessed by a St. Bernard Parish resident who didn't want to be identified, but did have sharp criticism of the work done by a contractor hired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“It's like putting a Band-Aid on the hole of a gas tank of an airplane,” the resident said.

Instead of an airplane, it's a floodwall, and instead of a Band-Aid, the witness says two years ago, he saw the contractor filling the expansion joint or opening between the floodwalls with newspaper.

“The whole length of the wall was stuffed with newspaper.”

And when he confronted the contractor, the contractor blamed Washington for the substandard work.

“He basically told me when Congress sent down the money, it would be repaired the proper way.”

But during a recent trip to the area, two years later, it was apparent that didn't happen. Much of the newspaper had deteriorated or been eaten by bugs, but some still remained. In fact WWL cameras even captured the date May 21, 2006, on a page of the Parade magazine from the Times-Picayune.

[snip]

But the Army Corps of Engineers says it is confident the floodwall will sufficiently defend residents of St. Bernard and the Ninth Ward.

“If you look at the repairs we made to the joints, there's not really a safety issue with the joints at all,” said Kevin Wagner with the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Corps also says it’s satisfied with the quality of work done by its contractor. When asked by WWL if there was any shoddy work involved, Wagner said, “I don't think so at all.”

Are you fucking kidding me?

Three years after Katrina, and the best the Bush regime can come up with to protect New Orleans is newspaper.

At this point, the residents might as well pray as they flee. An imaginary Sky Daddy is going to do them about as much good as their own fucking government.

No wonder Chertoff was saying this the other day:

In a press conference yesterday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told residents, “Don’t try to rely upon the fact that the levees are stronger than they were in Katrina to assume that that’s going to necessarily protect you from harm.”

He thinks newspaper-filled levees are stronger. I think my brain just exploded.

And McCain's playing the McLargeHuge hero by imposing himself on the Gulf Coast at the time when they can least afford distractions, and pretending he weally weally cares about New Orleans.

He has a funny way of showing it. This is McCain in April of this year:

He also told reporters he was not sure if he would rebuild the lower 9th ward as president. "That is why we need to go back is to have a conversation about what to do -rebuild it, tear it down, you know, whatever it is,” he said.

Good luck, Gulf Coast. With friends like these and a monstrous storm on the way, you need all the luck you can get.


(Tip o' the shotglass to Sadly, No!)