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The federal government has been working with state
and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major
hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive
rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the
Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.
Over
the first 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, was tasked with carrying
out SELA, they were to spend $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping
stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in
crucial projects remained in 2005, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic
Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans
continued to subside.
After 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward
SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that
the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security
-- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for
the strain.
The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can
say they didn't see it coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst
storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of
preparation."
In June, 2004 with the hurricane season
starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi went before a local
agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for
$2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for.
From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:
"The system is in great shape, but the levees are
sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast
enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he
said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that
the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."
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