Levee Fixes Falling Short, Experts Warn

[kpete]

Levee Fixes Falling Short, Experts Warn
Corps Rejects Claim Of Substandard Soil

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 6, 2006; Page A01

NEW ORLEANS -- The Army Corps of Engineers seems likely to fulfill a promise by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans's toppled flood walls to their original, pre-Katrina height by June 1, but two teams of independent experts monitoring the $1.6 billion reconstruction project say large sections of the rebuilt levee system will be substantially weaker than before the hurricane hit.

These experts say the Corps, racing to rebuild 169 miles of levees destroyed or damaged by Katrina, is taking shortcuts to compress what is usually a years-long construction process into a few weeks. They say that weak, substandard materials are being used in some levee walls, citing lab tests as evidence. And they say the Corps is deferring repairs to flood walls that survived Katrina but suffered structural damage that could cause them to topple in a future storm.

The Corps strongly disputes the assertion -- by engineers from a National Science Foundation-funded panel and a Louisiana team appointed to monitor the rebuilding -- that substandard materials are being used in construction. Agency officials maintain that the new levees are rigorously inspected at each step. But they acknowledge that much more work will be needed after June 1, the beginning of hurricane season, and that the finished system still will not be strong enough to withstand a storm the magnitude of Katrina.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/05/AR2006030500976.html

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. So next season

we have a reprise of Katrina? What is Bush after, the total destruction of the city?

[RC]

2. There might be a few poor blacks left.

Can't be havin' that with all them rich people going down there in a few years to gamble in the new casinos.

[Devlzown]

3. It sucks, but they're probably doing

about the best they can. They don't have the time to build the levees strong enough or high enough to withstand another Katrina, and this is supposed to be another bad season for hurricanes. If New Orleans gets another bad one this year, they just need to make sure they get everyone out.

[Southern Marylander]

5. How are they going to insure everyone leaves?

many of the people that were still in NO during the Hurricane last year were there of their own free will. not all, but many.
they were told a couple days in advance that they should head out of the city, yet they waited, then when the storm actually hit there was no way to send in rescue, or for them to leave until the storm passed.

how can anyone be forced to leave their home if they choose not to?

[Devlzown]

7. I didn't mean forcing people to leave,

although I've heard it happens sometimes. I was talking about the people who want to get out but can't, and those who have no place to go. As for those who chose not to evacuate, I'll bet there won't be too many of them next time.

[Southern Marylander]

10. During the 80s and 90s I lived on the Outer Banks in North Carolina

There was more than once that we were told to leave because of a Hurricane that would hit us.

I was one of those idiots that decided I would hang around and watch the storm from my home.
We would stock up on beer and ice and just party on through the festivities.
Had we become victims of the storm, could I have blamed the president of the united states, or anyone else for that matter for my bad judgement?

being older, I now realize that if it were the same situation, I would get out, I would drive, or throw my thumb in the air, or walk,, but I would leave.

And as far as government help goes, it was always more than a few days before you saw any real assistance. The insurance companies were always the first outsiders to arrive to help.

[BOSSHOG]

8. Free Will?

Okay honey, you grab the kids and I'll get grandma and her oxygen bottle in the back of the station wagon and don't forget the dog. Oh, wait honey, we don't have a car and grandma wouldn't survive a long trip in a vehicle anyway. We'll just crawl up in the attic with an axe and hope and pray for the best; just like we do everytime a storm comes roiling in from the gulf.

How can anyone leave without transportation (either their own or public transit?) If we can rebuild Iraq, we can provide adequate ground transportation for American Citizens as a hurricane approaches.

If someone chooses to stay, so be it.

[Southern Marylander]

11. Be realistic, how many of those that stayed did so because of

grandma and her oxygen bottle


Until realistic reasons for them staying are put out, the actual fix can not be made.

[BOSSHOG]

12. Please come visit

No transportation is a realistic reason. The elderly and infirm living with family members instead of an a nursing home present a logistical problem for many. Please, try to evacuate a nursing home with people who are hooked up to machines by putting them in busses. Surely, there are lessons to be learned relative to those who stayed; like transportation for those who can go and safehouses for those who can't. It really isn't that difficult if we choose to learn from such lessons. But, please come down and visit. Spend a day strolling through the Lower Ninth Ward and Lakeview. Scenes on television do not do it justice.

[Southern Marylander]

14. Back the Boat up,, I didnt mean to insult your comments

Sometimes the printed (and often misspelled) word does not carry the same meaning as what would be said face to face.

I dont doubt that there were problems with transportation, yet Im sure that many decided to stay regardless of the warnings, or of any ability to leave.
Yes, the nursing homes and hospitals represent a problem that must be addressed, no question, but honestly, As far as the evacuation and the ability to move those people goes, I think that issue drops into the laps of the NO government officials.

NO should have had in place the means to evacuate in an instance such as that storm, the U.S government is not responsible for evacuation plans for each individual city.
Due to government regulations, NO also was required to ASK for assistance before the U.S government could come in and assist.

There were too many breakdowns in this situation, starting at the local government level and running all the way up to the federal government.

and again, before the problems can be fixed, the finger pointing and the name calling has to stop, and the specific problems must be identified in the order that the failure took place.

[BOSSHOG]

15. Of course

those in power in the city should have had a plan or better implemented one that may have been in place. The state instituted the counter flow plan with Mississippi that had interstate highway lanes all heading north. That was a great success especially compared to Texas actions during Hurricane Rita. There is going to be a significant amount of people who will not leave regardless of the pending crisis. That's why the Governor requested people write their social security numbers on their arms in indelible ink so their bodies could be easily identified. That should scare someone enough to leave. We evacuated during Georges in 98 after I picked up the Sunday paper which advised that if you planned to stay take an axe up in the attic with you in case you have to cut your way out of your home. That was a great motivator to leave.

Its incredibly hard not to point a figure at the incompetence provided to us by chertoff, brown and bush. And as long as george bush is president, you are right; the U. S. Government is not responsible FOR ANYTHING.

[mcscajun]

4. Don't hold your breath for "Phase Two" -- whatever they plan for

AFTER June 1st.

They'll finish what they've been working on, declare the levees "fixed", and find someone else to blame when the inevitable breach occurs in this year's hurricane season.

This scary excerpt from the WP story (emphasis added):

After an unannounced visit last month to a construction site east of New Orleans, members of the National Science Foundation-sponsored oversight team said they observed workers applying highly porous, sandy soils to a levee near Bayou Bienvenue. One team member, engineering professor Robert Bea of the University of California at Berkeley, said he collected samples from the levee wall at several spots for later testing. The tests confirmed his suspicions, Bea said.

"It was the loosest, most erodible material we had seen," said Bea, a onetime Corps employee and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. His analysis was supported by a second engineer present at the time.

In another spot near Bayou Dupre, also east of New Orleans, a ruined levee was being rebuilt on a foundation of weak, porous sands, according to van Heerden, who visited the site recently with a reporter and a Dutch levee expert. Where the levee was to be rebuilt, the soil was white sand the consistency of powdered sugar, intermingled with a copious amount of tiny seashells. "It's the last thing you'd want as a base for a levee," van Heerden said. "The old levee was made of this same material, and it failed."

Why our government didn't accept help from The Netherlands is SO beyond reason.

Their levees:

[Devlzown]

6. They didn't accept help because

they have no intention of listening to their advice. People think all sorts of weird things about Bush and the neocons but they're really all very simple to figure out. It's all about the money. It's not so much that they want to see New Orleans destroyed, they just don't want to spend the money to keep it afloat. New Orleans just isn't important enough to them.

[BOSSHOG]

9. Another example of how

ignorant the bush administration is. New Orleans is extremely important to the whole country. Major port. Oil and Gas fields just off shore. Have the mouth of the Mississippi fucked up for six months, we all will find out just how important the Big Easy is.

[Hubert Flottz]

13. Shrub is playing the odds, with those folks lives in NO.

Betting that another direct hit won't happen until he gets out of Washington.

" But they acknowledge that the finished system still will not be strong enough to withstand a storm the magnitude of Katrina."

Isn't that what they acknowledged(behind closed doors)before the disaster?

We need all the money for war, because, "War is good for GOP politics!" Or so Karl claimed, as he was building his War President, with the blood of the lambs back in 2002-03...

Look how much the haves and the have mores who are in the oil and gas rackets, have raked in buy raising their prices, since the last storm season gave them their good excuse. Look how much Cheney's company has raked in. Wiping out New Orleans again, would be just another trifecta for the haves and the have mores.