Posted on 04/25/2008 12:49:35 PM PDT by ClearBlueSky
And I thought newspapers were only good for bird cages.
Move it as a port city, no.
DOWNSIZE it to the original city ‘footprint’,( the sliver by the river) yes.
Either the government has the guts to do it, or nature will.
Terrorists can be controlled- nature cannot.
N.O. is a sponge on water, surrounded by water. It is ancient plumbing, sinking streets, subsiding levees that are substandard and politically corrupt government. All of S.E. La is sliding off the continental shelf, the Gulf is mere miles away with no barriers between it and the city.
Do you seriously think the city can be rebuilt time and time again? It can’t be fixed now, the infrastructure is crumbling and volunteers are still doing clean-up work that a real, VIABLE, city does for itself. N.O. is old and on its knees. There WILL be more hurricanes, and everyone knows the city can’t take another hit.
The city that the French founded was on the highest ground- the French Quarter and along the river. That is all N.O. should have, logically, been- and all it makes sense for it to be. Everything else CANNOT be protected. It doesn’t even take a hurricane for further deterioration. N.O. is sinking, the water/sewerage system underground is ancient,busted, and leaking millions of gallons of water underground. A heavy rain causes news bulletins and live shots of the canal levees. Street flooding affects homes and daily travel-during normal rainstorms!
How much loss is enough? How much waste? All the $$ being spent to protect what nature will win could be used to downsize the city and get people out of harms way. Now the levees can’t stand a Cat 2 storm- evacuations will be called for storms we used to not worry about. Eventually even the most diehard will get sick of evacuating time after time.
This is not progress, it’s living on the razors edge. Nature WILL resculpt the Gulf Coast. It WILL win.
The New Orleans levies were rated to withstand up to a Category 3 storm.
Katrina was predicted to hit as a Category 5 storm.
When Katrina hit, it was a Category 4 storm.
The rating of the levies and the predicted strength of Katrina made the failure of the Democrat Governor and Mayor to evacuate the city in accordance to their own published Evacuation Plan even more unconscionable.
"Don't blame us because your local pols were crooks who shoveled fat contracts to corrupt local businesses in exchange for kick backs."
If you are referring to "fat" contracts to build and repair the levees, you should take it up with the Army Corps of Engineers. That falls under their authority.
The French built New Orleans in a safe location ..... on high ground. That is why the old French Quarter was spared any serious flooding.
My brother-in-law has a 100+ year old house in New Orleans that was built on lower ground that had an elevated foundation rising about four feet above the ground. When New Orleans flooded, the flood reached up to six inches BELOW the sill just as the builders 100 years ago planned it.
His father-in-law had a newer house built within the last 20 years on land that nobody 100 years ago would have been crazy enough to build on. That house had water up to the roof and had to be bulldozed.
Now if you can figure out how to put a port away from the coast, please let us all know.
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I think Houston, TX qualifies nicely.
Presumably, after the application of an elastomeric seal. Generally, in the US, we use compressable foam backer rod, not newspaper. But newspaper will work.
On use of paper, read the rest of the article, it goes into considerable detail as to what was found, what was specified, and the practical implications of what was/wasn’t done. The contractor clearly did not do the job contracted for.
Louisiana Officials Could Lose the Katrina Blame Game(CNSNews.com) - The Bush administration is being widely criticized for the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina and the allegedly inadequate protection for "the big one" that residents had long feared would hit New Orleans. But research into more than ten years of reporting on hurricane and flood damage mitigation efforts in and around New Orleans indicates that local and state officials did not use federal money that was available for levee improvements or coastal reinforcement and often did not secure local matching funds that would have generated even more federal funding.
On use of paper, read the rest of the article, it goes into considerable detail as to what was found, what was specified, and the practical implications of what was/wasn’t done. The contractor clearly did not do the job contracted for.
I don’t think anything based on 1 anonymous witness is clear. Right now all we have is an accusation made by an accuser who won’t even be identified, that’s basically NOTHING. Get some witnesses willing to be identified and compare what they saw the the plan and there will be something, but this is nothing, this is less than nothing.
They did- YOURS, the taxpayers. And if they took millions for that kind of work here, what about elsewhere in America where residents TRUST the Corps to make them safe?
Why do you need a string of witnesses when the reporter PULLED NEWSPAPER dated 2006 out of the levee wall ON CAMERA? You think he went and stuffed a government built wall full of old paper himself?
The Corps ADMITTED to doing it and sees no problem with it. That isn’t a problem to you??
Because we’ve certainly never had a TV news network fake data before, no that’s never happened.
And the Corp admitted to what exactly?
You really need to stop shouting, stop thinking everything is an emergency and start thinking. Maybe they didn’t do it. Maybe it’s part of an over all plan. Maybe there isn’t a TV news channel on the planet that should ever be believed about anything ever (actually that’s no maybe, that’s a given).
No matter what happened having a hissy fit on an anonymous messages board won’t solve anything. So calm down, get some facts and THEN deal with it.
Ah! A conspiracy theorist!
No conspiracy needed here, there is quite enough neglect, ignorance,ineptitude and corruption to FUBAR everything without any conspiracy needed.
And you misunderstand. I do not think floodwalls filled with paper are an emergency, I think they are a travesty and a joke.
What did the Corps admit to? Do some research- quite awhile back they admitted to building substandard levees here and not following their own specs. I consider that pretty serious. Why don’t you?
I live here. I live with ‘the facts’. I can go to these levees and look at them and touch them myself. It’s not just that people are being lied to about their safety, or that millions of your tax dollars are being wasted- it’s the fact that you seem to find it trivial that is abhorrent.
I’m not conspiracy theorizing. We KNOW the media isn’t above faking “data”, that’s been proven over and over again. Not a conspiracy, proven history, or have you forgotten how Dan Rather lost his job?
And you misunderstand: there’s still absolutely nothing proven. So far the only joke here is the one of people going off about an unproven anonymous accusation as if it were proven fact.
The Corp admitting to mistakes decades ago when the levees were first made has zero bearing on this current anonymous accusation of stuffing the levee with newspaper.
What I find trivial is the level of proof you have presented. You have an admission to fault 40 years that really has no bearing on the current accusation, an anonymous accuser, and an old newspaper waved in front of a TV camera. That’s nothing, that’s barely enough to prove that there are levees.
I have a rule in life, my righteous indignation must be righteous, part of that means I need proof, I need to KNOW with certainty that something ACTUALLY happened before I will get indignant about it. So far you have presented absolutely no proof at all. Bring some proof and I’ll join you. Do nothing but stomp your feet and insist and I’ll point out the flaws in your argument.
I COULD point out that not one single poster in this thread actually read the article, and therefore hasn’t the faintest clue what the specified material was for, or the material actually used is for, and therefore hasn’t the faintest clue whether the material used will serve or not.
I COULD point out that ALL FOUR of the Orleans District levee failures occurred where the Orleans Levee District REBUILT the levee, IGNORED Corps of Engineers specifications, IGNORED THEIR OWN ENGINEER’s recommendations, and let contracts and BEGAN CONSTRUCTION before the CoE EVER SAW THE FLAWED PLANS.
I COULD point out that the Orleans Levee District KNEW the Bernard’s Parrish levees had sunk, claimed it was an EMERGENCY SITUATION, ADMITTED that maintenence was THIER responsibility, claimed they didn’t have 2.5 million for emergency levee lifts before Katrina, AFTER THEY TRANSFERRED 3 Million from the Levee Improvement Fund to the General Fund, where it was spent on bike paths, ornamental fountains, PRIVATE airport runway re-surfacing, and gambling casinoes.
I COULD point out that the HIGHEST windpseed reported in New Orleans, before, during and after Katrina, was 91 miles per hour, nowhere near category 4, not category 3, not category 2, but, as measured, a minimal Category ONE storm.
But I don’t have to.
New Orleans screwed itself.
New Orleans paid for screwing itself with its life.
This half dead city learned absolutely NOTHING from its stupidity, and RE-ELECTED the SAME IDIOT mayor that hid out in the Hyatt for THREE DAYS after the storm with ONE PHONE LINE, then went on national TV to blame EVERYBODY ELSE FOR HIS COWARDICE.
I do not have to claim anything, or even to lift ONE FINGER TO UTTERLY DESTROY THE STUPIDEST CITY IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND.
New Orleans started that job, and they are working double time, right now, as I type this, trying to finish the job.
THEY WILL SUCCEED.
Whether or not the contractor supplied the seal with a backer rod or newspaper, the army corp bought off on the substitution siting the need to complete prior to hurricane season. I assume that the specified material was not available in a timely fashion or in the quantities required. It happens sometimes. (As a side note, it probably cost the contractor more to stuff in newspaper (due to labor), than to place a foam backer rod.)
Is THIS proof enough for you? Read the whole article at :
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-28/1209187810171060.xml&coll=1
Corps officials said Friday that three panel gaps in a flood wall near the Paris Road bridge in New Orleans, near the St. Bernard Parish line, were plugged with newspaper instead of rubber in May 2006, as an “expedient” method to do minor repairs the year after Katrina. Those three gaps were the only ones where such a method was used, Kurgan said.
“It’s not the preferred technique,” he said.
Because the waterstop is in place, and because the outside of the newspaper filling was sealed, the risk of leaking is minimal, he said. Several engineers pointed to the black rubber filling being installed on one of the Harvey Canal floodwall gaps.
Corps officials said it used its own hired workers in 2006 to put in the newspaper filling, not a contractor.
Indignant now?
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