Posted on 04/25/2008 12:49:35 PM PDT by ClearBlueSky
Gee looks like it’s a part of the plan, not some con, not some slipshod thing to dupe the world, but a legitimate engineering solution.
Thusly no reason whatsoever to be indignant. Unless you’ve got some engineers to prove that it’s a bad idea. I’m a software engineer not a structural engineer, I’m gonna let the structural engineers make the structural engineering decisions until some other structural engineer waves a red flag. Are you a structural engineer? You got any lined up? Do you have anybody with the knowledge necessary willing to stand up and say this is a bad idea? For the indignation to be righteous not only do you have to prove it happened, you have to prove it SHOULDN’T have. Congratulations you’ve accomplish step one, I believe it happened, but there’s no data showing it shouldn’t have.
Now you’re being intentionally obdurate.
Where in the world of engineering is paper considered a material to hold back a storm surge? Would you think tape would be good enough to fix a hole in an airplane engine just because no one ‘officially’ says it isn’t? Would you blithely risk your life in a plane fixed that way?
You’re refusing to apply common sense here.
The Corps says it’s not the preferred method, it should have been rubber.
Would paper in a floodwall be shrugged at anywhere else? Would you be comfortable trusting such ‘flood protection’ with your home and life? Do you not see this as a governmental agency refusing to be accountable by employing semantics?
How about if the interstates you travel are constructed, or repaired, with Silly Putty instead of the correct grade concrete because it was ‘expedient’?
The next time you have a leaky roof repaired, tell’em it’s ok to use newspaper, because no one officially says it’s a bad idea.Pay for metal and get paper- sure, why not?
Really- your complete avoidance of what most people know as common sense is disturbing.
I hope to God that you don’t excuse shoddy work in software engineering as easily as you do this. But then, you probably do, because you don’t stand to lose property to bad software just as you don’t stand to lose anything with these paper floodwalls. Except tax dollars , of course.
Justify that!
Actually in the world of engineering paper, specifically second use paper, is rapidly becoming all things to all people. In the last few years people have learned to do a lot of stuff with paper, it is becoming the choice material, it’s cheap, it’s easily transported, it’s highly malleable, it’s absorbent, it can block heat, and with the proper chemical and physical treating it can be fire resistant, waterproof, and stronger than wood. People make furniture out of it, insulate houses with it, and now apparently stuff floodwalls with it. As for whether I’d fly in a plane made that way, I recommend you do some reading on aeronautic history.
Welcome to the 21st century, the world has changed a bit. Second use paper is becoming a quite common material. Common sense has changed, time for you to catch up.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1475443/posts
HURRICANE KATRINA- archive of links
I can assure you that 2 year old copies of the Times Picayune are not ‘treated’ to be waterproof. And any being who seriously thinks a wall stuffed with paper is worth what the government paid, and will protect from water surging against it driven by hurricane force winds needs to put his hide where his mouth is.
Come on down, stay in St. Bernard during the next Cat 3 hurricane. Trust your life to that wall and your updated take on common sense!
Whatever is wrong with you is no little thing.
I hope you live your life getting less than you paid for and being ok with it. You probably deliver less than your clients pay for too- and see nothing wrong with it.
Behold a person who thinks floodwalls and dams are perfectly good if made of last week’s sports section!
I’m talking about money wasted, lives at risk and accountability and you want to compare fabric planes of the past to duct-taped 747’s today.
Funny- you were quick to discount the story based on what the media did in the past, but confronted with what the COE admitted to doing in the past you automatically gave them the benefit of the doubt! Rather disingenuous.
Thanks for the entertainment. It’s been a slice.
Oh- Stu? Last post to you.
I read your profile page. Starts out with a lie. Down in the swamps with alligators and flamingos? In ARIZONA?
Ends with priceless insight re. your level of sci-fi geekdom.
I understand your intentional obtuseness now. This isn’t a panel on fantasy.Circuitous arguing amuses you.
Get out of the desert, away from programming, and come have some reality here during a hurricane.
Move along...move along...
IF that is what you feel, why is it that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers already claimed responsibility for the levee failures?
It was, after all the Corps of Engineers that designed and built the levees that failed and it was also the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that built against the wishes of the state and local governments the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet which contributed to a large portion of Katrina flooding.
They’re not supposed to be waterproof, the point of the filler is to be absorbent to deal with small leaks. Paper is absorbent all by itself.
By the time there’s another hurricane hitting NO you and I will more than likely be dead. It doesn’t happen very often.
You have yet to even try to prove it’s a bad idea. Did you ever wonder what they stuffed those things with before the absorbent rubber was invented? It would have to be something absorbent, and cheap, might very well have even been paper.
It’s a line from a Warren Zevon song, Seminole Bingo http://www.absolutelyrics.com/lyrics/view/warren_zevon/seminole_bingo/ My tagline is always some line from something, usually a song, maybe a movie. Before I changed to this one my tag was the title of my favorite Thomas Dolby album: Aliens ate my Buick. I’ve never actually owned a Buick, nor to the best of my knowledge have aliens ever eaten any of my possessions. The tag is about what I’m thinking or humming these days.
I’m not being obtuse. I’m wanting you to prove your point. Explain WHY this is bad. In case you didn’t notice nobody seems to give a damn about your little crisis, this thread has very few posts. At least I explained to you why I don’t see it as a crisis. You haven’t explained why putting paper in a floodwall is a bad thing, the best you have is the Corp saying that isn’t their preferred material, but no where do you have anybody saying it’s actually bad. I’m not arguing circuitously, you are not even trying to prove your point, if you actually proved your point I’d give it to you. But instead you’re all about the yelling and the screaming and then the insults, and not even one attempt to prove that it’s a bad thing.
Lack of hurricanes is one of the reasons I live in the desert. I consider natural disasters as God’s way of telling you to live somewhere else. No hurricanes, no tornadoes, no earth quakes and our “floods” clear up in hours. Maybe you should take your own advice, get out of the sinking city.
Have fun with the water over your head, seems to be a good metaphor for your life.
Instead of moving the city to higher ground...
Uh.. because it's a port?
You know, where the devious French decided the river should meet the gulf?
Hey- I’m all for moving the city, the residential city. The port can function with housing on the highest ground for the workers and support people needed. The French Quarter would be a seasonal destination, like a ski-resort. No snow there, no tourists. Hurricane season here, no tourists.
But see, that is sensible.
With politics, lawyers and property rights involved any attempt to make even the people living next to the levee that breached is fruitless. They are up in arms now because they don’t want to give up 5-10 ft of their backyards that is actually part of the levee! If strengthening the levee and protecting everyone from 15ft of water again means giving up their gazebos, pools and flower beds they are legally fighting it!
Lawyers would keep things in court for years. It would take an act of Congress and federal enforcement to relocate a city against the will of those determined to stay.
I, for one, don’t want to be here. Personal circumstances make moving impossible, but, should we have to evacuate again, that’s it. Most people I know say the same. Even if we’re not hit again in my lifetime( and we will be, there is no cosmic law protecting us) running for your life, living in fear every hurricane season is no way to live.
Houston is only a few miles from the Gulf on a ship channel. Please don’t think Houston wouldn’t suffer greatly if a storm hits it just right. Just 4 years before Katrina hit N.O. a tropical DEPRESSION hit Houston and flooded the city. See the following:
http://www.cleanhouston.org/living/better_world/houston5.htm
Agreed. Rebuilding N.O. is a shameful waste of taxpayers dollars.
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