Posted on 09/20/2005 11:38:42 PM PDT by CobaltBlue
Louisiana's top hurricane experts have rejected the official explanations for the floodwall collapses that inundated much of New Orleans, concluding that Hurricane Katrina's storm surges were much smaller than authorities have suggested and that the city's flood- protection system should have kept most of the city dry.
With the help of computer models and visual evidence, scientists at Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center have concluded that Katrina's surges did not come close to overtopping those barriers.
* * * * Ivor van Heerden, the Hurricane Center's deputy director, said the real scandal of Katrina is the "catastrophic structural failure" of barriers that should have handled the hurricane with relative ease.
"We are absolutely convinced that those floodwalls were never overtopped," said van Heerden. * * * * Tuesday, researchers showed numerous indications that Katrina's surge was not as tall as the lakefront's protections. They showed a "debris line" that indicates the top height of Katrina's waves was at least four feet below the crest of Lake Pontchartrain's levees. They also pointed out how the breached floodwalls near the lake showed no signs of overtopping -- no splattering of mud, no drip lines and no erosion at their bases. They contended that the pattern of destruction behind the breaches was consistent with a localized "pressure burst," rather than widespread overtopping.
Their model indicates that most of the surge around the lake and its nearby canals was less than 11 feet above sea level, and that none of it should have been greater than 13 feet. The Army Corps's flood-protection system for New Orleans was designed to handle surges of more than 14 feet above sea level.
"This should not have been a big deal for these floodwalls," said oceanographer G. Paul Kemp. There's no way this should have exceeded the capacity."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The Post of course leaves out many facts.
Enviornmentalists blocked the corp of engineers in the 70's from building walls that could go up and block off the Lake from the gulf when a storm was approaching.
The earthen levees by the lake stood up well but the residents didn't want them protecting the canals, it would take up too much land.
Residents sued to stop construction that the corp was doing last year to fortify the floodwalls.
Also a barge crashed through the 9th ward, the poor people at the convention center were from that project mostly and no levee system in the world could withstand a barge crashing through it.
Coastal erosion of over 1 million acres of wetlands also has weakened the barrier protection to New Orleans.
So are they - you CobaltBlue - going to sue the barge owner for billions because their barge got away in a category 4 hurricane, damaged a levee, and flooded part of a city???
In a fact-filled retrospective that told the full story, the Wall Street Journal explained in great detail just what happened when much of the Big Easy became an adjunct of Lake Ponchartrain.
The Journal told the truth, but the truth hurts when you are seeking to put your spin on the assignment of blame. So the remainder of the media simply ignored a story the American people are entitled to know.
Facts Ignored and Not Investigated
Among the facts exposed of the Journal which the mainstream media has studiously ignored:
According to engineers, scientists, local officials and the accounts of nearly 90 survivors of Katrina interviewed by the Journal, the first of the three waves swept from the north out of Lake Pontchartrain.
The wave of undetermined height poured over 15-foot-high levees along the Industrial Canal, which were several feet lower than others in the central areas of the city. Wrote the Journal: "About the same time, a similar wave exploded without warning across Lake Borgne, which separates Lake Pontchartrain from the Gulf of Mexico. It filled the lake, engulfed its surrounding marshes, raced over levees and poured into eastern New Orleans."
The barge's remains were found lying on the bottom of the gap. An early eyewitness reported seeing the barge smash through the levee. His report was never followed up by the media.
Shea Penland, director of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of New Orleans, said that break was particularly surprising because one of the levee breaks was "along a section that was just upgraded."
"It did not have an earthen levee," Dr. Penland told the New York Times. "It had a vertical concrete wall several feel thick.
The Industrial Canal, now operated and maintained mostly by the federal government, which the Journal described as "the area's defining presence since it was built in the 1920s," has been damaged by the passage of time and heavy use.
Barges and ships were routinely delayed because of growing traffic levels and the lock was "literally falling apart at the hinges" in 1998, according to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers report, which called it an "antique" and recommended replacing it.
The lock replacement project didn't get very far because Ninth Ward residents complained about noise and launched a legal fight that bogged down the work.
Levees Not Tall Enough
The levees along the Industrial Canal's eastern side are supposed to stand at a height of 15 feet, according to the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Joseph Suhayda, a retired Louisiana State University coastal oceanographer, who told the Journal he suspects the levees aren't actually that tall, partly due to sinking of the land beneath them. Mr. Suhayda now consults for a maker of flood-protection barriers. If he's right, that would mean the levees weren't high enough to handle even a Category 2 or 3 hurricane. Katrina was nearly a Category 5.
The Corps of Engineers concedes some of its levees in the area "have settled and need to be raised to provide" the level of protection for which they were designed, according to a fact sheet on the Corps's Web site dated May 23, 2005. But federal budget shortfalls in fiscal 2005 and 2006 "will prevent the Corps from addressing these pressing needs." Even had sufficient funds been available the work could not have been completed in time to prevent the Katrina floods.
Designed for the Mississippi, Not the Gulf
In an earlier September 2 story the Journal noted that in Louisiana, coastal wetlands provide some shelter from surging seawater, but more than one million acres of coastal wetlands have been lost since 1930 due to development and construction of levees and canals. For every square mile of wetland lost, storm surges rise by one foot.
"Moreover, the levees in New Orleans were built to keep the city from being flooded by the Mississippi, but instead caused it to fall below sea level. Now the Gulf of Mexico has moved into the city," says the Journal.
As the hurricane rolled into New Orleans, scores of boats broke free or sank. In the Industrial Canal, the gush of water broke a barge from its moorings. It isn't known whose barge it was. The huge steel hull became a water-borne missile. It hurtled into the canal's eastern flood wall just north of the major street passing through the Lower Ninth Ward, leading officials to theorize that the errant barge triggered the 500-foot breach. Water poured into the neighborhood.
When the storm was over, the barge was resting inside the hole. "Based on what I know and what I saw, the Lower Ninth Ward, Chalmette, St. Bernard, their flooding was instantaneous," said Col. Rich Wagenaar of the Army Corps.
It didn't help that the Mississippi River, which runs along the southern border of these neighborhoods, rose 11 feet between Sunday and Monday mornings. Coastal experts say that could have worsened flooding by limiting the water's escape route.
As the water roaring out of the Industrial Canal turned the streets of eastern New Orleans into rivers, the same areas were hit from the other side by the storm surge coming off Lake Borgne. Engineers say the estimated 20-foot surge also appeared to overflow levees just north of St. Bernard Parish. Shrimp boats were dumped in a marshy section between Lake Borgne and the city.
"it really has happened in the past."
1927, below the city of New Orleans.
"There were two breaches, both in the same levee."
There seem to have been several breaches in several canals:
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09_13.html#079207
“… Floodwalls were breached in the 17th Street Canal, at two places in the London Avenue Canal, and at two places in the Industrial Canal…”
I have yet to see it.
The floodgates were obvious and unforgivable but the concrete wall sections WERE NOT INTERLOCKED???? Somepeople's heads need to roll.
Dont smoke baby ruth?
The ones around here who act like they wouldn't would squeal the loudest!!! Nevermind these idiots - if their life's work had been destroyed by some fat beaurocrat not doing his job (that a new one!) they would be first in line.
Somebody send this headline to Jay Leno.
At this point your argument has changed from right, wrong and justice to being all about money.
"That's the way the system works."
This is why people consider most trial lawyers to be nothing more than ambulance chasers.
There's an awful lot of inaccurate information floating around in this thread.
I have yet to see anyone, including the Wall Street Journal, exhibit a completely accurate assessment of the political and legal ramifications, the levee design or its actual performance, or the sequence of storm surge events.
I'm still a day or more away from putting all the the pieces together myself, and that's with the benefit of two weeks or more of 18 hour days, two years of civil, 27 years in the field, several in marine construction, and anyone planning on making any kind of move based on political, design, or performance information contained in this thread is headed for a big fall.
Want one example?
A five hundred foot breach caused by a southbound barge in the Industrial Canal wasn't the largest caused by Katrina.
Not by a factor of 10.
Not by a factor of 100.
I'm not being a smartass here, just trying to save good Freepers from mistakes they'll later regret.
If you all will chill out long enough for me to finish, I'll put good data in your hands by the end of the week at the very latest, I promise.
Loved it! Best line I've seen for a long time....
You need to post more often..
Semper Fi
Even THESE miscreants?.....
It appears more than lawyers have lost their perspective, with awards like these are "granted".......
Someone PLEASE tell me these "cases" are really just Urban Myths......
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It's time once again to review the winners of the Annual "Stella Awards."
The Stella Awards are named after 81 year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's (in NM). That case inspired the Stella awards for the most frivolous, ridiculous, successful lawsuits in the United States.
Here are this year's winners:
5th Place (tie): Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little toddler was Ms. Robertson's son.
5th Place (tie): 19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.
5th Place (tie): Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was leaving a house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was malfunctioning. He couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation, and Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food. He sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed to the tune of $500,000.
4th Place: Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas, was awarded $14,500 and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbor's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might have been just a little provoked at the time by Mr. Williams who had climbed over the fence into the yard and was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.
3rd Place: A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her coccyx (tailbone). The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.
2nd Place: Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, successfully sued the owner of a night club in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This occurred while Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the ladies room to avoid paying the $350 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses.
1st Place: This year's run away winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mrs. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, (from an OU football game), having driven onto the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back & make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the RV left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mrs.Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising her in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually do this. The jury awarded her $1,750,000 plus a new motor home. The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit, just in case there were any other complete morons around.
Semper Fi
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