Floodwalls in Swampy New Orleans `Like Putting Bricks on Jell-O'

Newhouse News ^ | 11/10/2005 | John McQuaid

[trebb]

Besides...it's too "French" for my taste.

I thought it was only a quarter French. :-)

[null and void]

OK. Time to say it again.

New Orleans is in an ideal location at the mouth of the Mighty Mississippi, and ready access from all the Gulf States.

It is in an ideal location to receive garbage from most of the US.

I say fill the entire Crescent City with waste one district at a time. Mine tailings, fly ash, slag, dredgings, municipal waste, etc.

Build it up to 30 feet above sea level, cover it with dirt, lay underground utilities, and finish it off with top soil.

Then rebuild the city.

Fund the entire project with fair market disposal fees.

The new city - Tel New Orleans - would be up above the mosquitoes and would be the South's new 'Shining City on a Hill'.

[bonfire]

Touche.

[ZOOKER]

A wall, standing on its edge in unstable soil, will not withstand unequal pressure (floodwaters) on one side.

The solution is to drive twice as many piles and angle them towards each other for mutual support. In cross section the levee would be pyramidal in shape, just like an earthen dike. If weight is an issue, you could make it hollow in the middle.

Expensive? Definitely. That's why engineers are lousy politicians, they don't like compromising or cutting corners (or at least good engineers don't).

[Fester Chugabrew]

Maybe they could sell the swamp soil to farmers up north. Watch the tabasco spring up in MN.

[trebb]

Ouch! Isn't "Touche", French for "Good One"?

That makes it a compliment of questionable merit. LOL

[GretchenM]

I was raised by an engineer. I owe much of the decency and order of my life through having been brought up under the orderliness and structure and logic with which he lived, moved, and had his being. Whatever his politics were, I never knew. But you surely knew where you stood with him. You folks nailed it. If you want truth, and to plot a successful course, talk to the engineers.

[GretchenM]

Merriam-Webster online:

tou·ché
Pronunciation: tü-'shA
Function: interjection
Etymology: French, from past participle of toucher to touch, from Old French tuchier
-- used to acknowledge a hit in fencing or the success or appropriateness of an argument, an accusation, or a witty point

[WmCraven_Wk]

"...dead man anchors on the river/sea side."

Is this what Jimmy Hoffa is doing now?

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

I wonder if we should start electing more engineers to political office. They seem to be connected to the real world.

Bite your tongue! Jimmy Carter was an engineer and look how that turned out.

I say this after thirty five years as an engineer; engineers need direction. They are great at detail planning once a goal has been set by visionaries, however, neither you (nor I) would want to live in a world ruled by engineers. Total logic devoid of compassion, passion trumped by facts, no thank you! I prefer my politics with a generous dose of human failings.

Regards,
GtG

[saganite]

Forgot about Jimmah Carter. Perhaps you have a point. I still prefer the logic of Engineers to the lying and back stabbing of Politicians.

[deport]

These are walls along the drainage canals, correct?...... And not the levees which are along Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River?

Didn't the levees along the river and lake hold except for some topping?

Diagrams of the flooding

[null and void]

Herbert Hoover, too...

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

New Orleans is in an ideal location at the mouth of the Mighty Mississippi, and ready access from all the Gulf States.

Thats true today only because the Corp of Engineers has been moving heaven and earth (lots of that) to prevent it's moving west. The formation process of the delta used to push sediment out into the Gulf which deposited new acreage. The newly forming delta slowed the river's flow causing it to seek a new path to the sea. Over a course of years the Mississippi river has entered the Gulf anywhere from Texas to the Mississippi line.

Their (Corp's) recent tinkering with flood control on 'ol man river has caused a large increase in flow along a route intended to take "overflow" only. The result will be the Mississippi will change course and move toward Texas, leaving NO in a swampy backwater.

By channeling the river (straightening it's course and confining it to a concrete lined bed) the flow velocity is increased and the delta building process is stopped. The higher velocity flow carries the silt and sediment with it into the deeper water of the Gulf. The net result is the Mississippi Delta is shrinking and sinking into the abyss.

If you still think NO is viable real estate consider this: the Delta is also sliding south as it sinks. It is a large gob of semi-plastic mud and goo that is slumping and sliding off the North American plate.

Thought you might like to know before we blow $250,000,000,000 (a quarter trillion) trying to stop the inevitable.

Regards,
GtG

[FreedomCalls]

You can clearly see this by looking at Google Earth around the area. It's all old filled in oxbows and bends.

[WasDougsLamb]

Floodwalls in Swampy New Orleans `Like Putting Bricks on Jell-O'

[Gondring]

The rising flood water naturally lifts the panels up into a vertical seawall, then back down into a roadway again as the waters recede.

Not to be a naysayer, but this doesn't at all address the other concern that I heard mentioned--the seepage pressure through the berm underneath.

[Republicus2001]

When asked if it was true Jimmy was buried below the goalpost at the Meadowlands, Rudy Guliani said "I think there's a little piece of Jimmy everywhere"

[jeffers]

Thanks for the ping.

In order to keep a complex subject organized, I've posted an answer and some new data here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1517817/posts?page=31#31

[junta]

My blame the nutrias theory is still valid, but it just ain't sexy to blame a creature slightly lower than a politician.