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

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

[Bigun]

In order to keep a complex subject organized...

It is indeed a complex subject and you are doing great work in keeping it organized. I appreciate your efforts greatly!

[HIDEK6]

The last engineer we elected president was James Earl Carter.

[timer]

Yes, that's a valid concern, seepage under the berm(or roadway). At least two solutions : a clay berm as a base instead of the silt/gumbo they have now, which means importing HUGE amounts of impervious clay on barges over many years(for 300 miles of levees around N.O,); or deep concrete walls, say 6 to 10 ft deep(8" thick), on both sides of the roadway(from 20 to 25 ft wide), basically a big post-tensioned box beam that has buoyancy in and of itself. Thus it would exert little weight-pressure on the gumbo as you'd have vertical dead man anchors holding it down against that positive buoyancy. That still leaves the problem of a road panel strong enough to carry semitrucks yet light enough to pop right up, via buoyancy and side piano hinges, in a tsunami wave, that's what I'm designing right now... The objective, in this instance, is a ring road entirely around a re-built New Orleans that provides a 20 to 25 ft high sea wall for any future hurricane storm surge; and it operates automatically by natural forces. W=P

[Gondring]

Best wishes in your endeavour!

[HiTech RedNeck]

Would it be possible to dig wells to pump some of the water out of the swamped earth.

[timer]

Thanks. It doesn't do any good to draw up sketches, I invented this idea 4 years ago and sent it to Des Moines and FEMA : nothing. Then again to 9 coastal states transportation depts recently(NH/NJ/NC/SC/GA/FL/MS/OR/WA) : nothing but a minor "we'll forward it" from OR. Large bureaucracies are 80% human dead wood so I figure the only way thru the hardened shell of ignorance/inertia is with a scale model/video tape it in action, and send it to governors of coastal states. If they STILL want to drown in a hurricane storm surge or tsunami, hey that's fine w/me, I live at 3000 ft elevation here in MT. So, back to work on the FLOOD ROAD model...