[Incorrigible]

Count on engineers to make honest assessments about the viability of floodwalls in Mississippi River soil around a major metropolitan area.

Alas, when will politicians ever listen.

[Semper Paratus]

No insurance company in their right mind is going to be issuing any more policies in low lying NO.

[saganite]

It was the engineers trying to get out the information about the Challenger. Politicians failed to listen then. I wonder if we should start electing more engineers to political office. They seem to be connected to the real world.

[hershey]

How about a floating swamp? Rebuild the city on stilts, or we could have the Venice of the South. Oh, well, they've probably already thought of that. However, the Dutch have new ideas about reclaiming land from the sea that might bear looking into.

[My Favorite Headache]

Level the place. Make it for business and shipping lanes only. Build homes OUTSIDE of the city of N.O. and smarten up. Sick of paying taxes and funding this sin hole for nothing. Besides...it's too "French" for my taste.

[ClearCase_guy]

Would it be cheaper to create an enormous concrete raft and build the city on that? Water rises, city rises. Water leaves, city comes back down to earth.

Or relocate New Orleans a little to the West. Like, in Texas.

[wideminded]

AquaTerra workers tried driving steel sheet piling down to the 55-foot depth the design required for the walls' foundation

I keep reading about "sheet-steel pilings". How long is steel going to last while buried in a swamp?

[JustAnotherOkie]

Maybe just a big pile of money will hold back the flood water. Just keep adding more.

[hopespringseternal]

Count on engineers to make honest assessments about the viability of floodwalls in Mississippi River soil around a major metropolitan area.

The problem is always that political and business leaders never like what engineers have to say and force a solution with a small fraction of the needed resources.

Sometimes, the solution is acceptable. Many times, clueless leaders just manage to produce crap. Sometimes, no matter how much effort you put into educating them, they still make the worst possible decisions.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

Jello would be a better foundation than much of what NOLA sits on.

[Ingtar]

"Listen, lad. I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was swamp. Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So, I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp, but the fourth one... stayed up! And that's what you're gonna get, lad: the strongest castle in these islands." -- Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

[Bigun]

PING!!!

[RobbyS]

Oh, oh! It can be done, but at what cost? Leave the part that is on high ground, but no development in the swamp areas except in small increments. Cheaper for the government to buy out the landowners and let them settle elsewhere.

[timer]

Good report. Having lived and worked as an architect in Houston 20 years ago I know all about soil plasticity(up to 20% expansion)from sedimentary deposits. I live in my native Montana now but am working on my FLOOD ROAD concept/table sized model, in response to Katrina. I thought of this 4 years ago after the flood in Des Moines : buoyant road panels, 20' x 20', piano-hinged on the landward side, dead man anchors on the river/sea side. The rising flood water naturally lifts the panels up into a vertical seawall, then back down into a roadway again as the waters recede. No sandbagging needed, no power requirements; natural forces do all the flood water containment work for you. Will video tape it in action and send to GOVERNORS of coastal states. I've already sent it to state transportation depts : no response as you would suspect. W=P

[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'.

[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).

[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.

[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

[WasDougsLamb]

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

[junta]

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

[HiTech RedNeck]

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