Posted on 11/28/2005 10:18:38 AM PST by Neville72
Late last month, while taking the bus tour of the Lower 9th Ward, Gwenith Fletcher remarked, "I came to see what God had done."
Fletcher's sentiment parallels that of many people who see Hurricane Katrina, and all of its devastation, as one of those God-ordained natural disasters that happen sometimes, and reside far beyond the control of mere mortals.
But the more I hear about the actions of our public officials in the years leading up to the hurricane, the more convinced I am that this was not a "natural disaster" in the usual sense of the phrase.
Consider a headline on the Oct. 28 edition of The Times-Picayune: "Levee wall problems too obvious, experts say. Engineers who designed them should have seen it, they say."
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
Oh, yes. Hurricanes are, you know, not natural at all. They're created by Boosh when he fires up the Hurricane Machine.
Guess they're close enough to see the problem.
The cited article never mentions President Bush. It does refer to specific instances of human oversight, error, or corruption.
Manmade in the sense that perhaps coastal cities should not be built below sea level?? And maybe there's a question of at what level of government the problem should have been addressed? It sure looks like it was a local, not a national, problem...
No, man-made in the sense that the builders of the levees and the local officials whose responsibility it was to make sure they were sound dropped the ball over and over again, year after year.
It's the hope of many of us here in Louisiana that what will eventuially emerge from this debacle is a smaller(absent the flood prone 9th Ward and Gentilly), cleaner(in every sense of the word)and more politically balanced, business friendly NOLA.
On the other hand, when you move east into Mississippi, Katrina really had one heck of an impact.
This is right on target. Bad levee and sea wall construction flooded the city. When you only drive down pilings 17 feet instead of 54 feet, you are creating the scenario for a man-made disaster. If the levees had been properly constructed, the city would have survived relatively intact and would have only experienced wind damage.
Don't have to go to New Orleans to see what God has done. Just open a Bible. Doesn't matter where you are at.
-----Amen
There was only 10 feet of piling. They kept claiming it was 17 feet, but was really only 10. http://www.nola.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-4/113238581835800.xml?nola
Got a link?
I don't think this is the article you are referring to but it is similar.
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/berlau200509080824.asp
The National Review article (post 16) basically recounts the current "duck and cover"
attitude of the environmentalist groups that functionally helped make the
disaster of N.O. possible.
But IIRC, at least in the WSJ article, the environmentalists at least
allied with the shrimpers and shellfish harvesters with the complaint that
Army Corps of Engineers work would damage the environment for shellfish.
I could see that as at least a shred of a fig-leaf in their disputation.
Funny, I've read that shellfish industry was really knocked back on their
heels by Katrina...
even though much of the needed protective work was stopped by lawsuits.
Too bad New Orleans was also basically destroyed (partly due to delayed
projects)...and the amount of tax dollars to help suffering industries
just won't be coming in from tourism/hospitality in N.O., if that city had been
adequately protected.
Again, I'll give a caveat. The "tamed" Mississippi needed more thought.
Work to restore the wetlands/swamps to the south/east of N.O. was needed
as it is a disappearing buffer to hurricanes.
And...if the Corps of Engineers work had been done well, maybe there'd
still be something of a tax base from N.O./La. to help with that sort of remedial project.
But now, one wonders if N.O. should just be built as a two-theme city:
1. A French Quarter with enough capacity to run Mardi Gras and host conventions
AND
2. A shipping terminal for gas, petroleum and food commodities.
And just never bother to rebuild and protect about 70% of what was N.O.
Just let the diaspora remain and save billions of dollars in the bargain.
Sadly that seems to be the prevalent attitude here on FR, pick from the carcass that is New Orleans that benefits the rest of the country and leave the remains to the vultures. When did we stop being Americans? New Orleans has been described by many as a decadent, imoral city.Funny how the most decadent,(French Quarter) is the part of the city they want to preserve. I lost faith in Louisiana politicians long ago. I am slowly losing faith in my fellow Americans. Tens of thousands of us aren't worth helping?
By the way, what does diaspora mean?
You should be very careful saying things that impinge the levee design, because when you do, you are playing directly into the hands of those who want to blame Katrina on Bush.
The fact is that the levees were built as designed.
The fact is that the design was approved by local officials.
The fact is that the levees were funded to provide a certain level of protection, and they provided a level of protection higher than that which they were funded for, except where they sank and were not maintained.
The five failures that affected downtown New Orleans are still in limbo, in that how they failed is known, but not precisely why tose sections failed. Most likely this was a maintenence issue, trees allowed to grow there, sections replaced by local agencies after the fact, not original construction, and problems that developed over time which were never reported to the Corps of Engineers.
The levees which failed in St Bernards, and in east Orleans parish failed because they sank, and as they sank, the compacted fill layers were weakened.
The US Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for the design, but they were not given carte blanch. They said they could build a system to resist 11.5 feet ASL surge levels, and 99.99 percent of the system survived 13.5 foot ASL surge levels.
The failures were a product of maintenence, not design. Yes, the CoE could have designed better levees, but they would have cost more to build, and the local authorities were not willing to fund better designs.
The Corps of Engineers answers to the US Commander in Chief. The Levee Boards answer to no-one.
The CoE did their job as instructed. The Levee Boards built fountains and bike paths and airports even though they knew the levees were sinking. They also failed to rebuild certain sections of the capwalls to original specs. The CoE designs the leveesm, but maintenence, including recent rebuilding of the sections that failed, fell to either the Levee Board or the SDewer Board.
The reports that impugn the design stem from am engineer's group headed by a professor from Berkeley. They do not come right out and claim the design was wrong, but they use every trick in the book to create that impression, while taking great care to never actually say it. The MSM comes along and fills in the gaps, all setting the stage for a "blame Bush" campaign that will make the first one look like a tera party.
Yes, if the levees had held, then NO would have had broken glass and uprooted trees and shingle damage. But they didn't hold, and two sides are lining up as I type this, because about one trillion dollars worth of malicious negligence class action suits are forming up.
Some people see this coming, and are publishing misleading "engineering" reports. Others see this coming and are making sure the truth is aired as well. The rest are mostly parroting the misleading reports from liberal engineers and MSM spin.
It's up to an individual which group he wants to be a part of, but I think such decisions should be made with ALL the available information close in hand.
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