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Posted on 12/22/2005 7:49:36 AM PST by KC Burke
LEVEE INVESTIGATION: The Corps is continuing to aggressively examine the potential causes for various levee failures in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina last August.
The latest move, occurring on Dec. 12 and 13 in New Orleans was the actual removal of sheet piles near the city’s 17th Street Canal levee. The Corps made no secret of the removal effort and invited federal, state and local officials to witness the event.
The agency also opened the event to the press. One major reason for going directly to the source was to compare results with an earlier, indirect examination of the site, also sponsored by the Corps. That examination, produced using seismic testing, and provided to the Corps on Dec. 5, indicated that the sheet piles at the levees extended to depths of nine to 11 feet below the surface.
The results were troublesome because the design specifications for the levee called for installing sheet pile to a depth of nearly 23 feet.
The Corps’ caution in rushing to judgment on the cause of the levee failure turned out to be on target, despite assertions from some scientists that the sheet pile installation was flawed. Those assertions, in turn, led to speculation about contractor malfeasance.
But when the sheet pile was raised it turned out that the material had been installed properly to depths of at least 23 feet. “The results showed that the piles were at least 17 feet below sea level as specified,” Jim Taylor, a spokesperson for the Corps’ New Orleans District told TCR.
With that issue more or less settled, the Corps will now proceed with its in-depth investigation of the failure. “We need to look at all the failure mechanisms because, obviously, something did happen here and each piece of the puzzle helps us determine what happened,” said Col. Lewis Setliff, commander of the task force investigating the levee situation.
The Corps expects to release the results of an interagency investigation by June 2006.
The link doesn't work as I snipped this from an e-mailed copy.
But, I took some heat by stating some weeks ago that I could not believe that the piling was installed shallow if the Corps was actually involved in a supervisiory capacity.
It now turns out the piling was installed to the correct depth.
Of course, the issue of faulty soils investigation, geotechnical recommendations, and design adaptation of the recommendations still remains to hang over the heads of the designers, but lets not be to quick to rush to judgement.
Bush's fault!
fyi
fyi
I can't believe we are spending money on further investigation. Did we or did we not all already determine that the levees were designed to withstand the storm surge of a Category 3 hurricane? Now we have established that construction was executed according to the design that was only meant to withstand the storm surge of a category 3 hurricane.
At the end of the day, here is what we will learn:
"The levees failed because the category 4 storm surge put more pressure on them than they were designed to withstand."
After we relearn this, there will be a senate investigation on why the levees were only designed to withstand a category 3. After that there will be an investigation on who made that decision.
fyi
The biggest problem is that the msm "big lie" about the federal government was the thing that was given the most promotion. The true details will hardly get a whisper.
If you would like on or off the Louisiana Ping list please FReepmail me and your name will be added or taken off of the list.
Have you ever figured out exactly where to move it yet?
Spending all this money to learn that water will pool in areas below sea level after a hurricane the size of Texas moves through.
One conclusion very well may be that you cannot build a levee that won't fail in the Mississippi delta.
not my job...
got a map?
pick a spot!
-----Mama D said she heard a bomb. Why are they bothering?
I guess they are looking for the truth as to what happened instead of making racially motivated s**t up.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1545176/posts
On the last thread I believe it was discovered that most of the state and federal lands in Louisiana were um, kind of swampy so the cost benefit of moving would not be that good. There's also lots of small towns already there.
Are you in favor of taking private property for this move to higher ground endeavor?
While I agree with your basic underlying premise, it should be noted that Katrina had downgraded to a CAT 3 by the time it hit shore and that NOLA was on the "good" side.
This implies that a direct strike by even a CAT 3 would have caused much worse failure. The levees in NOLA broke the next day, if they had broken during the night when Katrina was hitting the death toll would have probably been much higher.
The short story is that the levees weren't up to even the CAT 3 they were designed to withstand. I think that warrants further investigation.
State of Lousyana...has tried to blame the feds over the breeches. A CAT 5 STORM SURGE DID IT!!!!! The levee was built for a CAT 3 STORM SURGE only.
I hate repeating myself;
not my job
got a map?
pick a spot!
and the only thing I am in favor of regarding N'awlins is NOT pouring cement for new levees?
got it?
good! LOL
I wish to goodness that the Federal Government would not bail New Orleans out on this one.
Some did fail that night.
Article Published: Saturday, September 10, 2005 - 2:04:52 PM PSTHere is a set of posts and threads by jeffers. They are an excellent summary, IMO.Though several government agencies were certain by 6 p.m. on Monday that New Orleans' levee system had given way, no official screamed for urgent help when daylight hours might still have permitted a rescue effort.
By that time, water had been pouring from the damaged 17th Street Canal for perhaps as long as 15 hours. A National Guard Bureau timeline places the breach at 3 a.m. Monday and an Army Corps of Engineers official said a civilian phoned him about the problem at 5 a.m., saying he had heard about it from a state policeman. But officials sounded no alarm until Tuesday morning, after the city had been flooding for at least 24 hours. ...
Perhaps the most startling failure came in the reaction or the apparent lack of one from federal, state and local officials to the discovery that New Orleans' fragile levee system had collapsed hours before Katrina even made landfall. Engineers and emergency planners had warned for years that such a collapse would be catastrophic for the below-sea-level city and the people who lived there.
Yet reports of the breach failed to spark action. The commander of the New Orleans district of the Army Corps of Engineers, Col. Richard P. Wagenaar, finally confirmed that a breach had occurred between 3 and 6 p.m. Monday and reported it to headquarters in Vicksburg, Miss.
The mayor had told reporters during a 1 p.m. news conference that there was an unconfirmed report of a levee break, but he quickly turned to other topics. Shortly before nightfall, a FEMA official, back from a helicopter survey of the city, reported the breach to his colleagues in Baton Rouge, then broke the news to the mayor.
Still no concerted effort was made to reach the thousands of people whose houses were rapidly filling with water. As many crawled from their flooded bedrooms into attics, and some hacked their way onto their roofs, much of the world went to sleep thinking that New Orleans had survived the worst.
Not until Tuesday dawned, and morning news show anchors expressed surprise that the once-dry streets around them were filling with water, did the magnitude of the disaster become evident.
http://www.presstelegram.com/Stories/0,1413,204%257E21474%257E3049016,00.html
[Link is now stale]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1482715/posts?page=40#40 <- sequence
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1486492/posts?page=20#20 <- failure mode
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1484668/posts <- sinking levee
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1489838/posts <- summary
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1517817/posts <- final report
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