Rebuilding Levees: Race Against Time (hurricane season begins June 1; "...It falls apart")

PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer ^ | February 16, 2006 | Betty Ann Bowser & Interviewees

[baseball_fan]

snip...

BOB BEA: In differing locations along the length of the MR-GO levee, we stopped, I got out and collected the soil samples.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Bob Bea is a civil engineer from the University of California, Berkeley. He is also a member of an independent team investigating why the levees failed. Bea recently took three samples of soil from MR-GO and had them tested.

BOB BEA: This material is relatively sandy, comes from probably something that is like a beach that has had clay mixed into it.

Now the concern for such material is underwater erosion like comes from waves that are building up against the levee, we want this material not to be very erosive under water action.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: It falls apart.

BOB BEA: It falls apart.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The same thing happened when two other soil samples were placed under the water.

BOB BEA: Well, we'll mix these three things together, do a fairly good job like a bulldozer would do and then you can watch what the effect is. It will wash away actually easier because of the peat humus and the fine-grained materials that have been incorporated into the sample.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: What do you think of that?

BOB BEA: Well, I think I wouldn't want to build a home behind this levee.

...snip...

[baseball_fan]

"BETTY ANN BOWSER: They knowingly built a levee below their own standards in the first place?

BOB BEA: And that's correct.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: And now they're building it back to what it was before, and it didn't work?

BOB BEA: And that's correct."

Any civil engineers our there?

[grey_whiskers]

Any civil engineers our there?

Talk about experience with flooding!

Or, just rent a friggin' car and MOVE away from New Orleans. To, like, New Mexico or Wyoming. No hurricane flooding there.

Cheers!

[coconutt2000]

Let's see...

Democrat priority was to repopulate the city and rebuild buildings. To create a facade of normality.

Fix the levees? Ha! They don't need no stinking levees!

In fact, when another hurricane hits, the mayor and the governor can say, "Let them eat cake." It amounts to the same kind of indifference.

[MNJohnnie]

"Oh the sky is falling, the sky is falling, quick give me the key to the Govt Treasury so I can save you!" Screams the Special Interest group. Amazing how this garbage gets broadcast as "news". The source has a clear conflict of interest and should be treated with skepticism.

[willyd]

The bottom line is that there are much better places to build a city than below sea level. One immediately comes to mind...above sea level.

[kcvl]

They knowingly built a levee below their own standards in the first place?

that's correct.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Now the concern for such material is underwater erosion like comes from waves that are building up against the levee, we want this material not to be very erosive under water action."

Which is why you use that material for the infill of the levee, and then cover the wave-exposed face with something that ISN'T subject to high wave erosion---like concrete, or a high-clay layer.

[G-Man 1]

My Grandfather was in New Orleans in the late 1930's when the levies were being built and said that they would not hold. Took awhile for him to be right,better late than not.

[SamAdams76]

I'm going to build my next house on the side of Mt. Rainer. All I'm going to say is that if some stupid volcano happens, it will be Bush's fault and the government better build me a brand new house or I'll be pissed.

[metmom]

If they hurry the job they're not going to do a good one.