Posted on 03/08/2006 4:16:46 PM PST by Ellesu
Another Senator is questioning the decision to spend billions of dollars to help especially hard hit areas of southeast Louisiana rebuild – especially areas that will continue to be vulnerable to another storm.
Utah Republican Senator Bob Bennett made his comments at a hearing of the Congressional appropriations committee where the head of the Department of Homeland Security and the director of HUD were asking for an additional $19 billion to continue rebuilding.
“I’m happy to appropriate money to people who are in trouble,” said Bennett. “But, if we are going to appropriate money and rebuild in a place that the law of physics say doesn’t make sense for people to live in, building a city 10 feet below sea level doesn’t strike me as inherently a good idea.”
HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson echoed Bennett’s concerns and said that while the blueprint for rebuilding may lie with the state and some individual parishes, the plan must be approved by Congress before the money will be doled out.
“I've made it very clear to the mayor of New Orleans, it is he and the governor's decision but we will have input in it, and it doesn't make sense to build where there's a possibility this might happen again," said Jackson.
For areas like the lower Ninth Ward, Lakeview and St. Bernard Parish, there is no guarantee hurricane Katrina's devastation won't be repeated. Much depends on the rebuilding of the levees.
Bennett said he has little confidence that can be done sufficiently.
"The Army Corps of Engineers. if you look back in history, doesn't really have a good record of making wise decisions on how to handle water,” he said.
Bennett said he understands there are sentimental attachments involved, but in using billions of tax payer dollars, he said decisions must not be based on emotions.
"If somebody makes a real stupid decision in the name of nostalgia, that we want to rebuild this neighborhood just like it was, maybe Katrina said to us you don't want a neighborhood there.”
Another Senator is questioning the decision to spend billions of dollars to help especially hard hit areas of southeast Louisiana rebuild – especially areas that will continue to be vulnerable to another storm.
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Well I knew such logic had to come from a conservative, certainly not the White House...
I'm glad to hear someone saying this publicly. Rebuilding in parts of NO would be the equivalent of pouring money down a hole.
common sense...how rare
If they drag their feet for awhile, the hurricane season will be here and maybe give them a reminder of how stupid it is to build in a hole.
MYTH: "Perhaps not just human error was involved [in floodwall failures]. There may have been some malfeasance."--Raymond Seed, civil engineering professor, UC, Berkeley, testifying before a Senate committee, Nov. 2, 2005
REALITY: Most of the New Orleans floodwall failures occurred when water up to 25 ft. high overtopped the barriers, washing out their foundations. But three breached floodwalls--one in the 17th Street Canal and two in the London Avenue Canal--showed no signs of overtopping. Accusations of malfeasance were born after the Army Corps of Engineers released seismic data suggesting that the sheet-pile foundations supporting those floodwalls were 7 ft. shorter than called for in the design--a possible cause for collapse. In December 2005, PM watched Corps engineers pull four key sections of the 17th Street Canal foundation out of the New Orleans mud. The sections were more than 23 ft. long--as per design specifications. "I had heard talk about improper building before the sheet-pile pull," the Corps' Wayne Stroupe says. "But not much since."
I wonder how many New Orleanians are convinced that the entire levee system was built "as per design specifications", by the examination of four sections, chosen by the Corps of Engineers. I'm not.
NEXT TIME: The Corps is restoring levees at a cost of more than $1 billion in time for the 2006 hurricane season (June 1), driving foundations 50 ft. deep--almost three times the depth of the existing foundations.
I was in New Orleans Tuesday taking pictures along the lake levees and 17th street canal levees. I saw no one, and absolutely no signs of construction what so ever anywhere, beyond the remnants of construction for the repairs to the breaches. No indication that the Corp was restoring the levees on the 17th street or London avenue canals. Perhaps they are referring to just breached areas. If so, then their wording is a deliberate deception.
17th street canal levee. This is all that stood between the lake surge and New Orleans.
Lake levee that protects New Orleans. It is a huge earthen levee that has not failed to-date.
The obvious difference in consideration of their design was the economy of space. The 17th street canal levee runs through an already heavily developed area. The large earthen lake levee only borders a heavily developed area. So Instead of building a large earthen levee that was known to work, they built a flood wall instead, that, well, didn't work.
If a flood gate had been placed on the 17th street and London avenue canals where they meet the lake, thereby isolating those canals from the lake surge, the major flooding would not have occurred. Since those canals are only drainage canals, not transit canals like the Industrial canal, it would have been relatively easy to place flood gates there. Then New Orleans would have been spared the brunt of this disaster.
Maybe eventually the truth will come out. Until it does, and those responsible are held accountable, New Orleanians are not coming back.
Your ping list may be interested in this.
Article source - FLOODWALLS WERE BUILT PROPERLY:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/2315076.html?page=5&c=y
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IIRC lawsuits by environmentalists stopped this from happening.
Do you have anymore info on that?
I recall reading that Nixon appropriated big money for levee work but the Sierra Club got it stopped. Would be interesting to know the facts, although the MSM would never report it.
I'll research it. Thanks.
Safe from water--yep! But, dawlin, that wind is gonna get you up there!
E-mail suggests government seeking to blame groups - The Clarion-Ledger
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