Posted on 01/30/2008 4:41:01 PM PST by SmithL
Unfortunately for the city, based on the testimony before the Senate, the Army Corps of Engineers was not in the 'everyone' group.
"Everyone also knew that the government in New Orleans and Louisiana is incompetent and corrupt."
The city goverment was not charged with designing or building the levees, the corps has that responsibility. If the corps had issues with the city on anything pertaining to the levees they should have addressed and resolved them.
"The Army Corp of engineers is usually forced to use contractors to complete the work. Those contractors are usually those with ties to the government reps.
It's hard to imagine that in the entire city every construction company available to do levee work is somehow in nefarious cahoots with the 'incompetent and corrupt' government of New Orleans. Again, it strains credulity to think that the corps, who at the very least should maintain oversight of the levee projects, would allow corner cutting, slipshod work, that might endanger lives and property, to be given their stamp of approval.
Before the Senate in April of 2006, the corps admitted to 'problems with the design of the structure' which they hoped was not the case, but now recognize as a reality. These problems had been know by the corps since at least a 1986 report that warned of separations of the flood walls.
The Corps wasn’t the problem. The problem resulted from years of neglect of those levees. It wasn’t for lack of money. The Fed. Govt. has given Louisiana millions of dollars over the years, but the State Levee Board decides who gets it, and much of it didn’t go to New Orleans. I read that they TRIED to fix the levee in the Ninth Ward a few years ago, but some folks complained of the noise, and went to court to STOP the work. So who EXACTLY is at fault here?
It is a sad thing, indeed, but the folks in NOLA knew they were living below sea level (the Times-Picayune had told them so in a multi-part article), that the levees were inadequate for anything over a Cat 3, and that if they desired anything more protective they should/would have to pay for it themselves.
The Corps is the problem. The sea wall in that section was relatively new as the bridges over the 17th Street Canal were being replaced during a Corps project running for three years before the storm. The water did not over top the seawall. The seawall failed as the bottom shifted away from the canal. The Corps is absolutely culpable for the seawall failure. If you lived in or near New Orleans, you would know these things.
I'm oroginally from MS, and have family in New Orleans, and along the MS Gulf Coast, so I do know about the corruption in Louisiana politics. It's my understanding that he Corps won't do the work until they're funded, and they're only funded when the Levee Board decides to give them the money that's distributed from the Federal Govt. The Levee Board has been notorious for years for spending in their pet districts, thereby shorting other, possibly more necessary, construction and repairs.
Believe me, I’m not saying that the Corps was blameless, but Louisiana politicians have as much responsibility in the disaster as the Corps.
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