Posted on 09/03/2005 3:43:06 AM PDT by twntaipan
KNIGHT RIDDER
NEW ORLEANS - Every five minutes or so, an Army Blackhawk helicopter hovered 50 feet above the collapsed 17th Street Canal levee Friday and dropped a 3,000-pound bag of sand. Each one vanished into the water, showing no apparent results.
But after several false starts, the Army Corps of Engineers said their levee repair efforts are slowly taking hold.
If there is no more rain, the breaches in New Orleans' all-important levees could be closed by Sunday, said engineer Don Basham, chief of the engineering division, from headquarters in Washington.
Pumping the water out of the city is another matter.
The Corps predicts it will take days before workers can turn on the pumping system that moves overflow water through the city's canals back and forth to Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.
New Orleans' complex canal system failed in the wake of Category 4 Hurricane Katrina, when rising waters in the lake ripped holes in vital retaining walls. Lake water swamped the city, which is below sea level, and swallowed homes up to their rooftops.
While it will likely be months before the city is dry again, Army Corps officials said the sandbag drops at the 17th Street Canal are one of several innovative steps being taken by soldiers, contractors and volunteers to fix the problem.
On one end of the canal, adjacent to the lake, workers are using a pile driver to erect a wall more than 100 feet long to stem the flow of water.
The sandbag drop is shoring up the damaged levee, a sloping piece of land built from dirt, concrete and steel that's now drowning in lake water. And still other areas are being filled with sand and gravel.
"We're using a variety of materials, adapting the engineering to what we can find," said Walter Baumy, Army Corps chief of engineering for the New Orleans District.
They've trucked in gravel, sand and even ground-up road pavement from the storm's debris. "We're not sticking cars and motors and all that stuff in there," said Basham. "But normally, we'd be pretty picky about the sand and gravel gradation."
But this is an emergency, he said.
At the London Avenue Canal, the other major breach in the city's water control system, the Corps is walling off the lake with steel piling and filling in the nearby breach with gravel and sand.
Corps officials said they are planning to close both major breaches by Sunday.
Once the holes in the levees are repaired, the city's repaired pump system, plus additional portable pumps, must drain the city.
That process will likely take weeks.
Meanwhile, sandbag-heaving helicopters are the most visible portion of the levee repair effort -- an innovation begun when heavy equipment couldn't reach the breaches before the Corps built roads to truck in gravel and other material.
The original idea was even grander -- to drop 5-ton bags from heavy Chinook transport helicopters. But emergency coordinators commandeered those choppers for search and rescue missions.
So, instead, they are dropping 3,000-pound bags from lighter weight Blackhawk helicopters.
Between those efforts and the natural drop in the lake's level, Baumy offered a guarded analysis in a daily briefing Friday with the caution and understatement of a project manager sobered by seeing sections of his system implode under Katrina's fury just five days earlier.
"The lake has receded to within a foot of normal levels. We're still working to get the water out of the city."
They can only pump from there into Lake P. Not worried about the water condition. Lake P will swallow it and burp it out thru Lake Borgne and out to sea.
The real problem is additional levee failure before you get it pumped out.
I fear you are right. While I have no expertise on levee engineering, I believe that the draining of NOLA may have to proceed more slowly than the actual pump capacity for this reason.
Bacteria and the oxygen will clean out human sewage very quickly, much like in my septic tank. People talk about needing to "detoxify the city", and think it's a joke. As long as it drys and airs out, it'll probably be safe in weeks. As far as chemical spills? I don't have a clue.
I saw the chief engineer on TV last night. He said they intend to leave the
breaks somewhat open because the lake is lower than the NO flood right now and that will drain some of the flooding into the lake naturally.
Main thing is to watch for upstream flooding and close the levy openings if a surge from upstream is coming.
While some of the levee system was improved by the corp I thought the levee system was primarily a NO operation, no? Sounds like the article is saying that it's entirely a child /responsibility of the CoE.
LOL.
He would probably sink like a lead weight, at least, politically.
I rekon that the injunears blew it on this one. One of the levees that failed was new. The new one should have performed at least as well as the old.
There are many great engineers but there are plenty of morons too. My brother is an electrical engineer and I wouldn't trust him to screw in a light bulb. I've worked with others too, PhDs that I doubt could figure out how to work a can opener.
Genius is not the exclusive domain of registered engineers. I do have a lot of respect for the Corps of Engineers but it is encumbered by a huge bureaucracy now.
There is no reason for you to attack other Freepers for offering an opinion.
Didn't ACE state they just recently repaired the leeve but section gave way?
From the weather channel
"The levees that protect New Orleans from the lapping waves of Lake Pontchartrain have holes in them formed by three large canals that are used to pump water out of the city and into the lake on a daily basis.
"The London Avenue Canal… leads directly to the Lakefront and ties into the lake. So, any storm surge that occurs in the lake occurs here in the London Avenue Canal... We have to provide protection all along this canal back to the Lakefront to protect the city from the storm surge," said Al Naomi, project manager with the Army Corps of Engineers.
The Corps is currently building flood-proof bridges over the London Avenue Canal and others. "The bridge will be part of the flood wall system, and it will keep the water from coming into the city." According to Naomi, the bridges are designed not to flood or be washed away by storm surges, providing safe evacuation routes for residents."
http://www.weather.com/newscenter/specialreports/hurricanes/vulnerablecities/neworleans.html
Better info about the progress of repairing the levees than Mayor Nagin gives.""
Nagin seems to be basically ABSENT. Can we withhold his pay? Fire him? Impeach him? Indict him for criminal negligence? Turn him loose with his "constituents" who didn't get fed "hot meals"?
I have been wondering the same thing. I know the Thames River below London has these gates, and have seen the design work for some in Venice though I do not know if they were ever built. One set at each end of the two canals would have prevented all this.
Ain't that the truth. What's worse, the REALLY dumb ones become managers. "Dilbert" IS real life.
These guys are troopers. Really not the best of working conditions.
Perhaps the Mayor should roll up his sleeves and become a "doer" instead of relying on the title of a "thinker" and get his butt out there and actually become useful by assisting with his manual labor in helping to rebuild the levees.
Perhaps he could be considered respectful if he were to do something that he could be good at.
Conservatives do. Liberals talk about (someone else doing).
In times of crisis, Republican officials lead (think Giulianni, Bush), while demonRAT officials whine and blame (Nagin, Clinton, Blanco--the list is endless).
I generated a reply more worthy of your "great point" post my FRiend!
My mistake.
LOL. You nailed it!!
Even more sobering is the directive put forth by many politicians to blame Bush (an administration with proved admiral qualities to be proactive instead of reactive) by many who only focus on personal political gain.
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