New Orleans: Breach closed in 17th Street Canal levee

Times Picayune ^ | Sept. 4, 2005 7:32 p.m. | joe darby

[jonatron]

The breach in the 17th Street Canal levee that had put the city of New Orleans underwater was essentially closed early Sunday evening after days of work and the use of "ingenuity to the max," a top U.S. Corps of Engineers general said.

[airborne]

"Stay out da Busses!

[Peach]

Is it possible the media is calling it a levee because if a levee broke, vs. a retaining wall, then it's easier to blame the Bush administration because the levee system was known to be vulnerable for years?

That's a sincere question as I don't know if the system for water retention that was known to be vulnerable made mention of retaining walls.

[Paul C. Jesup]

I asked you a simple question because I thought you might have known what you were talking about.

And what makes you think I would know. The only thing I stated was the basics of the levee system as explain four days ago on Fox News.

[RippleFire]

bump

[Paul C. Jesup]

I didn't realize I had mistaken an a$$hole for an expert.

I never said I was an expert, it was your stupidity to think so.

Everyone else calls it a levee, thats okay. I call it a levee and I am flamed and called an a$$hole for doing so. I am tried of this hypocrisy.

[ArmstedFragg]

It is possible parts of the levee will brust open as water is trying to be pumped out of New Orleans

The entrance to the canal from the lake has been blocked, and water's being pumped back into the lake, not the canal. Even if the water in the city is somehow helping support part of the levee, and it fails, the inundation will be relatively minor.

[Howlin]

I call it a levee and I am flamed and called an a$$hole for doing so

I asked you a S I M P L E question that nobody else on this thread had trouble understanding.

You went off halfcocked for NO REASON.

Jerk.

[F-117A]

NPR Q&A: An Update on Efforts to Drain New Orleans

[Paul C. Jesup]

I asked you a S I M P L E question that nobody else on this thread had trouble understanding.

No, you made a statement in the form of a question that answers itself as a way to flame me. I don't know what you did this, but you did.

[bobwoodard]

Yep, it's very good news, here's a quote from the nola.com site:

In eastern New Orleans, 24 pumps were draining 700 cubic feet of water per second. In St. Bernard Parish, water was being drained through breaches in the levee. In Plaquemines Parish, the Corps was “notching” levees with gaps up to 100-feet wide so that water could flow back into the gulf. The notches will be plugged with rocks after the area is drained.

[Howlin]

No, you made a statement in the form of a question that answers itself as a way to flame me. I don't know what you did this, but you did.

You are completely paranoid.

Would it make a difference if it's not a levee? I saw a guy on tonight from the Army Corps of Engineers and he said it wasn't a levee, it was a canal retaining wall (?).....I may be wrong about what he called it. But he definitely said it wasn't a levee.

If you don't have some medication, you need to get some.

[_Jim]

The entrance to the canal from the lake has been blocked, and water's being pumped back into the lake, not the canal.

I have to ask a question: What is the purpose of the canals (canal system) in/around NOLA again?

[Shermy]

"In another article on this NOLA website you find:"

I've been saying Nagin is hinting the Blanco is the problem, but the MSM, incessantly on CNN, implies it's Bush.

[_Jim]

In the early days, they generated 25 Hz from a cental (power) plant and this was distibuted to the several pumping stations. Later, in the late 1920's they installed large-capacity rotary converters for interconnection with NOPSI (a 60 Hz system).

All pumps purchased/installed up through 1931 look to be 25 Hz models, with those after that date being 60 Hz AC.

[Arizona Carolyn]

Wait... didn't Mary Landrieu say they weren't working to close the breech, that the people there Friday were only there for a Bush Photo-op?

[Colorado Doug]

I wonder if they will pump it slow just to let the outer layer to dry

It takes months for an earthen structure like that to dry out. I'm betting they will hold though.

[The Brush]

Good Lord, can 25 Hz electrical equipment still be obtained? If the 25 Hz motors were to be replaced w/ 60Hz motors, the pumps would need to be replaced due to different running speeds (unless the poles on the 60Hz motors are done differently to run slower - twice the number of poles. Then the pumps would still be running ~20% faster rpm, so the pumps will still need to be re-evaluated).

I have an electrical question.
I'm 50 years old and I'm in average health. If I were to someday end up with two women for an evening, would I connect them in series or parallel?

[Finalapproach29er]

Don't know about the street #.

She just said she was two blocks from the Lake and a barge accident is what caused that particular breech.

[George Oh Well]

I hate passing on third-party e-mail, but this one comes to me from a friend of Roger Long, one of the world's leading marine architects. The forward is from the friend who sent it to me. The body of the e-mail follows the line. He gives his opinions on the New Orleans levees.

In addition to FEMA Director saying on CNN - that some of FEMA's younger employees can have life-long careers dealing with Katrina aftermath, now this:

I thought you'd be interested in the pasted email from a pal who's a very sharp marine architect. He just finished a new analysis of the Titanic sinking for the National Geographic Society. He recently rode to the bottom and spent hours examining the wreckage with the original discovery team. His interesting findings will appear on TV soon. In response to my asking why New Orleans ground water is pumped into the lake via a series of risky canals vs. pumping it over the much sturdier levees of the Mississippi River, he wrote the following:

---

Subject: New Orleans levees

If there is a breech in a levee, pumping is irrelevant. No feasible pumping system could keep up with even a small breech. First sensible thing to do as soon as there is a break is to shut off the pumps to be sure you don't wear them out before the leak is repaired.

With the levees intact, it is irrelevant where you pump the water to.

The big question on pumps is why they didn't put them on towers or platforms above river and lake level or at least in cofferdams of the appropriate height so they wouldn't be flooded out when you really need them. Most of the pumps are ELECTRIC POWERED! Duh!

There was never any design intention of the pumps coping with this kind of event or a levee break.

You wait, once they get the levee breaks plugged up they are going to discover that, oh yeah, by the way, we don't have the pumping capacity to do anything useful. The pumps will get about 10% of the water out when they wear out and break down. Then they will have to let a no-bid contract to Haliburton to build pumps to do the job.

Sections of Florida are still awaiting reconstruction from Andrew. It's going to be a long, long, time before New Orleans is the Big Easy again. In that climate, most of the wooden structures will be toast before they get dried out.

Here's some perspective:

When I did this job at http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/Dimillo.htm

The drydock was pumped down to put the ferry in at night because electric rates were cheaper. The drydock was the largest connected electric load in Maine and it still cost $150,000 to pump it 15 feet down and 15 feet up at night.

The drydock was about 900 x 120 feet = 108,000 square feet. New Orleans, now flooded to about the same depth is 5,000,000,000 square feet or 46,464 times as large. At the energy prices of Maine a decade ago, it would therefore cost $6,969,600,000 to pump the city out. (That's a 7 Billion dollar electrical bill at electric rates 10 years ago !) The discharges on the drydock pumps were only about 100 feet long but the city pumps in New Orleans have the head losses of many hundreds of feet in some cases. Energy prices are going to be way higher by the time they get this system running. It probably would be cheaper to just leave it as a lake and rebuild somewhere else.

[_Jim]

Is it possible the media is calling it a levee because if a levee broke, vs. a retaining wall, then it's easier to blame the Bush administration because the levee system was known to be vulnerable for years?

Good question, but I do seem to remember that some of the discussion also involved shoring up the canals, and to do that, some homes that abut the canals would lose some land and quite likely a number would have to simply be moved/bull dozed to do that.

Since those canals, obviously, connect to Lake Pontchatrain, it is imperitive that they have just as much integrity as the earthen levees ...