Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
Posted on 09/07/2005 3:35:54 PM PDT by NickatNite2003
Just heard on FOX that Blanco refused to allow supplies to be brought to the stadium, "Because they wanted all those people to leave, and they didn't want to create a magnet to bring others there, by bringing in food and water!"""
Ahh - here's that other name. Ebbert.
New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin today announced the appointment of Terry Ebbert as Executive Assistant to the Mayor for Homeland Security and Public Safety. Ebbert begins in early February.http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1479630/posts?page=703#703
Yes, they are, mostly. They also contain less effective fill materials that "somehow" managed to be used.
There's no way that an object as large and heavy as a barge could be drawn towards a levee by a force as insignificant as seepage...., wind forces more likely but winds had died down by the time the levees breached.
Of course it could, if the right combination of timing and circumstances ocurred. If the barge happened to be drifting by in close enough proximity to the levee at the same time the increasing erosion due to the underground water flow increased dramatically just prior to a collapse of the surface portion of the levee, it would easily pull the barge along.
You can demonstrate this yourself. Take a plastic bucket, fill it with water and place a large fishing bobber in the center. Then take a knife, cut a large hole in the bucket about two inches below the surface of the water, and watch where the floating bobber goes.
At high water levels (I live two blocks from the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans) levees may indeed pass water as I've been witness to such events as water bubbling through at the base at ground level and have actually seen the MR levee topped by the river just 5 miles south in White Castle Louisiana but in no way have I ever seen clay "washed away from the inside"....
I'm glad you and your family have come through this tragedy safely. I'm not a native, but I have spent a lot of time in Lousiana, and I'm familiar with the area between BR and NO. I have also witnessed the same type of water seepage through a levee wall as you describe. The difference is, however, that although we both have been fortunate enough to not be present when that seepage has increased to a degree sufficient to cause a levee failure, it does indeed happen, and even clay does "wash away from the inside".
I want to be very clear that until this morning I've been basing my analysis of this solely on my personal experience and my understanding of the underlying science. I'm not a hydro-engineer (although I have occasionally stayed at a Holiday Inn Express).
I also want to be very clear that I'm not insisting that the barge/levee scenario I've outlined is absolute fact. There are too many unknown variables, and unfortunately we don't have an actual video record of the incident. The timing of the various possible factors could make a significant difference in the final assessment. I just believe my scenario is more likely.
That said, my instinct is to defer to the knowledge and assessments of experienced people who actually live in the affected area, so before writing this reply I did a little research to see if I could find some other information. This morning I found the following August 31st Wall Street Journal article. I hope you'll find this helpful:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05243/563080.stm
"New Orleans' levee system has been key to survival"
Wednesday, August 31, 2005 By Ann Carrns and Betsy McKay, The Wall Street Journal
excerpt - "Levees may resemble earthen dams, but are not as strong. Unlike dams, which are considered "permanent" structures, many levees are engineered to withstand strong flood pressure for only a few days at a time, said Mr. Rogers. That could call into question the durability of the levee running the full length of the northern edge of New Orleans, where the waters of Lake Pontchartrain are lapping near the top."
"Levees built by the federal Army Corps of Engineers, which took on a major flood-control role after the 1927 deluge, are typically engineered to high standards and are quite strong. Most levees along the main Mississippi River channel are federally constructed. But in some areas, including around Lake Pontchartrain, some levees were built privately or by local governments and may not have the same degree of engineering."
""Those are the kind that break," said Mr. Rogers, noting that in a 1993 Mississippi River flood in the Midwest, only 17 of 79 levees that failed were federally built.
"It is rare for floodwaters to "overtop" levees, as they usually succumb first to "under seepage," in which water seeps underneath from the river side and emerges on the land side. Sometimes the severe pressure causes soil within the levee to liquefy in a phenomenon known as "sand boils," which often precede structural failure." - end excerpt
I believe this is further testimony that despite desperate attempts to derail and bash BUSH the OLD LIBERAL MEDIA just does not have the CLOUT it used to. You can see it too by their rants and over-the-top editorials. They KNOW they're losing the battle and customers, and like their DIMocratic politicos they JUST CANT STAND IT. Watch for more and MORE ranting and raving as the TRUTH of whose to blame for this fiasco becomes even MORE CLEAR!
Love it! Are you British?
My mom used to make these really good chocolate-cake like cookies filled with vanilla frosting. She called them "gobs." They were small and round. When I first read the word all I could think of was someone getting hit by a bunch of "gob" cookies! ;D
No, but some of my best friends are...:o)
The gobs sound good.
OK, I'll accept your post as you presented the clarification of it being based on opinion. A corked fishing bobber wouldn't be my choice of a control element in an experiment to display probable likelihood though given the scale of drag and weight of a square barge , nevertheless....point taken...! TS
Sunday afternoon, Dr. Bertucci said, he checked with St. Rita's staff to see why. He said the owner, Mabel Mangano, told him she had five special-needs patients, and an ambulance hadn't come to pick them up. Officials said she also told them that she had spoken with the families of patients who said it was okay to stay behind."There was frustration over not having her patients out; a false sense of security because they'd never flooded before; they had generators and stuff, and it [an evacuation] tends to be traumatic for some of these special-needs patients," Dr. Bertucci said.
"She asked me if we were upset," Dr. Bertucci said. "I said I'm not on the council, I'm concerned about the patients."
Dr. Bertucci said he told Ms. Mangano, " 'We've got two buses and two drivers that'll take you anywhere you want to go. Do you want the buses?'
"She said no."
Ms. Mangano is believed to have stayed with the patients, since no one has heard from her since the storm. Attempts to reach members of her family or relatives of nursing home residents were unsuccessful.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/katrina/stories/090805dntexkatrita.2ee8c38.html
When Blanco's state government of Louisiana withheld food and water from the huddled masses in New Orleans, she was letting them have the Schiavo Treatment.
The reason?
It was for their own good......
Yes, the MSM is not as all-powerful as it used to be and the real facts are starting to get out.... BUT, most of the MSM will have to be dragged kicking-and-screaming to even address corrections of their many false stories, etc. Their usual mode when their lies have been exposed is just shrug, say it's all "old news" and "MOVE ON" to whatever their new lies-of-the-week might be....
By the way, as some of us have predicted, the primeval reptiles at MOVEON.ORG are now organizing a dishonest political campaign using hurricane victims. The DNC has helped MOVEON weasel into close contact with streams of refugees (oops, I mean "citizens needing evacuation") under the guise of "hurricane relief" -- this is another scandal of the left that needs to be fully investigated, the fact that the DNC's Howard Dean sent an email bulletin, probably to millions of people, promoting the MOVEON website for "hurricane relief"..... once again the DNC is promoting anti-American lunatics, this time to facilitate their campaign to round up hurricane victims and use them against the Bush administration. Some disgusting info at these links:
http://jcb.pentex-net.com/archives/2005/09/moveon_watch_do.html
http://www.michellemalkin.com/
I sure did. That's all we need...1000 more people seeking asylum ;-)
No, Mitch Landrieu is the popular lieutenant governor of LA, but a close Landrieu family friend, Charles Foti, of New Orleans too, is the attorney general.
Dean is quite an evil person. He is just the person to lead a political party that bases it's strategy of deceit. This crap often used about differences in political ideologies allowing for a certain level (allowance) of unfair play is just bullshit. The DEMOS operate no differently then the commies did in Russia before and after the revolution.
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
I just saw a replay of Mary Landrieu ranting and raving hysterically on the Senate floor blaming the President for everything. She said "Mr. Bill" (the doll that has appeared in local NO TV ads warning of the dangers of hurricanes) was more prepared for Katrina than Mr. Bush was." I'll wager she was coaxed into giving that speech by her leadership and the moveon.org crowd. I think it was a very poor decision on her part, just when she needs the President to support rebuilding NO with massive federal dollars. I don't think you'll see her on Air Force One or in the White House any time soon
Didn't it used to be or still is a fact that in a disaster area the local sheriff or fire chief (not the chief of police etc) was the ultimate authority vs the govenor.......I seem to remember reading such somewhere.....
In this case Blanco Inc made sure that no aid was allowed in to the area. She needs to be held criminally accountable for the deaths of those that died while in that shelter IMO....
Landrieu and Blanco must be CRUSHED - along with all the other vicious 'Rats who have so dishonestly politicized these matters....
What cowards! They probably won't lose any sleep over it either.
Yeh moose, it was typical LIBERAL hysteria. Ranting and raving and pointing fingers. Thank God, we have people in charge that let reason rule rather than emotion.
Not just opinion, opinion based on the physics involved. In terms of the variables of mass and energy, a barge, no matter how massive (weight), when compared to the mass of the water in the river or lake (or the mass of earth in the levee, for that matter), is no more significant than that cork bobber floating in a bucket.
However great the mass of the barge, the amount of energy/force it can transmit to the levee by striking it is directly dependent on other factors, specifically the velocity (speed AND angle of incidence) with which it strikes. A barge travelling at a high rate of speed would transmit a greater shock to the levee than a slowly drifting barge. Likewise, a barge striking the levee perpendicularly would impact with more force than one hitting at an angle.
I acknowledged that we lack sufficient evidence to decide definitively, but the evidence we do have, including that from the Wall Street Journal article, applied according to the principles of physics, supports a much higher probability for the scenario I outlined.
I'm not just trying to be argumentative - I think it's important to point out that I was not saying the two scenarios were equally likely. The science greatly favors the erosion-failure scenario.
It's only called euphoric when the courts approve it.
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