New Orleans levee reported weak in 1990s

MSNBC ^

[budvol]

WASHINGTON - The thin gray line of concrete floodwalls erected along drainage canals was supposed to protect New Orleans. But when Katrina hit, portions of the walls came tumbling down, flooding the city. A 1998 ruling, by an administrative judge for the Corps' Board of Contract Appeals, shows that the contractor, Pittman Construction, told the Corps that the soil and the foundation for the walls were “not of sufficient strength, rigidity and stability” to build on. “That's incredibly damning evidence,” says van Heerden, “I mean, really, incredibly damning.”

[sefarkas]

I am so tired of reading posts by folks who have no clue about life in New Orleans, but never cease to offer advice.

Aren't you reading what the investigation is saying? The flood walls (not earthen levees) were incorrectly designed and incorrectly constructed. The failure was going to happen sooner or later. The flood wall failed well after the hurricane and storm surge passed. We've had plenty of storms and winds in New Orleans -- no more or less than the folks in CA have earthquakes and fires. The flood wall failure unfortunately happened in the aftermath of the hurricane with all of the folks in the neighborhood nearest the failure forced/ordered out in the mandatory evacuation. The folks who would have been first responders and interested in preserving their property were not there when the city needed them the most. As you should know, failures such as this are not instantaneous and if the neighbors were there, action would have been taken to limit the failure. Sandbagging and diking with all of the available debris would have limited the damage to a much smaller length of flood wall, rather than the 500 foot breach that was allowed to form because there were no first-responders in the neighborhood to act.

People are safer to shelter in-place rather than drive into horrible traffic. Evacuation is simply an invitation to the looters to ransack your house.

[TheLion]

"I am so tired of reading posts by folks who have no clue about life in New Orleans, but never cease to offer advice."

Well, not to burst your bubble, but we do have a clue. You just helped to make my origional point.

[Jalapeno]

You bet it's Bush's fault. As the saying goes:

Bush farted and the levee parted

[Paleo Conservative]

People are safer to shelter in-place rather than drive into horrible traffic. Evacuation is simply an invitation to the looters to ransack your house

Not if a Cat 5 hurricane (which Katrina was before landfall) hits New Orleans directly or slightly to the west. The Red Cross refuses to set up shelters in New Orleans for any hurricane above Cat 2. The storm surge of Katrina was measured at about 30 feet while it was over the Gulf of Mexico. Considering parts of New Orleans are 12 feet below sea level, they could easily have been 40 under water regardless if the levees stayed intact. The people left behind in New Orleans were lucky Katrina followed a path a little bit to the east of its predicted path.

[sefarkas]

It must be hard to post with your eyes closed.

The flood wall failed well after the storm passed.

[sefarkas]

The estimated elevation of the storm surge in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico has little to do with the surge that New Orleans has to deal with, i.e., the sloshing of water in Lake Ponchatrain which is around 15 feet deep. Water, as with any fluid, will seek its own level and move in the path of least resistance. The poor defenseless folks on the Mississippi Coast directly facing the ocean have cause to be concerned about a storm surge.

The damage from a Cat 5 would be from the power of the wind. The location of New Orleans combined with the levees protects it from realistic storm surges, not the ones invented by the MSM to sell TV time and newspaper ads.

The friction with the ground as hurricanes approach the coast nearly guarantee that no Cat 5 will ever put its eye over land. Note this and the other well organized storms that take a jog to the east each time they approach the coast as they pinwheel north. It is no accident that Katrina was Cat 4 at landfall at the mouth of the river nearly 50 miles from New Orleans proper.

[ndkos]

Actually, that's not all true. Hurricanes do tend to decrease in strength somewhat before they hit land but not always. Hurricane Andrew which hit Florida as a Cat 5 had stregthened rapidly in the hours prior to landfall. Also Hurricane Camille with an amazing 190 mile/hr winds (an extremely strong Cat 5) hit Mississippi in the 60's.

[CharlesWayneCT]

But if you asked him, he would say it depends what the word "in" means.

[sefarkas]

Your points are accurate but not completely relevant to the folks who live in New Orleans. South Florida is fully exposed to the ocean as are the folks on the Mississippi Coast. New Orleans is tucked in and not as vulnerable as those two communities.

I simply want folks to see that the flood wall failure (not earthen levees) were on account of a construction problem and not directly related to the storm as stated in the investigations noted at the beginning of this thread. Cat 3 is the realistic worst case storm for the levee system around New Orleans. I am sad for the other communities. However, the Corps manager and his contractors that signed off on those 17th St Canal flood walls ought to end up in jail. Furthermore, it would not have been such a disaster if folks were at home to protect their property rather than listen to the corrupt politicians on top of the city and state government. Everyone in LA knows how crooked these folks are. That's how they get elected. But, being mayor or governor does not give that person any credibility when it comes to issues like evacuation etc. Some of my small-government allies on FR seem to believe that getting elected raises your IQ by some significant fraction. Politicians in Louisiana are for entertainment purposes only; no one can take them seriously when it comes to life and property.

[ClaireSolt]

Well everyone else is appalled and getting very tired of being held up for money with no thanks.

[CharlesWayneCT]

I will disagree about this. It was extremely FORTUNATE that the wall collapsed after a Hurricane, when everybody was evacuated.

There was no way to sand-bag a 200-foot wall collapse. If this wall had simply fallen down in the middle of a normal night, you would have had thousands of people drowned before most people had any idea what was happening. And tens of thousands of people stuck on their roofs. And people electrocuted by live power in the water. And fires from gas mains.

The reason the corp was able to stop the leak much easier the 2nd time was that it was no longer a "wall", but was a fat levy, which is easier to put back together.

[sefarkas]

It was only 200 feet (or better) because no one was there to notice the initial slump. Like most things in the real world, things do not change instantaneously. Even in the middle of the night (maybe unlike your town) New Orleans is a busy place. Note that the sound of water filling your backyard and the creaking of the wall as it slumps are likely to make many a neighbor suddenly sit up out of a sound sleep.

[sefarkas]

When you find the phone # of that family of four that my annual federal income tax is covering, call'm. Have them send me a thank-you card. My annual taxes have been for years way over the so-called poverty line. The extra seems to cover the expenses of fire fighters out West as well as supporting other seemingly hopeless causes. I know all my close friends who have been taken in and taken care of by virtual strangers are most grateful for the support they are getting.

[Excuse_Me]

The 17th St. Canal flood wall collapsed at 3 a.m. Monday morning, August 29, about 4 hours before landfall.

[sefarkas]

Here is an interesting map for you. Katrina storm surge summary

[sefarkas]

I beg to disagree with your time line.

Federal officials have referred to the levee (another case of mistaken identity, but I digress) breaches as a separate and much later event from the flooding to the east, and said that they were unaware of the gravity of the problem until Tuesday, Aug. 30, suggesting valuable response time was lost.

Read the whole article.

[AliVeritas]

Not Bush's Fault:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9342186/

[Excuse_Me]

Well, your link went nowhere, but I checked and the T-P does say it was late Monday morning. The 3 a.m. timeline I got from a post here a week or so back that quoted Knight-Ritter reporting about a National Guard Timeline stating 3 a.m. Here is a link to the Knight-Ritter article:

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/special_packages/press_refers/12606937.htm

The late Monday morning timeframe does seem to make more sense.

[ndkos]

True, it is much harder for a Cat 5 to hit New Orleans directly. I do think that storms stronger than Katrina could hit New Orleans though.

I know that the levees had a construction problem. Instead of rebuilding the levees I think they should move the city to be above ground, but that a debate for another day.

[WasDougsLamb]

Experts are just now beginning to probe why those floodwalls failed. They want to determine whether the storm surge from Katrina poured over them, or whether the walls collapsed because of a possible flaw.

“This is fairly typical of some of the failures we've seen,” says Professor Ivor van Heerden, a hurricane expert at Louisiana State University who has examined the wreckage. “These walls underwent catastrophic structural failure.”



Please don't fuss at me if I am wrong, but doesn't this put an end to Louis Farrakhans and Ray Nagins accusations that the levees were deliberately destroyed to flood the african american portion of New Orleans?