Mystery surrounds floodwall breaches

[DoYouEverWonder]

Sept 13, 2005

Could a structural flaw be to blame?

By John McQuaid
Staff writer

One of the central mysteries emerging in the Hurricane Katrina disaster is why concrete floodwalls in three canals breached during the storm, causing much of the catastrophic flooding, while earthen hurricane levees surrounding the city remained intact.

It probably will take months to investigate and make a conclusive determination about what happened, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. But two Louisiana State University scientists who have examined the breaches suggest that a structural flaw in the floodwalls might be to blame.

"Why did we have no hurricane levee failures but five separate places with floodwall failures?" asked Joseph Suhayda, a retired LSU coastal engineer who examined the breaches last week. "That suggests there may be something about floodwalls that makes them more susceptible to failure. Did (the storm) exceed design conditions? What were the conditions? What about the construction?"

Ivor Van Heerden, who uses computer models to study storm-surge dynamics for the LSU Hurricane Center, has said that fragmentary initial data indicate that Katrina's storm-surge heights in Lake Pontchartrain would not have been high enough to top the canal walls and that a "catastrophic structural failure" occurred in the floodwalls.

Corps project manager Al Naomi said that the Corps' working theory is that the floodwalls were well-constructed, but once topped they gave way after water scoured their interior sides, wearing away their earth-packed bases. But he said some other problem could have caused the breaches.

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09_13.html#079207

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Probably the dynamite.

:tinfoilhat:

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. Actually, the article goes into a lot of detail

about what did and didn't happen.

Interesting that it was the floodwalls that failed, not the levees.

Read down the article and they explain the difference.

[cantstandbush]

149. My niece who fled to Baton Rouge said something that needs to be verified.

She said that the media will not report that one reason for the flooding of NO area near the lake was that Jefferson Parish was pumping its water into the lake that caused some flood wall to breech and that the levees held for the most part. I don't know how true this is but she swears that was a big contributer to the rising water in NO long after Katrina was gone. Anyone know anything about this?

[Skink]

4. The History channel seems to think...

Erosion underneath the sea wall caused the collapse. They had realy cool graphics too. I myself am pulling for the tinfoill however.

[Blackwater]

96. I agree...

with the History Channel, that is.

[Dancing_Dave]

6. Yeah, the explosions need to be investigated.

Otherwise, the whole "investigation" degenerates into pseudo-scientific propaganda.

[DoYouEverWonder]

7. I would assume when the flood walls blew out

that it would make a hell of a noise.

[Thor_MN]

24. Not up on your "Guns of Navaronne 2"?

The movie got it half right, a relatively small charge, placed in contact with a wall, if backed by water, makes a hell of a lot more damage than in open air. Once you get some cracks working, water does the rest of the work.

Saw a demo where they placed a charge on a metal plate. Bang, nothing much. Same charge, but with a bag of water taped over it and it blew an enormous hole through the plate.

I don't know what happened, but I'm doubting that anyone would notice an explosion that could eventually breach a floodwall in the middle of a hurricane. I'm not saying that's what happened, I have trouble believing anyone, even the neocons, could be that evil, just that it would be possible.

[Nihil]

31. Or the Dambusters raid?

The reason for the ingenious "bouncing bomb" (Barnes Wallis) was so
that the explosive would skip across the water, hit the inside of the
dam wall, *not explode* but sink (rolling down the inside of the wall)
and explode at ~30' depth (triggered by a depth charge fuse).

This meant that the full force of the oil-barrel-sized charge would
be focussed on the dam wall, leading to a breach. They could not get
the same explosive force onto the target in any other way.

(Edit: Not saying this happened here but just confirming the technique.)

[KansDem]

81. I remember that! A movie was made in 1954 about this.

The Dam Busters

on edit: Dramatization of an actual operation in World War II in which low level Bombers from England drop skimming bombs into reservoirs in the Ruhr water system to cause floods destroying much of Germany's industrial base. from IMDB

[anotherdrew]

53. they didn't breech in the middle of a huricane, but some time after

[geniph]

63. Ever hear a transformer blow?

They sound - and look - like a bomb going off to the uninitiated viewer.

[mccoyn]

70. It probally veries with size, but I've seen a couple.

The first one was maybe a half mile away. I didn't hear anything, but it was very bright. The second one happened right when I drove past it. I saw a flash all around and I heard it. I thought something had gone horribly wrong with my car. I wouldn't confuse either of them with dynamite or a bomb.

[northzax]

79. the only problem is...

in order to be effective, the charges would be underwater, and fairly small. While sounds travels well through water, it does not make the medium leap to air very well, unless the explosive radius includes air (close enough to the surface to transit into the atmosphere) it's why depth charges sound incredibly loud underwater, but very muffled on the surface. You simply wouldn't hear a loud explosion from a sub-surface explosive, more of a muffled roar.

[Codeine]

12. I heard Bush planted it by hand...

...with the help of the Bilderbergers.

[magnetism]

47. You are bad,

stirring the coals like that. Shame on you.

:evilgrin:

[katty]

138. yea, NEVER,EVER give this gang the benefit of of the doubt

think of all the new development biz for Halliburton in the Gulf...

[Blaq Dem]

18. I heard the same too. They wanted to protect the wealthier neighborhoods,

To take relieve pressure, they blew holes in the levee to keep water from flowing into the richer areas of N.O. This is according to a Chicago radio interview I heard one night.

[KitSileya]

54. I think that people are quick to grab at that reason

because it's happened before. Didn't they flood the poor neighborhoods to save the rich ones last time NO flooded? In 1927 or something? I guess people think, well they did it before, why wouldn't they do it again?

[Annamaria]

120. Louis Farrakhan's bullshit..

he's a freaking psycho trying to stir up trouble.

[Skittles]

139. um yeah

I spot those kind of people very easily too

[seemslikeadream]

2. central mysteries

:tinfoilhat:

[Codeine]

13. A mystery?

A floodwall broke in the aftereffects and stormsurge of a Cat5 hurricane and that's a mystery? The world must be a mysterious place for some folks...

[seemslikeadream]

19. "It had a vertical concrete wall several feel thick."

There was one levee break reported at the east end of town -- the Industrial Canal breach -- but only localized flooding resulted.

However, there was a failure of a large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee where it connects to the Old Hammond Highway Bridge. The London Avenue Canal breach was another blow.

The gap -- first reported to be about 60 metres wide, but now about 150 metres -- allowed millions of litres of water from Lake Pontchartrain to flood New Orleans, turning it into an urban swamp.

According to The New York Times, this breach was at a spot that had received more attention than other areas in the region.

Shea Penland, director of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of New Orleans, said that breach was particularly surprising because it occurred "along a section that was just upgraded."

"It did not have an earthen levee," Penland told the newspaper. "It had a vertical concrete wall several feel thick."


http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1125442964217_7

[Zynx]

86. Concrete wall is still built ultimately on soft ground, which erodes.

A realtively thin, vertical sheet of concrete is also in big trouble if it starts sagging at all with a lot of water behind it.

[Codeine]

119. But it's CONCRETE!

Don't you understand!? Concrete is impervious to all but explosives. There can be no other possible explanation, you DISSPELLER!

[6th Borough]

145. How about the infexibility of concrete as compared to packed soil?

...an example being the Civil War artillary assault by the Union on Ft. Morris, an earthenwork fort/magazine on an island guarding the entrance to Charleston, S.C.

It was (from what I have read) similar to attacking a pillow...made of dirt; it absorbed the blasts, which would have crushed through a brick/concrete fort.

Even without that example, my first thought was that concrete simply can't stand up to high pressure nearly as well as soil; specially soil packed for who knows how many decades/centuries.

Ehh...just tossing out my first reaction.

[6th Borough]

146. Sorry, meant to reply to the topic, not you in particular. Also meant...

to type inflexibility...damned typo; I have java script turned off.

[geomon666]

28. Cat 4

:hi:

[Codeine]

29. I Stand Corrected. :)

[Megahurtz]

62. Weird. I heard it was Cat 5.

[mccoyn]

71. It was downgraded before it went ashore.

The windspeeds dropped before going ashore, so it was recategoriezed. The thing is, the storm surge takes time to dissapate and it was essentially the same as a Cat 5 when it came ashore.

[rustydad]

150. It was cat 4

At landfall and was not a direct hit on NO. Something is fishy here. Just like 9-11. Follow the money. Follow the power. Follow the evil ones in their rat holes. bob

[populistdriven]

5. I posted the answer* to this before but NOBODY paid attention

The flood walls breached where they were lowest and in sections where floating debris piled up against bridges impeding flow and raising the water levels behind the debris pile.

The water flowing over a small section is enough to undermine the soil supporting the outside of the wall and over it went.

*ok its just my opinion but it fits Occam's razor. There were HUGE amounts of floating debris in the canals.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

9. I have seen similar, but smaller-scale, floods do

exactly this.
I am with you.

[populistdriven]

10. Ok LOOK at this photo!!!

?x=278&y=345&sig=TJB0XshJTMhJyBS81VDrRg--

[DoYouEverWonder]

11. Now imagine all that debris

combined with fast water and you've got big problems.

[mccoyn]

49. The breach is downstream of the bridge.

If anything, the bridge and debris made water levels in the canal lower than the lake.

[populistdriven]

16. Interesting diagram

[Carolab]

128. Oh, wow. That IS very strange indeed.

Look at how only the few houses right BY the levee were decimated!

And look at where the debris is!

[spacelady]

8. Floodwaters are incredibly powerful. n/t

[Codeine]

14. Shhh... you'll wake the woowoos with that talk. n/t

[spacelady]

15. Woowoos, ok. Hoodoos....... AIEEEE

[seemslikeadream]

20. N.O. Floodwall Sabotaged

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VIDEO: Earwitness tells ABC explosives blew Industrial Canal levee


Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total411.info has obtained video of an ABC News report featuring an earwitness to explosives used to destroy the Industrial Canal in New Orleans. Here's the video, and here's the transcript:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



www.total411.info/leveeboom.rm



DAVID MUIR, ABC NEWS: This is the actual levee that runs along the canal on the eastern side of the city. And when the hurricane hit, the water came through at such force, it was apparently too much. You can see the massive breach here, and when you look around the corner you can see what the water did to the Lower Ninth Ward. It compleetley destoryed neighborhoods.

JOE EDWARDS, JR., 9TH WARD RESIDENT: I heard something go BOOM!

MUIR: Joe Edwards rushed to get himself and as many neighbors as possible into his truck. They drove to this bridge, where they've been living ever since

EDWARDS: My house broke in half. My mother's house just disintegrated. It was a brick house. All the houses down there floated down the street like somebody's guiding 'em

MUIR: Was it solely the water that broke the levee, or was it the force of this barge that now sits where homes once did? Joe Edwards says neither. People are so bitter, so disenfranchised in this neighborhood, they actually think the city did it, blowing up the levee to save richer neighborhoods like the French Quarter.

MUIR: So you're convinced . . .

EDWARDS: I know this happened!

MUIR: . . . they broke the levee on purpose?

EDWARDS: They blew it!

MUIR: New Orleans' mayor says there's no credence to this.

NEW ORLEANS MAYOR RAY NAGIN: That storm was so powerful and it pushed so much water, there's no way anyone could have calculated what levee to dynamite to have the kind of impact to save the French Quarter.

MUIR: An LSU expert who looked at the video today says, while the barge may have caused it, it was most likely the sheer force of the water that brought the levee along the Lower Ninth Ward down

original page:

www.total411.info/2005/09/video-earwitness-tells-abc-explosives.html

[Codeine]

26. Some guy hears a boom...

and you're convinced that there was an explosion, even though the experts say it broke as a result of floodwaters and stormsurge - all this on a basis of hearing a boom?

When did critical thinking skills disappear on the Left? Are we to be reduced to paranoiacs fervently comparing the latest nut-job theories to the exclusion of building a real progressive political movement in this nation?!

Crap like this sickens me. Woo woo bullshit is what it is.

[seemslikeadream]

33. Yes it sickens me also

He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.

George Eliot

[are_we_united_yet]

36. Were you there at

the same time at the same place to contradict his statement?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

[magnetism]

41. If it was dynamite

then they should be able to find explosive residue on the floodwalls, right? This could prove it. I am guessing if there is residue, we will not see that evidence.

[420inTN]

59. C4 would be better than dynamite.

More boom per ounce, and you can make more focused, shaped, and controlled charges. Plus it's easier to carry.

If there was any residue, it would have most likely been washed away by the floodwaters.

[Name removed]

66. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[anotherdrew]

93. please see my other post to this thread about racist Hal Turner

[Taxloss]

99. Citing extreme-right websites, eh?

Classy.

[rocktivity]

106. How old were these explosive traces?

Can it be determined how "recently" they were detonated?

:shrug:
rocknation

[Trevelyan]

78. I read somewhere that there were up to 10 ear witnesses

most but not all black who hear the explosion before they second levee broke. The first explosion probably would have drowned any witnesses since it was late at night.

May have been http:www.infowars.com Alex Jones has been right about a lot of things particularly to do with the police state.

Cynthia McKinney is mentioning Impeachment and MK-ULTRA and Concentration Camps for the Survivors of NOLA she was cut off by C-SPAN before she finished.
~~~
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=8235/

September Monday 12th 2005 (18h52) :
Cynthia McKinney censored in congressional record- Is someone afraid of the word IMPEACHMENT?


Rep McKinney Special Order Censored??? By Rep Cynthia McKinney 9-11-5

I mentioned the word impeachment on the House Floor Thursday late afternoon, but I don’t see it in the official Congressional Record transcript. I was chided by the Speaker that it was out of order to question the President’s motives. I didn’t question motives, I questioned actions: from lack of actions on Katrina to cutting the budget of safety net programs, to rewarding the rich to the detriment of all the rest of us. This transcript directly from the Congressional Record is mangled and omits that word!!!! I can’t believe this.
~~~~
Cynthia McKinney censored in congressional record- Is someone afraid of the word IMPEACHMENT?

15th September 2005 - 16h24 - Posted by 64..116.
I can’t believe that C-SPAN cut Cynthia McKinney off. Bushco must really be scared. They have been threatening C-SPAN with some ridiculous FCC regulations that C-Span must have digital station as well as their regular stations. C-SPAN has a yellow round sticker on their site which says DIGITAL UNFAIR UNCONSTITUTIONAL. C-SPAN wrote that it could not afford to have duplicates of their station and even if they could their was limited space on cable and would not be able to buy it.

Keep writing to CNN, Anderson Cooper, Brian Williams, Geraldo Rivera, Shepard Smith, Fox and MSNBC, Newsweek had a devastating critique of the Bush Regime on its criminal incompetence in mishandling the Katrina aftermath. Encourage them to keep fighting even if the journalists are having guns pointed at them and their cameras smashed. Cooper and Williams have been writing articles on their web that are extremely honest about the intimidation of journalists. Encourage them. Democracy is not a spectator sport!

[reprobate]

52. Let me suggest that when a population continually, for over four years....

....hears nothing but lies from "our" government, it sometimes becomes difficult to tell the truth from the propoganda.

Additionally, we have been used to the spin from above, convincing us that the shit they shovel at us is really chocolate, and just eat it, don't analyze it cause they are so much smarter than we are.

In other words, I don't believe a word the goveenment says.

[burrowowl]

25. Yes

People will try to drive across an arroyo with just 12 inches deep of strong flowing water and guess what? Big powerful SUV goes downstream! Ciao!
So image a hell of a lot more water!

[populistdriven]

17. did i mention i stayed at a holiday inn express last night?

[seemslikeadream]

23. Locals say explosives opened 9th ward levee

Any0ne? MSM Labor Day night,-Locals say explosives opened 9th ward levee
by spacebuddy008
Tue Sep 6th, 2005 at 21:17:52 PDT
Anyone? MSM Last night,-Locals say explosives opened ninth ward levee

bl0g rep0rts~ September 6th, 2005

authorities admit they had to breach levees, canal walls in spots to alleviate 'areas' , (see below)

anyone have the program or source? I do not have cable, so it was network news Labor Day night, but the computer is upstairs and was discombobulated from up/ down and all the varying searches on technorati for details on this unnatural disaster. What show was this observation shared? , who was the host?

They told network reporter that too much dynamite was used to open the canal floodwall, actually not a true levee, to sluice water from high-rent uptown district.

here is the documentation:
***
Also heard that part of the reason our house flooded is they dynamited part of the levee after the first section broke - they did this to prevent Uptown (the rich part of town) from being flooded. Apparently they used too much dynamite, thus flooding part of the Bywater.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/7/01752/03876

[Codeine]

27. And I'm sure somebody...

has *real* information on this. Somebody? Anybody?

[seemslikeadream]

32. And I am sure

"The truest characters of ignorance are vanity, and pride and arrogance."

[zann725]

161. A 'thread' here recently said a Navy Seal found "burn" marks on

debris from one of the levees. The thread said the Seal brought a fragment of that 'burned' levee back with him to have analyzed. Any updates on that?

[MADem]

64. Well, grab your towel and balance the friken budget, then!!!

:evilgrin: :hi:

[Strelnikov_]

21. "It Looks To Have Been Laterally Pushed"

I also noticed this pile of material in pictures. If this is indeed part of the levee, laterally pushed, it would probably rule out damage due to explosives.

My bet is that they find that the failures are due to localized foundation problems. By adding concrete floodwalls to the top of existing levees, they greatly increased potential hydrostatic lateral forces on the system. This was probably one of the reasons for the sheet pile core, to deepen the possible slip path. The problem is, the system had little transverse stiffness. A pocket of poor foundation material could have allowed for a localized failure.

Suhayda said that his inspection of the debris from the 17th Street Canal breach suggests the wall simply gave way. It looks to have been laterally pushed, not scoured in back with dirt being removed in pieces," he said. "You can see levee material, some distance pushed inside the floodwall area, like a bulldozer pushed it."

[dbeach]

22. no mystery as to who rebuilds..

"Disaster Capitalism in New Orleans
The cost (or here) of cleaning up the results of Bush's negligence in failing to deal with global warming and spending money needed for New Orleans levees on his war in Iraq may be as much as the $300 billion spent in four years to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Of course, what most people would regard as a cost, the entrepreneurial politicians in the Bush White House see as yet another opportunity to transfer money from taxpayers to their personal friends. The scheme is blatantly obvious:



Bush has started to issue Iraq-style no-bid contracts, with cost-plus provisions that guarantee contractors a certain profit regardless of how much they spend.

Old buddies like Halliburton, Bechtel, and Fluor are first in line. Joe Allbaugh, the former director of FEMA, is lobbying for Halliburton, and another winner of the Katrina windfall, Shaw Group Inc.

In order to increase profitability at the expense of the working people most affected by the hurricane and thus most in need of money, Bush has removed (or here) federal minimum-wage provisions from the reconstruction contracts."

http://xymphora.blogspot.com/

another cash cow for the big players

[ladylibertee]

30. I don't know

[buzzsaw_23]

34. Came across this curious bit

A spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers said later that those killed were "federal contractors" on their way to "repair" a canal. The "contractors" were on their way to launch barges into Lake Pontchartrain, in an operation to "fix" the 17th Street Canal, according to the Army Corps of Engineers spokesman. Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley of New Orleans later reported that his policemen had shot at eight suspicious people near the breached levee, killing five or six.

Who were these "military agents" that were killed by the police near the 17th Street Canal breached levee and what were they doing there? Why did the New Orleans police find it necessary to shoot and kill 5 or 6 of them? No one is saying anything and it appears that the news story has now been swept under the rug. Were these US Department of Defense personnel a Special Forces group or Navy Seals with top secret orders to sabotaged the levee? There are verifiable reports that at least 100 New Orleans police officers have disappeared from the face of the earth and that two have committed suicide. Could these be policemen that died defending the levee against sabotage by "federal contractors"?

Another telling incident that points to a "nefarious plan" is what New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said at the height of the crisis. He said publicly, "I fear the CIA may take me out!" Mayor Nagin, a Black, said this twice. He told a reporter for the Associated Press: "If the CIA slips me something and next week you don't see me, you'll all know what happened." Later he told interviewers for CNN on a live broadcast that he feared the "CIA might take me out." What does Mayor Ray Nagin know and why does he fear the CIA?

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20050913&articleId=941

[WoodrowFan]

37. got anything froma site

not run by a nutjob hategroup??

[Minstrel Boy]

43. got anything besides

ridicule and unsupported slander?

[anotherdrew]

55. nutjob hategroup? how do you mean?

Never saw nutjob haters there, what are you refering too?

[Boo Boo]

83. Since when do AP and The Guardian qualify as

nutjob hate groups?

This was linked in the GR story:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5256023,00.html

[Taxloss]

104. That story is inaccurate.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4214232.stm

No contractors were shot.

[Boo Boo]

114. Ooops! That AP story sorta got one small but major detail

pretty far wrong, yes? I wonder if anybody ever managed to identify the gunmen. Perhaps with rumors in poor neighborhoods that the levees were being blown, people were "defending" their neighborhoods? Or, maybe they were just extremely pissed and trying to take revenge on somebody. Sure seems like these guys must have been waiting for someone. Guarding the levee against further acts of sabotage (imagined or otherwise)?

Anyway, that's a major shootout; way different than taking potshots at choppers. Oddly, today was the first time that I'd heard of this incident. Sorta seems like a story that begs for a little more coverage than it got. There's hardly anything on it at all.

Oh, btw, how do you know which story is inaccurate? Personally, I would assume that this story is the accurate one, but only because it sounds more reasonable to me, which really isn't proof of anything.

[earth mom]

39. That story disappeared so quick it'd make your head spin!

It's ALL FRICKEN SUSPICIOUS and don't let the naysayers around here change the subject!!! The most telling part is what Mayor Nagin said about the CIA!

THINK about it!!!

[NYC]

60. I have never seen a follow up to that story.

Could the deceased have been Blackwater Security? Possible.

[Redstone]

35. Scouring is a little-understood and underestimated phenomenon,

as quite a few bridge designers have found when the bridge's piers get undermined by scouring and the bridge falls down. Or has to be closed for extensive repairs.

Never underestimate the power of running water. Sounds like they didn't take it into account there.

And, no, the Government didn't deliberately make holes in the levees and / or floodwalls. The more some of us spout that kind of nonsense, the more other people will look upon us as idiots. Because such talk is, after all, idiotic.

Redstone

[seemslikeadream]

38. Yea I'm worried about others thinking that about us

http://image.guardian.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2005/09/08/bell1.jpg

http://image.guardian.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/steve_bell/2005/09/09/liberty512.jpg


on edit

76,900, yea we should ALL look the same, shouldn't we?

[Redstone]

42. I didn't say that.

Redstone

[seemslikeadream]

44. Sorry I must have misunderstood

[cookiebird]

58. An Ohio Man-Made Lake

with an earthen levee was drained this summer, reducing it by 4--6 feet (in some spots) because the ACE found a "leak" and didn't want to flood the folks down river, or in lower elevations. I'm trusting the ACE on this one, and not some explosion theory.
BTW: fishing was lousy, but no one was flooded and repairs commenced

[magnetism]

40. I heard a New Orleans resident say

that a barge hit the walls. Anyone else hear this?

[SteppingRazor]

45. Yeah.... a barge full of dynamite

:eyes:

Kidding aside, I have heard this same thing, that a barge hit the floodwall, causing a breach. But simple water pressure would do the trick, with enough water, enough force and a weakened levee.

If the barge thing is true, it may have just cracked the wall enough for the water to do the rest.

As for these "explosives" explanations -- Ah, I was gonna write something here to make fun of nutters, but why bother? I think they speak for themselves.

[magnetism]

46. Thanks for the sane reply

Just can't understand those that think EVERYTHING has to be a conspiracy. Just can't be healthy for the mind.

[seemslikeadream]

48. So who was it that said EVERYTHING has to be a conspiracy?

I'd really like to talk to that person

Thanks

[magnetism]

51. All that I am saying

is that sometimes you have to step back and think if something makes sense. Sometimes, there are legit conspiracies, but in my short time on DU, I have found some that will believe the most outlandish theories.

But, then again, maybe that is Rove's game plan. Make the conspiracy so unbelievable when in reality it is true.

[anotherdrew]

65. bingo

what people consider believable or not is based on what inforamtion they are already familiar with. I wouldn't be so willing to consider the possibilities I do if it weren't for decades of all-too-little-known history. What makes a statement factual?


"Make the conspiracy so unbelievable when in reality it is true."
well, that would be the best way to go about it, if you need to hide something big, make it look outlandish. Dress up your hit men as clowns, who's gonna believe an eye wittness to a clown killing someone and stuffing them in the back of a flower-delivery van that can't be found later anyway?

Heck, I don't see what people think is so outlandish about the bush-boys taking action to cause the levee failures. They and their's are benifiting greatly from this, and the first question to always start with is "who benifits" then try "following the money"

[peacetalksforall]

73. What would the naysayers have said on the first day someone had

linked the right wing to their illegal secret sub-government linking Iran Nicaragua guns drugs pacts with Mr Khasoggi and a few other Kissinger trading friends?

A. Nut Jobs!

[anotherdrew]

89. who would believe a president ordering his thugs to break and enter -nixon

wouldn't happen, it's gosh, unthinkable!

unthinkable - what a stupid concept

[saskatoon]

118. also

who would think that there was a plot to kill John Kennedy that had nothing to do with with Oswald and how about Ruby killing Oswald because he was about to spill what he knew about the deal.

[Annamaria]

135. Well, if you're going that route..

"Heck, I don't see what people think is so outlandish about the bush-boys taking action to cause the levee failures. They and their's are benifiting greatly from this, and the first question to always start with is "who benifits" then try "following the money"<P>

Are you willing to consider who else might stand to benefit from levee failures? The city of New Orleans could become the playground of the Gulf coast with a reduced population of poverty stricken people living in slums. Could that have influenced local and state government's decision not to try to evacuate the city with buses BEFORE the hurricane hit? What better way to cleanse a city, which happened to have some of the highest crime and poverty rates in the country, than to choose not to help the people get out beforehand?

IMHO, if you're going to try to "follow the money" you better be willing to accept the fact that the money trail doesn't just lead in one direction...

[AtTheEndOfTheDay]

88. Believing and speculating are two different things.

I think what you perceive as believing outlandish theories is often simply speculation. In these times unlikely motivations for nefarious activity cannot be outright dismissed without consideration.

[sattahipdeep]

108. What does Mayor Ray Nagin know and why does he fear the CIA?

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20050913&articleId=941

:hi:

[loudsue]

148. HOLY SHIT!!! That's the first I saw of that article!

So much for those who show up (IN PAIRS OR THREES) to throw jabs at "tinfoilhatters".

:kick::kick::kick:

[are_we_united_yet]

157. Yeah

pretty far fetched this administration might lie to start a war in the Middle East isn't it?

[jahyarain]

57. it wasn't the barge, trust me i know

you may also want to take into account that this lie came from the WSJ. that discredits it on its own. as i understand it the "corps engineer" that was the supposed source said it was "possible", not that it happened

[Marie26]

94. I tend to think it was a barge

There's two entirely seperate sources:
- ABC News - People from the 9th Ward report they heard a boom before the flood, a barge now sits where their house used to be.
- Fox News - Actor Steve Harvey was interviewed from a Baton Rouge shelter, where he was helping & talking to evacuees. According to him, an evacuee who lives near the levee saw an empty grain barge hit the floodwall, causing the levees to break.

So the Fox News report is second-hand, but taken together w/the other eyewitness accounts, & the fact that a huge barge is now sitting in the 9th Ward, it seems like the barge is probably a good explanation for the breach.

[jahyarain]

98. sorry, but it's not true

nor was it a grain barge. the last load it had was cement. the barge was sucked through the gapping wound and was not only sitting on a house but on debris as well. hence, said debris was pulled through BEFORE the barge. also, the rubble from the breach was in a straight line. had the barge caused the breach, parts of the wall would have been scattered about the sides. it was the water. i speak as someone who has VERY reliable sources in our Maintenance and Repair department six floors up from me. trust me on this one. ;)

[mccoyn]

107. I think barges float.

Yeah, I saw a barge once floating right on top of the water. If this was one of those types of barges (the ones that float) it would have continued floating while the debris settled under it. In fact, it is possible that this barge floated right up onto the house.

[jahyarain]

137. yes, barges float. i do believe that's what they were made for

not only is it "possible that this barge floated right up onto the house", that's what happened. now once it was on top of the house, how could the debris settle under it? it started dragging debris as it began hitting land. look, the people i get this info from do this for a living, you really should trust me on this one.

[anotherdrew]

110. we're talking about the barge at the industrial canal breech right?

my idea of how that could have worked is, the barge hits the seawalls, cracks them, rear-end of barge moves around a bit, then comes thru once the water has opened a wide gap.

anyway, so what was the condition there right before the breech? Any pictures? How high the was water in the canal I wonder? Do you have any idea exactly when that section failed completely?

[lateo]

50. Why is it a mystery? They have been predicting this for years.

CAT4-5 hurricane=flooded NOLA

Duh.

[anotherdrew]

90. if it hit. this missed by 40 miles. breeches where it was just "improved"

the levees mostly came thru fairly well, and didn't have the kind of wide-spread failure predicted from a direct hit. Just three spots failed, a day AFTER the hurricane was gone.

There should be pictures out there somewhere of these locations before the flooding started in earnest.

[NYC]

56. Related:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4761378

[Generator]

61. I just hope they weren't having

A "mock" hurricane drill at the same time.

[Name removed]

67. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[anotherdrew]

91. Hal Turner is a racist jackass - he's got nothing but a story he made up

Seriously, Hal turner is a major racist who is just trying to use his made up story to start his wet dream of a "race war". Hal Turner can personally kiss my ass. I've made exposing his bullshit a bit of a hobby lately.

There may have been something done at one or more breeches involving explosives, but ol' Hal boy doesn't have a friend on any dive teams. The truth will come from elsewhere if it comes.

[Taxloss]

100. This is racist crap.

"boron-enhanced fluoronitramino explosives as well as PBXN-111" - a Google search for "boron-enhanced fluoronitramino" turns up only right-wing hate sites and conspiracy wacko sites. This is transparent bullshit. And you should be ashamed of yourself for parroting it here.

[BrightKnight]

68. had political & economic motives

They had political and economic motives to commit the crime. They certainly did nothing to stop it. The did nothing to minimize the damage. It is not an unreasonable question to ask.


It would be very easy to ram the levee with a tug boat.

[peacetalksforall]

69. Well, mark this thread. The DISSPELLERS are here. Just as they 've

appeared before. Talking to each other by agreeing with each other and implicating other contributors - insinuating that they are stupid.

Learn to recognize the DISSPELLERS. They wave their magic wand and try to make supposition, exploration, and tidbit gathering disappear.

They're in DU town again trying to kill the spread, just as the military is trying to suppress the press. Just imo. The pattern fits. Just talk over them. Or make pretend with them.

[seemslikeadream]

72. Learn to recognize the DISSPELLERS

Just talk over them. Or make pretend with them.

Or take them for a ride

http://eclectech.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/b3ta/llamabiker.gif

[mccoyn]

74. Everyone who disagrees with you is the enemy. -nt

[peacetalksforall]

77. It is not an issue of disagreement, it is an issue of putting down by

calling anyone who wants to bring together bits of hearsay, fact, suppostition, thought, gut. nutjobs.

This is precisely the place that people should share - WHAT THEY KNOW, WHAT THEY THINK, WHAT THEY HAVE LEARNED ELSEWHERE, WHAT THEY HAVE GAINED FROM EXPERIENCE, WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE SAYING and THINKING and especially WHAT THEIR GUT TELLS THEM. We were born with curiousity - and we have citizen obligations in light of the crap that has descended on us by the right wing.

The point here is that we have a horror of an administration that is going down in history as destroyers. Why should we not analyze the FACT that many people died unnecessarily. Why should this forum be intimidated in their own following of the crisis?

Too many facets are lining up. AND YOU are asking us to look away and are making fun of us.

[mccoyn]

82. So, anyone can say anything except...

Anyone can share anything except those whose gut tells them that this theory is a nutjob?

Yep, they are the only ones trying to silence their opposition here. :sarcasm:

For the record, I AM asking us to look at what everyone has to say whether we agree with them or not.

[sando]

76. They have been at it since the political assisinations of

JFK, RFK, and MLK. There is absolutely nothing new about government conspiracies. The reason why they aren't new is they work. People want to believe the best about their fellow man and so they even when presented with evidence to the contrary deny that their own government would be involved in not only murder but mass murder. Just as they did in Germany during the Hitler years.

[peacetalksforall]

80. Yes, ever since the bullet that liked right angles. It's been all down

hill fast since them. And we should duct tape our mouths and not think.

But, by now, for this thread, the disspellers have moved on to another thread or another forum.

[sando]

84. If interested

High Treason by Robert J. Groden and Harrison Edward Livingston is one helluva book on the JFK assassination. Hopefully there will be some books come out in the next 30 years on what really happened at Ground Zero on 9/11 and at the levee's in NOLA that caused the flooding in the poorest parts of the city leaving the tourist areas and wealthier parts of the city in tact.

[Eloriel]

142. delete

[Taxloss]

105. Wrong.

:hi:

[sando]

131. As usual

All hat no cattle. No analysis, no nothing except denial and that ain't no river in Egypt.

[Taxloss]

102. Wow, can't stand contradiction, eh?

I don't think you're stupid. I think you know exactly what you're doing. And it's hilarious that you should compare "disagreeing with you" to "suppressing the press".

[oblivious]

123. They have been noted. Same strategy every time.

The only acceptable line for them is the official line from the authorities. Considering other possibilities "only makes us look like idiots".

[Trevelyan]

75. Very Painful Questions About New Orleans 9-8-5

There's something very wrong with the chronology of the levee breaks in New Orleans. Do you find it highly suspicious that the levees in New Orleans broke at 4:00 AM on August 30th?

The main storm surge from Hurricane Katrina would have been washed into Lake Pontchartrain at about 7:00 AM on August 29th when the counterclockwise motion of Katrina was pushing water from the Gulf of Mexico into the lake. Why is there a 21 hour discrepancy between the storm surge and the collapse of the levees?

During the initial news coverage, some media outlets tried to explain away the time discrepancy as a "secondary storm surge" off of Lake Pontchartrain. Hurricanes DO NOT, never have and never will create "secondary storm surges". There's only one storm surge, the main surge while a hurricane makes landfall.

A secondary storm surge is about as believable as a magic bullet. But of course anybody who logically investigates the facts of this catastrophe will be accused of spending way too much time on the grassy knoll. Now lets move on to the next two questions.....

http://www.ocnus.net/artman/publish/printer_20044.shtml

http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/prj/ihnc/TEXTinteractive.asp

"West Bank Levee & Floodwall, Phase 1

According the New Orleans newspapers, several articles were published condemning the Bush Administrations slashing of funds for the maintenance of the levees in New Orleans;
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display
.jsp?vnu_content_id=\1001051313

On the September 1st, 2005 edition of Good Morning America, President Bush claimed that "no one anticipated" that the levees would break in New Orleans; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4204754.stm

even though Homeland Security had drilled for such a scenario in 2004 which was titled "Hurricane Pam"; http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=13051

[DoYouEverWonder]

111. Hurricanes dump lots of water

So along with the storm surge which did cause some problems, the lake got too full from all the rain that came down for most of the day. Some of the levees started to top. Once you get enough water on both sides of a levee you have a greater risk of failure.

Mayor Nagin reported the problems throughout the storm. He knew there was a problem developing on the 17th Street Levee and he called HS/FEMA and the GOV for help. HS/FEMA were to send helicopters, that of course never came in time. When FEMA finally told Nagin that the copters had been diverted, at that point he knew the 17th St. Levee was going to fail. I bet when that water busted through it made a hell of a sound. It would have sounded like a bomb went off.

[Zynx]

85. It's actually fairly easy to understand how this happened.

The floodwall is rigid concrete, built on an earthen embankment that is vulnerable to eroision.

Once the earthen embankment erodes, the support of the concrete wall is drastically compromised. It cracks, and water pressure shatters it before scouring the earthen base away in record time once its moving.

[peacetalksforall]

95. And if an investigation is launched by the right wing - I'm sure Bechtel

or a similar corporation will be chosen and we will be told that it was all nature and the wash of truth may be more washed than the original flood.

[jahyarain]

103. yeah

that's exactly what i was told yesterday by the people investigating it

[Zynx]

113. And? What they said makes perfect sense.

There's no solid ground in New Orleans because it's all a bunch of marshy fill. Anything concrete is going to inherently be built on very weak ground. There is NO slab of rock or anything like that in New Orleans, and even if you lay one, it will just sink.

When that weak ground turns into mush from hurricane flooding, a rigid structure on it is going to dip and sag and, in the case of a a wall, have its structural integrity compromised greatly. Walls are not meant to be at any position other than vertical.

You don't want even SLIGHT imperfections in something meant to hold back a lot of water.

[Sgent]

87. A few thoughts...

The 9th ward break occured in the same place that the break in 1927 occured. However, at this time it would not have done anything to aleivate flooding. In 1927, the levee was broken to allow water to flow from the flooding Mississippi River into Lake P. The same thing would not work in reverse to any significant extent.

The 17th St Canal break was the one that actually had potential to flood the wealthier areas -- and in fact did flood many areas of the CBD, Lakeview, etc. Breaking this endangered the wealthier areas, not protected them.

[Marie26]

92. Post moved

[corker]

97. could be MIFLOP

made flood happen on purpose

[DoYouEverWonder]

112. When HS/FEMA diverted the helicopters

that Nagin requested, they certainly contributed to the failure.

[Zynx]

116. That helicopter operation was GROSSLY impractical.

A couple feet of moving water will pick up and float an SUV away like it's a boat.

Dropping a few sandbags of similar weight into a much beefier flood would be utterly pointless.

[DoYouEverWonder]

117. Nagin asked for the sandbagging

Hours before the levee breached.

That is what people do anytime a levee is starting to go bad. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But that is never a reason not to at least try, especially when HS/FEMA claims they couldn't do anything unless local and state officials asked for it. If that is the case, then when state and local officials ask for something, even if it seems ridiculous, HS/FEMA should have complied without too many questions.

[Blackwater]

101. That’s what Louis Adolph Farrakhan says…

[sattahipdeep]

109. This is Allbaugh and Bremers job. (New Oraq)

Then there was the Allbaugh Company through which he represents
Halliburton's KBR as well as military-industrial powerhouse Northrop
Grumman. Finally, there was New Bridge Strategies, LLC, where he
serves as chairman and director. New Bridge Strategies bills itself as
"a unique company that was created specifically with the aim of
assisting clients to evaluate and take advantage of business
opportunities in the Middle East following the conclusion of the US-led
war in Iraq".

Not surprisingly, the firm's vice chairman and director, Ed Rogers
(who, during the "2004 campaign cycle ... made over 150 live TV news
appearances defending and promoting the Bush administration"),
also serves as vice chairman of the consulting firm Barbour, Griffith &
Rogers, Inc (which he founded with Haley Barbour, now the governor
of storm-battered Mississippi); New Bridge's director, Lanny Griffith,
who serves as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Barbour, Griffith &
Rogers, "was national chairman for the Bush/Cheney entertainment
task force and coordinated entertainment for the 2001 Bush
Inaugural".

He was, typically enough, one of the 2004 Bush campaign's
"Rangers" - an elite group of fundraisers, each of whom was
responsible for gathering up more than $200,000 for the president;
while New Bridge Strategies' advisory board member Jamal Daniel is
"a principal with Crest Investment Company" - a firm co-chaired by the
president's younger brother Neil.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GI15Ak01.html

[buzzsaw_23]

121. If you haven't read the links

that are listed throughout this absolutely powerful article I suggest you go to Tomdispatch and do so. Through this one article you can see how the webs of power work in general and are working in Iraq and NOLA specifically.

Joe Allbaugh is Big Shit(head) when it comes to doin' the deals Tejas style.

I plan to post more on this another night this weekend as I have been looking into the various connections with the reconstruction projects in Iraq and NOLA and who the players are. Heavy hitters all around. We are getting into several hundred billion $'s.

Peace

[Carolab]

127. New Bridge Strategies is NEIL BUSH.

On edit: Check the article linked about out--ties New Orleans and Iraq together, along with New Bridge Strategies:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GI15Ak01.html

And see this for Neil Bush's connections:

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=9375

Middle East: Bush's Brother Helped New Bridge Strategies Businessmen

Two businessmen instrumental in setting up New Bridge Strategies, a well-connected Washington firm designed to help clients win contracts in Iraq, have previously used an association with the younger brother of President George W. Bush to seek business in the Middle East, an FT investigation has found.

John Howland, the company president, and Jamal Daniel, a principal, have maintained an important business relationship with Neil Bush stretching back several years. In Mr Daniel's case, the relationship spans more than a decade, with his French office arranging a trip for Mr Bush's family to Disneyland Paris in 1992, while his father, George H.W.Bush, was president.

On several occasions, the two have attempted to exploit their association with the president's brother to help win business and investors.

Three people contacted by the FT have seen letters written by Neil Bush recommending business ventures promoted by Mr Howland, Mr Daniel and his family in the Middle East. Mr Daniel has also had his photograph taken with the elder Mr Bush. Such letters and photographs can be valuable props when doing business in the Middle East.

{snip)

New Bridge was established in May and came to public attention because of the Republican heavyweights on its board - most linked to one or other Bush administration or the to family itself. Those include Joe Allbaugh, George W. Bush's presidential campaign manager, and Ed Rogers and Lanny Griffith, former George H.W. Bush aids.

(more at link)

[Pepperbelly]

115. Scouring of the earthen base of the NO side probably caused ...

the concrete walls to tumble toward NO. It seems pretty clear to me and when the water gets pumped out, the evidence will be clear if that is the case.

[Vinnie From Indy]

122. It was done by alien cows attempting to draw crop circles

Those dang alien cows are just plain stupid. Everybody knows you shouldn't draw crop circles on a levee during a cat5 'cane.

[Psephos]

136. LOL

[buzzsaw_23]

124. I'm wondering about the events at Danziger Bridge

First reported as such:

Gunmen Attack Contractors on La. Bridge

Sunday, September 4, 2005
 
(09-04) 16:35 PDT New Orleans (AP) --

Police shot and killed at least five people Sunday after gunmen opened fire on a group of contractors traveling across a bridge on their way to make repairs, authorities said.

Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said police shot at eight people carrying guns, killing five or six.

Fourteen contractors were traveling across the Danziger Bridge under police escort when they came under fire, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers.

They were on their way to launch barges into Lake Pontchartrain to help plug the breech in the 17th Street Canal, Hall said.

None of the contractors was injured, Mike Rogers, a disaster relief coordinator with the Army Corps of Engineers, told reporters in Baton Rouge.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/09/04/national/a160829D41.DTL&feed=rss.news


And then transformed into this:
Police Kill Five Contractors on La. Bridge

Sunday September 4, 2005 11:16 PM

AP Photo VTAP102

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Police shot eight people carrying guns on a New Orleans bridge Sunday, killing five or six, a deputy chief said. A spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers said the victims were contractors on their way to repair a canal.

The contractors were walking across a bridge on their way to launch barges into Lake Pontchartrain to fix the 17th Street Canal, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Corps.

Earlier Sunday, New Orleans Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said police shot at eight people, killing five or six.

The shootings took place on the Danziger Bridge, which spans a canal connecting Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5256023,00.html

Now fast forward to this curious note that may have been mistakenly posted:
September 15, 2005
Stations: The latest New Orleans-datelined urgent series Hurricane Katrina-Shootings has been KILLED. The Army Corps of Engineers says the contractors were shot at, then police fatally shot the gunmen who'd fired on the contractors. The contractors were NOT killed.
A kill is mandatory. Make certain the story is not broadcast.

A sub will be filed shortly.

AP Broadcast News Center - Washington

http://www.wstm.com/Global/story.asp?S=3806071


And More:
Gunfights worsen New Orleans chaos

The World Today - Monday, 5 September , 2005  12:10:00

Reporter: Edmond Roy
ELEANOR HALL: We go first to the Gulf region of the United State where, one week after Hurricane Katrina struck, the chaos and violence is continuing to take lives.

While President George W. Bush has ordered another 7,000 National Guards into the region, New Orleans police have shot and killed at least four gunmen who'd opened fire on a group of contractors trying to make repairs to a breached canal.

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2005/s1453399.htm

Strange Indeed?!
Sunday, September 04, 2005

Strange Events at the Danziger Bridge

An hour later an updated dispatch was released, this time saying that the group of contractors was being escorted by police when it came under fire. Police then opened fire on the unidentified gunmen, killing six of them. Again, no information clarifying the event was provided. For certain, the Danzinger Bridge is nowhere near the breaches nor should the industrial area be a magnet for looters looking for television sets.

Two hours after that, a dispatch hit the wires saying that a Coast Guard rescue helicopter had been downed--near the Danziger Bridge, injuring the pilot and his passenger. Then along came an update, saying the helicopter was civilian, with no connection to the rescue effort. There are now suggestions that the helicopter was shot down.


Mid-afternoon today, around 3:30 pm EDST, a dramatic AP dispatch reported that 6 contractors to the Army Corps of Engineers, said to have been armed, were shot dead by police on the Danziger Bridge in New Orleans. This bridge spans the Industrial Canal and provides a crossing for the Chef Menteur Highway.

The AP story cited three souces in its original dispatch: Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley, Disaster Relief Coordinator Mike Rogers with the Army Corps of Engineers and John Hall, a spokesman for the Corps. The dispatch relayed that a group of 14 US Army Corps of Engineers contractors were crossing the bridge on foot to make repairs on the levee breaches at 17th Steet and on London Avenue when they were fired upon. No other details were provided but the shootings occured after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said troops had secured the city and that full relief operations were underway.

http://nuralcubicle.blogspot.com/2005/09/strange-events-at-danziger-bridge.html


And There certainly should be some suspicions for a few reasons:

Banks and mortgage companies are now foreclosing on homes and properties because poor Black in diaspora are unable to make mortgage payments. Also, Black families in New Orleans who owned their homes outright could not afford damage insurance and do not have the money to rebuild. Most likely, their properties would be taken away for failure to pay property taxes. Developers, and contractors stand to make a lot of money in the new New Orleans. Vultures are already hovering over the devastated city. Dick Cheney was recently in town to survey the possibilities for Halliburton and deals are being made with a Las Vegas group to build multi-million casinos in the Big Easy.

Many of the Black families in diaspora already suspect the worse. Resident Andrea Garland, now re-located to Texas, said, " I also heard that part of the reason our house flooded is that they dynamited part of the levee system after the first section broke - they did this to prevent Uptown (the rich White part of town) from being flooded. Apparently they used too much dynamite, thus flooding part of the Bywater. So now I know who is responsible for flooding my house - not Katrina, but our government." There are also claims by intelligence expert Tom Heneghen that 25 earwitnesses heard explosions immediately before the levees broke. The Washington Post, in addition, interviewed John Mullen III, an African American retired schoolteacher now staying at the Houston Superdome. John Mullen III lived in the Lower Ninth Ward, an all Black neighborhood. John Mullen told the Washington Post that he believes that the levee breaks had somehow been engineered to keep the wealthy French Quarter and Garden District dry at the expense of poor Black neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth Ward -- a suspicion the Washington Post has heard from many other Black survivors.

http://www.aztlan.net/new_orleans_levy_sabotage.htm

Now I'm left wondering where are the follow up stories.

[Kailassa]

125. Dangerous job,

... trying to mend a levee while the vultures still want the place uninhabitable.

Thanks, Buzzsaw, for a great post, you've done a great job putting those stories together. I'd heard 3 versions, the least believable coming later and saying that it was looters on the bridge who were shot. I'd been trying to find them again. Now I'm keeping it all copied.

It certainly sounds as tho local government called in engineers to mend the levee, and already had reason to believe someone had declared war on such repairs being made. So they sent an armed police escort who were needed to protect them from the mercs the vultures had put there to keep NO under water.

[buzzsaw_23]

126. What to make of this?

Found from a TV station in Central New York that was going to do a report on this and then killed the story.
Stations: "The latest New Orleans-datelined urgent series Hurricane Katrina-Shootings has been KILLED. The Army Corps of Engineers says the contractors were shot at, then police fatally shot the gunmen who'd fired on the contractors. The contractors were NOT killed.
A kill is mandatory. Make certain the story is not broadcast."

I've yet to hear a follow up on who died.

The thought that the levee was purposefully breached in that area to protect other areas from flooding stays with me.

[Kailassa]

129. black ops

Standard rule with any black op. No-one was there, so no-one could have died. Those local police deserve all our congratulations for keeping the contractors safe.

[Taxloss]

132. No contractors were killed.

Early reports were confused and garbled.

I take your blog and secessionist sites and raise you the BBC.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4214232.stm

[buzzsaw_23]

140. BBC

Corporate controlled Media.

Propagandistic state manufactured news. Can be relied upon to limit the range of discussion and adhere to the party line. Little or no worthy investigative journalism.
Careerists.

[Taxloss]

143. If you believe that

you'll believe anything. The BBC is the most reputable news source on the planet. It is not corporate-controlled. It is not party-aligned. It indulges it high-quality investigative journalism continually.

And who do you have in your corner? Hal Turner and Rense?

[buzzsaw_23]

147. Propaganda And The BBC

"there is a very limited number of outlets that I would broadly describe as "free". By free I don't mean that the product is given away. I mean that it is free from the direct influence of private proprietors...
The most famous is the BBC. It is not free of all influence, by any means. It is run by the state and financed by a tax on the ownership of televisions, called the licence fee. From time to time it is spectacularly and disastrously disciplined by the government, generally acting in concert with the right-wing press. It operates in a hostile environment, and the perspectives of its enemies - the enemies of free speech - often inform its coverage of the world's affairs. But there is no proprietor to tell it "you cannot do such and such because that offends the interests of my shareholders"."

<snip>

A study of the four main British broadcasters - BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky- carried out by the Cardiff School of Journalism found that the BBC followed a more pro-government line than its commercial rivals. It revealed that the BBC was twice as likely to use government sources as ITV and Channel 4, and that the BBC also used more military sources than the other channels. The BBC was less likely to use either official Iraqi sources or independent sources such as aid agencies that were often highly critical of the war. The BBC also appeared to significantly downplay Iraqi casualties: Only 22% of BBC stories concerning the Iraqi population were with regard to Iraqi casualties, compared with figures of 44% and 30% for Channel Four and Sky. The BBC was more likely to unquestioningly relay false stories such as the non-existent scud missiles supposedly fired into Kuwait in the early stages of the war as well as the mythical Basra "uprising". The study also made reference to the Prime Minister's claim that captured British soldiers had been executed by the Iraqi authorities, a claim Downing Street retracted the next day. The BBC relayed that claim but, unlike other broadcasters, not the retraction.

<snip>

For the most part, the members of the board are drawn from a narrow elite sector of society with intimate links to government and big business, unsurprisingly given that the appointments are at the government's discretion. The remaining members of the board are tokenistic figures drawn from the arts world and charitable organisations. Given the backgrounds and interests of the board members it is deeply unrealistic to believe that they will encourage the BBC to in any way seriously challenge powerful interests.

<snip>

"If the BBC was to be encouraged to be friendly towards the Government's project, you needed to be sure of the loyalty of those who ran it… Qualified but unsympathetic candidates were not appointed, while ill qualified ones were… Hugo Young in his biography of Mrs Thatcher quotes a colleague: 'Margaret usually asked "Is he one of us? Before approving an appointment."

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=21&ItemID=7189

I've never heard of Hal Turner and don't visit the Rense sight. The sources I have cited are abc news a television station in Central NY and the Guardian as well as others.

Filtered news is all around. Anything less and the people might see the lies which live behind the curtain. The Soviet apparatchiks (sp?) marveled at the US propaganda system.

Recommended read "Propaganda" by Australian sociologist Alex Carey as well as Chomsky's classic "Manufacturing Consent". Escaping the Matrix. Troubling but liberating.

[oblivious]

152. Thank you for posting this. The BBC are warmongers. Among the worst.

From John Pilger in New Statesman re Iraq war coverage:

Let's look at what research shows about the BBC's reporting of Iraq. Media Tenor, the non-partisan, Bonn-based media research organisation, has examined the Iraq war reporting of some of the world's leading broadcasters, including the US networks and the BBC. It concentrated on the coverage of opposition to the war.

The second-worst case of denying access to anti-war voices was ABC in the United States, which allowed them a mere 7 per cent of its overall coverage. The worst case was the BBC, which gave just 2 per cent of its coverage to opposition views - views that represented those of the majority of the British people. A separate study by Cardiff University came to the same conclusion. The BBC, it said, had "displayed the most pro-war agenda of any broadcaster".

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=21&ItemID=4611

[Double T]

130. Concrete Flood Walls Appear To Be Too Thin For Their Height

[rfkrfk]

133. why are the canals, needed ?

why are the, 17th St canal, and the London Ave canal,
even needed?

These people never heard of aquaducts or sewer pipes
for drainage.

[CottonBear]

134. I think the canals are for barge traffic from the lake to industrial areas

I'm not sure this is the case but this would make sense.

[markus]

156. Not the London and 17th St. Canals

These are drainage canals. They link pumping stations (which were on the edge of town when they were built) to the lake. Development has grown up around their northern ends in the post-war (ww2) era.

There was a construction barged moored in the 17th St. Canal. There is now a barge in West Lakeview, the immeidately adjacent flooded neighborhood.

It is almost certainly the same barge and very possible did the damage.

The Industrial Canal Inner Basin, where the floodwall to the Ninth Ward, is in fact a navigation canal. It is part of the Intracoastal Waterway and links the Mississippi, Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet. It is almost certain that barges and towboats were moored there and could have caused that failure.

The London Avenue Canal, however, does not fit the "barge did it" profile, and may indicate that the drainage canal floodwall enhancments failed structurally when put to the test.

wetbankguide.blogspot.com

[CottonBear]

160. Thank you for the information, markus. I will bookmark the website. n/t

[MyUncle]

141. Water goes to the lowest point.

Even if the dikes were blown up right next to the high/rich parts of New Orleans, the water eventually would have settled in the low parts of town. The high/rich parts were safe and stayed safe.

The reason the poor, mostly black people lived in the houses that wound up under water is because they were cheap to buy and rent. The reason they were cheap to buy and rent is because they are below sea level.

Blowing up the dikes did not save the white folk, they were already safe.

Focus on something productive.

[Podface]

144. This kind of conspiracy makes us

all look like raving morons.

If you have ever lived near the ocean and experience a hurricane first hand, you know what the awesome power of water can to to land, structures, and anything in its way.

What's next? FEMA poisoned the water?

[Codeine]

151. Don't be such a DISSPELLER!

It's people like you who call an idea a paranoid conspiracy theory for no other reason than it's paranoid and relies on a vast evil conspiracy that make us all look bad. The simplest answer is never right, and the experts all work for the corporate media. If some dude heard a boom, the only possible answer is explosives, and if you say otherwise you must be a Freeper.

No journalist would ever want to be the one to prove the government did something wrong! Where's the career in that? They'd just end up being some nobody like those Post guys, Woodward and Bernstein. Whoever heard of them?
.

.

.

.

.

.

:evilgrin:

[Podface]

158. Freeper? Far From It.

"if some dude heard a boom, the only possible answer is explosives, and if you say otherwise you must be a Freeper."


"They'd just end up being some nobody like those Post guys, Woodward and Bernstein. Whoever heard of them?"

->>>>>>>> I seriously hope you are baiting me into an arguement to "call me out". If I was a repuke, I would most likely NOT get that beautiful sarcasm.

If not, well, um, good luck with all of that.

[Kailassa]

153. yeah, stomp the tin-hats, comrades

I do envy the tin-hat stompers sometimes. Running around in groups of 2 and 3 to stomp on anyone who dares peep behind the wizard's curtain must be so much simpler than mulling over reality to find the truth

If we don't want them to come back, all we have to do is live by their rules:
1. Don't say anything a freeper would not like to believe, or freepers might laugh at us.
2. Any interpretation of reality not currently agreed to by freeper media is Conspiracy Theory.
3. All Conspiracy Theory is wrong.

Now if I was leading a party who's aims involved making a rich minority even richer at the expense of the poor, I'd be running a propagander department to keep the truth covered. And one section of that department would be invloved in rubbishing anyone who spoke the truth, whether they were journalists, teachers, letter righters or forum contributers.

I wonder, would I have to pay them or would their fanatacism induce them to work for free?

[Codeine]

154. Holy shit, we're the "propagander department" now

No one is trying to 'stomp the tinhats', we're saying that evidence is important when making claims like this, that having facts to back up a statement tends to add weight to your view, and that we can't wave away a total lack of verification with claims like 'the freeper media won't cover it'.

I really don't care what the Freepers think of us - hillbillies and closet supremacists aren't high on my list of shit to worry about. I *am* concerned about the growing lack of critical thinking skills evinced by the Left as well as the tendency to seek out the most convoluted and conspiritorial explanations for every event that transpires.

Nature is a powerful force; it destroys trees, houses, vehicles, roadways, bridges, and even reshapes entire coastlines in the space of a few hours. Taking out a floodwall or levee, even a well-built one, is well within the norm for a powerful storm, especially a big mother like Katrina.

Are you at all familiar with the old axiom "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"? And would you not agree that even after a massive hurricane and enormous storm surge that a secret government explosives plot must be envisioned in order to explain the failure of a floodwall is probably a textbook definition of an "extraordinary claim?"

[oblivious]

155. You made your point in post 12.

One can only conclude by your persistant sarcasm in 13, 119, 14, 26, 27, and 151 that your intention is to derail the thread.

If you have evidence to present or an argument to make, then do so. But your sarcasm and constant baiting is contributing nothing to the thread. If you don't like what people are discussing here there is a simple solution. Ignore us.

[Codeine]

162. Evidence to present?!

I'm not the one making wild accusations of secret government explosives plots, am I? And I'm not of the opinion that attempting to get people who are rallying behind a paranoid conspiracy theory sans evidence to stop and apply a little critical thinking qualifies as 'persistant sarcasm' *or* an attempt to derail a thread.

This thread pretty much derails itself any way.

And no, I will not ignore you when you insist on making crazed claims without a shred of evidence to back them up. The Left deserves better.

[Podface]

159. YES!

Thank you Codeine.

"And would you not agree that even after a massive hurricane and enormous storm surge that a secret government explosives plot must be envisioned in order to explain the failure of a floodwall is probably a textbook definition of an "extraordinary claim?"

Give me the extraordinary evidence, not some speculation based on a few people saying they heard a boom.

The other day during the hurricane here (not the big one), I heard a big boom myself. Was it a gunshot? Was it an explosion? Was it was a transformer exploding? Nope... it was a tree coming down. Sounded exactly like any of the first three, but it appears that is was wood breaking from massive stress.

Upon further thought, I have now determined that the boom I heard was not in-fact the tree itself breaking, but an explosive charge planted by a disgruntled neighbor to bring down the tree during a hurricane so he could have a better view.



BWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

The above story is true, but maybe not the sarcasm.

[Moderator]

163. Lock

This thread is no longer latest news and has turned into a back and forth of flames and bait.