Probe Launched of Levee Breaks in New Orleans

[Rose Siding]

The Army Corps of Engineers said Wednesday it was launching a formal investigation into the failure of storm walls and levees in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, which inundated 80% of the city and caused hundreds of deaths.
...
But Ivor van Heerden, deputy director at Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center, said wreckage from the storm walls should be removed from the canals to a site where a forensic engineering investigation could be conducted. He added that all of the diagrams and technical data involving the construction of the storm walls should be available to the investigation board.

"We suggested that just as in a criminal investigation, you gather all of the information and do a good analysis," Van Heerden said. "Instead, they are burying the wall segments that failed."

Van Heerden said a university engineering team had met with Army officials Tuesday night and agreed to begin conducting joint assessments of the failures at the site on Wednesday. But the planned trip was canceled for unknown reasons at the last minute, Van Heerden said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-levees29sep29,1,5412206.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

[electropop]

1. This probe wouldn't be a ... I don't know...

Whitewash now would it?

[PatriotMom]

2. HA HA HA HA HA ........

sorry for laughing it's not funny at all...bet you're right

:hide: :scared: :grr:

[slaveplanet]

3. i heard they were shipping

the wall segments to China.

SOP

[SpiralHawk]

4. I hope the Full Story comes out on the mysterious levee shootings

NOLA police kill attackers of Army contractors
by Donald Sensing

This was the original story from New Orleans:

NEW ORLEANS - 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.

No other details were immediately available.

http://www.donaldsensing.com/index.php/2005/09/04/nola-police-kill-army-contractors/

[necso]

5. Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center

has been serious (or so it seems to me) about determining the actual causes of levee failures. (There was a thread here some days ago that gave some of their observations of the original damage -- which did not exactly match what the administration lackeys were saying.) And this is the sort of thing that one expects from serious scientists (you try to learn from available real-world data -- and you try to figure out why failures occurred).

But the coverup is basically a done deal. In eight months (or so), we can expect some bullshit. (We can probably also expect some attempts to beat down dissenters.)

And we can also expect more substandard work to done under government contracts in the future. (What else can you expect when there are, apparently, little or no significant consequences for failing to perform, overcharging, etc. -- Iraq furnishing a prime example.)

Neocon business as usual. And it's been going on for a lot longer than 5 years -- it's just gone wild in that time.

[drb]

6. Does anybody else think this way....?

Remember eyewitness reports of explosions right before the flooding? Does anyone else recall something like that they blew that particualr stretch of levee on purpose to keep a nearby affluent neighborhood from being flooded?

I'd love to see a map of predominantly black neighborhoods in New Orleans overlayed on a map of flooded areas.... you could also do it by average household income versus flooded areas....

[Moderator]

7. kick

[Zynx]

8. NBC: N.O. Levee Reported Weak In 1990's (built on bad ground)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9532037/

>>>>
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.

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.



~~~

NBC News has obtained what may be a key clue, hidden in long forgotten legal documents. They reveal that when the floodwall on the 17th Street Canal was built a decade ago, there were major construction problems — problems brought to the attention of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

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. <<<<

[beyurslf]

9. Thank god. I knew it had ot be Clinton's fault and this proves it.

:)

[Up2Late]

10. I hope you are kidding, if not, here's why you shouldn't be so quick...

...to blame Clinton.

"...Pittman won the contract in 1993. There already was an earthen levee made of soil. Embedded in that was a thin metal wall called sheet piling. The contractor was hired to pour concrete on top of all that to form the flood wall...."

That means the plan was made while Bush41 was Prez.:evilgrin:

[beyurslf]

14. Of course I am kidding. The little smiley is the sarcasm.

Everything is Clinton's fault in the crazy warped freeper world. Hell, he probably made the hurricanes that strong and forced the hit where they did so that Bush would look bad and gas prices would jump. (By the way, Clinton caused 9-11 too.)

[The_Casual_Observer]

11. Yes, I can imagine that Clinton was briefed on this project

and had the final say and buy-off.:eyes:

[renate]

12. I wonder whether this information was in the request for more funds

You know, the request Bush dramatically underfunded because of the war and the tax cuts.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project) dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

(snip)

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans City Business.


(snip)

The panel authorized that money (for fixing the sinking levees), and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313

If it were known that the levees were crappy when the request was made, and he still gave them a few million rather than the tens of millions needed, THAT'S not Clinton's fault.

:nuke: :grr: :nuke: :grr: :grr: :nuke: :grr: :nuke: :grr: :nuke: :grr: :nuke: :grr:

[Solon]

13. Actually, I seem to recall...

When the levees broke around here in '93, even though 99% of them are earthen, that the primary culprit was erosion of the ground BENEATH the levees. This is also weakest spot for dams as well.