WP: Warning Sounded About Levees

[sabra]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/07/AR2006030701548.html

Warning Sounded About Levees
Federal Engineers Defend Materials, Reconstruction Efforts

An expert panel monitoring reconstruction of New Orleans's hurricane-protection system warned federal engineers last month about the presence of weak, sandy soils in a newly rebuilt levee, the panel's leader said yesterday, escalating a dispute over the soundness of the government's rebuilding effort.

Raymond Seed, an engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley, also disclosed new details about what he described as serious flaws in the Army Corps of Engineers building practices. Seed said the problems were observed in at least three locations along an 11-mile earthen levee near Lake Borgne, east of New Orleans, that was nearly washed away by Hurricane Katrina on Aug. 29.

"A growing chorus of experts are trying to tell you that there may be some significant concerns with regard to the materials" used in rebuilding the levees, Seed said in a letter to Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, the Corps' commander. "These same levees eroded catastrophically during Katrina, and were the principal source of the massive flooding" of neighborhoods east of downtown New Orleans.

Corps and White House officials disputed the findings by Seed's group and another expert panel monitoring the rebuilding. Strock specifically sought to rebut the groups' conclusions at a White House news conference Monday, saying Corps engineers were "giving tremendous scrutiny" to construction practices.

[fishnfla]

1. The levees have been screwed up for decades

they aint gonna fix them in months.

Next hurricane that hits the Gulf of Mexico will turn New Orleans into a ghost town.
Next hurricane that hits New Orleans will wipe it off the map