Lake Ponchartrain depth, to answer questions.

[expatriate]

I keep seeing the question asked as to why a ship or two aren't being taken to the breach in the Lake Ponchartrain levee and sunk. I can answer this question and perhaps that will stop the speculation.

Lake Ponchartrain's average depth is three meters. Twelve feet. You cannot get a ship up to the shore where the levee breaches (there are at least two) are. You could get a barge up there, but that's about it. At the shoreline, it's only a couple of feet deep, normally.

There are two levee systems that protect New Orleans - the Lake Ponchartrain levees, and the Mississippi River levees. The Lake levees are not particularly high in most places, and have been known to break down before. In 1996 there was serious flooding in Kenner, a suburb of New Orleans, when the lake levee breached.

Short of sandbagging, there is nothing that can be done to stop the lake pouring in once the lake levees are breached. If the Army Corps of Engineers is giving up, there is nothing that can be done.

[achtung_circus]

1. Arithmetic

"Lake Ponchartrain's average depth is three meters. Twelve feet."

Closer to 10 feet.

On edit: I saw a blurb about 3,000 lb sandbags planned to be dropped into the breach from helicopter.

[youngdem]

2. The Corps of engineers is sending the dredge Jadwin

Jadwin down there as a FEMA headquarters, for communication only. There are barges and tow boats loose everywhere. The Jadwin has left greenville MS and should be there tomorrow, hopefully.

[despairing optimist]

3. Then all the talk about letting people back to their homes on Monday is BS

The authorities are trying to let reality break in gradually, given the trauma those people have already experienced. There's no point to rebuild where it was foolish to build to begin with. I hope no one blames the French for this, but someone probably will.

[ClintonTyree]

4. Correct, if this was their "plan" to stop the flow.........

then there never was a real "plan". They've known since this morning that it's hopeless and so have I. Once I heard the levee had been breeched at the Lake I knew it was over for New Orleans. And all their talk about rebuilding the City is bullshit too. They are, like you said, giving out the truth in smaller doses to make it more palatable. Anyone who knows the construction and infrastructure of this City knows what I'm talking about.