Levee Repairs in New Orleans Expected to Finish Soon

[cal04]

Military helicopters on Thursday dropped sandbags into the levee breach that sent floodwaters from Lake Pontchartrain pouring into New Orleans, the state's top transportation official said. The sandbags are part of a temporary plan aimed at plugging the hole in the levee. The next step: Drop about 250 concrete road barriers into the area and seal the spot where swirling waters toppled the floodwall, said Johnny Bradberry, head of the state Department of Transportation and Development.

The lake's levels have dropped about 2 1/2 feet over the past two days, about equal to the water level in flooded areas on the other side of the levee, Bradberry said. Contractors also had finished building a road that will make it easier to get heavy equipment to the levee. In a separate project on the canal, contractors used sheet pile walls to try to close the front of the canal, aiming to cut off its connection to the lake.

"In the next day, day and a half, it will be completely isolated from the lake," Bradberry said. The pilings need to go down more than 30 feet to fully block the flow of water, according to Michael B. Rogers, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Normally, the canal's function is to allow rainwater to be pumped out of the bowl-shaped city and into the lake. Blocking the canal and using the sandbags and concrete to fill breaches is a temporary fix; engineers will eventually have to rebuild at least parts of the canal.

Engineers have not been able to get to another levee break at the Industrial Canal, on the other side of New Orleans, though water is not flowing into the city from that hole. Walter Baumy, chief of the Corps' engineering division for the New Orleans district, said they were also trying to fix the city's pumping stations.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB9JR2V3DE.html

[JohnLocke]

1. About time.

If Bush and the Republicans didn't cut all that money to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, this would have been repaired two days ago.

[Chicago Democrat]

2. Way too late!

no offense brother


love to you

[darkism]

5. If they hadn't cut the money to the USACE...

The levees would've HELD and NOLA would be dry right now.

[mike_c]

18. that's REALLY doubtful....

We've known for decades that those levees could not take a cat 5 or big cat 4 storm full on-- the money cut from the ACE budget in 2004 would not have made much difference, nor was there enough time to fortify those levees even if all the money in the world had been available. People just don't seem to get this-- NO's problems go back DECADES and have been ignored or given insufficient resources for decades. People and politicians have GOT to start doing long range thinking.

Next up: global climate change and ocean decline. Twenty or thirty years from now-- maybe sooner-- many coastal regions will become uninhabitable, and people will blame that on the inaction of their future leaders.

[mccoyn]

21. I'm convinced democracy is incapable of long range thought.

Campaigns are all about gimme gimme.

[KAZ]

3. Seems like I'm seeing the "contractor" word a lot.

Hmm, where have I heard this before. I guess we should get used to it. Give me an "N", an "O", a "B", an "I", give me a "D". What does it spell?

[dethl]

4. Halliburton!! n/t

[KAZ]

6. Ding, ding!

Might be a different name though. They might want to avoid any association with the "H" word.

[KamaAina]

7. FINALLY

now they need to figure out a way to get the damned water out besides just letting the pumps run until March '06!

[Endangered Specie]

11. The pumps, when fully operating, can pump 1 inch an hour

so that means getting out an average of 8 feet of water would take about 3 months.

[On the Road]

12. 8 Feet = 96 Inches = 4 DAYS

(96 Hours @ 1 Inch per Hour)

I guess you were kidding -- just wanted to figure it out.

[DoYouEverWonder]

16. They are going to put holes in the levees

to let the water out. They can get the water out fairly quick if they do the engineering right.

[The_Casual_Observer]

8. Fucking bastards could have done this Monday.

[pimpbot]

9. No, probably not

Unless you are talking about shoring up the levees before they failed. As soon as they failed it was all over. There is no way to stop all that water.

The only thing I could think of was helocopters dropping large rocks into the breach. Of course it seems the ACOE didnt have any rocks nor any helocopters on monday.

[Endangered Specie]

10. Im a bit suprised the sand bags are working...

I also fear that other parts of the levee might breech or be compromised

[DoYouEverWonder]

17. First you build a mountain

Actually in this case a wall, and the water will go somewhere else. Water flow is not rocket science.

[greyl]

13. a day and a half seems like an unreasonably quick estimate. nt

[sandnsea]

14. Safe for contractors, engineers, and levee repairs

Not safe for evacuations and food drops. Hmmmm.

[auburngrad82]

15. About 3 years behind schedule, isn't it?

If Bush had funded the levy repairs that had been budgeted some of this might have been avoided. Instead the money went to fight a bogus war over bogus WMD. But I guess that's to be expected from a bogus government.

[Igel]

20. Army Corps is saying that these levees got the money they

were planning on spending on them.

Remember that the plan didn't call for them to raise the specs to withstand a category 5 storm.

And that the spending was on schedule for the first 6 years or so, and reduced for the next 3.

I'm hard put to be able to claim that the Army Corps of Engineers is lying, or even wrong.

[Javaman]

19. Barn door open, horse gone, repeat...