And If You Believe That …
I have some New Orleanian marshland to sell you.
During the hour wait at the Touro phlebotomist’s yesterday, I had the opportunity to read the day’s USA Today cover to cover twice over. This particular tidbit I perused three times:
Army Corps defends levee reconstruction: The Army Corps of Engineers defended the quality of materials being used to rebuild the levees around New Orleans. Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, head of the Army Corps, said he told President Bush that 100 miles of the 169 miles of levees damaged by Hurricane Katrina have been restored.
Strock took issue with findings from two teams of independent experts who said the corps was taking shortcuts and using substandard materials, leaving large sections of the system substantially weaker than before the Aug. 29 storm.
This important revelation was on page 7A of a major American paper.
As for the Army Corps of Engineers, their track record in no way inspires confidence despite their outstanding job with the river levees. As I settle back into my life here, the 2006 hurricane season approaches. Cross those fingers tightly.
Related posts:
I’ve had my doubts about the levees and the ACE for a while now - I’m sure I’m not alone in this. They’ve been entirely too confidant, from the very beginning that they would be able to repair the levees by the start of Hurricane season. A little doubt at the beginning would have made their confidence more beleivable now. I get a sense the city is being placated by the the ACE and the FEDS in general. I no long feel that anyone in the FED really cares, if they ever did.
And one thing that gets me about the whole “as good as they were” thing…since in my mind as good as they were isn’t very good at all. The proof being all that water around the city last September. I mean, if I hired someone to paint my car and they did a shitty job and all the paint fell off, I think I’d go to someone else the next time. But that’s just me. I don’t think if I lived in Jeff Parish or the West Bank I’d be feeling too confident either. It isn’t like their levees are better designed, in general. They are, for the most part, the same flawed logic by the same people who built the ones that failed.
I’m also tired of people talking about how big the storm was - I rode it out. It wasn’t much different than any other. Last I heard it was a Cat 3 when it hit the city. This should no longer be termed a natural disaster - it should be spoken of as an engineering disaster. But that would start a bunch of lawsuits and give New Orleans someone to blame. The rest of the country seems more and more sure that the people of New Orleans are to blame for living in a place beleow sea level so I guess we might as well get used to it. I find it especially amusing when someone from California tells me that - which happened this week - again.
This person wouldn’t happen to be a Los Angelian, would he or she? But, that’s ok, all of their faults are normal [bad geology humor - ouch!].
I too find myself a little short on confidence in the ACE at the moment and am more than a bit mystified by the national preoccupation with how badly the evacuation went and how badly the state, local & federal post-hurricane response was. No one outside of here seems to understand that the levees should not have failed, and even here our indignation seems anemic. Outside of a few protests at the ACE outpost along River Road, all of the outrage seems to be directed elsewhere. ACE seems to have largely escaped scorn & indignation. Is everyone just too busy fixing their houses or being displaced to demand a greater accountability? Has anyone from ACE stood up and said, “yeah, we f-ed up big time. Sorry.” Maybe they did, and I missed it.
And so the levee breaches themselves will be fixed by June. But how confident are we in the miles and miles of levees that may be as weak and vulnerable as those spots that failed? To whom is the ACE really accountable? I think I’m putting pontoons on my house for the next hurricane season.
People seem to be forgetting a few other facts regarding the “state of the bowl”. While the levees are indeed the reason we marinated in sewage-cum-salt water for four weeks last August, we have an even more pressing need for the drainage pumps in the event of a much smaller, slower moving hurricane, or even a heavy line of thunderstorms. At present, the pumps at the end of the London Ave Canal and the two that feed into the 17th St canal would be shut off in the event of a hurricane in the Gulf. The reason for this would be the Corps has plans to drive sheet pilings to stop storm surge from coming back in the drainage canals (at the Bucktown brigde for the 17th and at the Lakeshore Dr. bridge for the London Ave canal). Result: 1) the I-10 railroad underpass will flood again, as sure as Kimberly Butler needs a shrink (see here for why) 2)the parts of Old Metairie/Jefferson and Mid-City/Carrollton drained by pump #6 will flood in a good, heavy rain 3) so will parts of the 5th and 7th Wards drained by the London Ave pumping station.
As far as the genuses (spelling intentional) from ACE or the Levee Boards truely having “restored” the levees, I doubt that as well. But what no one seems to be looking at or caring about is our flood protection as a whole…………
All Bush actually said was to upgrade he didn’t say
category 5 level or category 3.
Just another way of beating around the bush.
Laurie