Army Engineers: Levee Warnings Unreported

[jasmeel]

NEW ORLEANS - Engineers responsible for monitoring the levees that failed following Hurricane Katrina were never told that canal water had been pooling in yards beside a flood wall months before the storm, an Army Corps of Engineers manager said Friday.

Residents living along the 17th Street Canal told The Times-Picayune newspaper in an article published Friday that they had complained to the city Sewerage and Water Board nearly a year ago about water pooling in their yards.

City workers came out and concluded environmental testing was needed to determine if water was seeping through the levee, said Beth LeBlanc, whose home is about 100 yards from where the levee later failed.

But no one, including the Sewerage and Water Board, informed the Corps of Engineers or the Orleans Levee District, said Jerry Colletti, the Corps' operations manager for completed works in the New Orleans District.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051119/ap_on_re_us/new_orleans_levees

[rfkrfk]

1. this levee is the jurisdiction of the Orleans Levee Board...

a state agency, I assume the CoE had
some type of consulting role.

Real CoE levees are upriver.

[madeline_con]

2. "... Sewerage and Water Board ..."

So, anybody know what's up with not using the word "sewage"?

[htuttle]

5. It's meaning is a shade different

"Sewerage" refers to a system of sewers, both storm sewers and waste sewers.

"Sewage" is the gunk that travels inside the 'sewerage', particularly the waste sewers.

How do I know this? Hell, I don't know. :shrug:

[madeline_con]

8. Thanks for the info. Ya learn something every day... :) n/t

[Sgent]

3. Unfortunately

the levee board is one of those hugely corrupt parts of the state government. They had an incompetent as the Exec. Director for the last 25 years, who was put under investigation by the DA about 18 mos ago.

So if he even cared, I doubt he did anything.

[shanti]

4. more passing the buck

will it never end??

[MADem]

6. Probably not--but damn, they knew they had problems, and did not fix them

[shance]

7. Its important to reiterate some NO residents believe levees were blasted.

In the interest of finding the truth and not allowing it to be "rewritten" as this Administration is very prone to engage in, I think we must confront all possibilities and capabilities of what happened to the levees, so perhaps at some point, we might actually see some accountability.

[Psephos]

9. This C.T. deserves to be laid down in a New Orleans boneyard

Dynamiting the levees? During the hurricane, no less?

Please. Might as well go whole-hog here and claim Katrina was manufactured in a secret Bushco weather doomsday machine.

No offense intended, but there's plenty of real stuff to complain about; this just sucks the credibility out of the legitimate issues.

Peace.

[goclark]

10. I believe I read that there would be an investigation

by the government.

Hopefully it will comfort the many people there who have lost eveything.

An investigation would also determine the EXACT cause and hopefully,the property that my family owns there will be worth something someday.

Thank you for being so considerate of the feelings of my people.