Levee Fixes Falling Short, Experts Warn

[cal04]

Corps Rejects Claim Of Substandard Soil
The Army Corps of Engineers seems likely to fulfill a promise by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans's toppled flood walls to their original, pre-Katrina height by June 1, but two teams of independent experts monitoring the $1.6 billion reconstruction project say large sections of the rebuilt levee system will be substantially weaker than before the hurricane hit.

These experts say the Corps, racing to rebuild 169 miles of levees destroyed or damaged by Katrina, is taking shortcuts to compress what is usually a years-long construction process into a few weeks. They say that weak, substandard materials are being used in some levee walls, citing lab tests as evidence. And they say the Corps is deferring repairs to flood walls that survived Katrina but suffered structural damage that could cause them to topple in a future storm.

The Corps strongly disputes the assertion -- by engineers from a National Science Foundation-funded panel and a Louisiana team appointed to monitor the rebuilding -- that substandard materials are being used in construction. Agency officials maintain that the new levees are rigorously inspected at each step. But they acknowledge that much more work will be needed after June 1, the beginning of hurricane season, and that the finished system still will not be strong enough to withstand a storm the magnitude of Katrina.

"The people of New Orleans need to get back to at least the level of hurricane protection we had before Katrina," Corps spokesman Jim Taylor said. "We were authorized to do that, and do it quickly. It's up to Congress to decide to take it to a higher level." But Ivor van Heerden, a Louisiana State University engineering professor and leader of a state-appointed team of experts investigating the failure of the levee system during Katrina, charged that "the government is trying to create a sense of security that doesn't exist." "What we have today," he added, "is a compromised levee system that failed during a fast-moving Category 3 hurricane. Absolutely nowhere are the levees ready to stand up to the same kind of test."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/05/AR2006030500976.html

[LynnTheDem]

1. And when it happens again; "No one could have known the fixes

were falling short!" bush & his bloody Cabal will lie. Again.

As more Americans lay dead, food for roaming packs of dogs.

[seriousstan]

2. Nobody should be moved back into NO for at least 2 years.

The levis should be engineered and constructed to the best possible design in the appropriate time.

[allisonthegreat]

7. But nobody is thinking (eom)

[saigon68]

9. Dogs eating Corpses ------up until recently

This didn't happen in the United States of America



A stray dog feeds on an Iraqi corpse. Marines are now hunting down stray animals grown fat on the flesh from corpses and which could harbor rabies Photo AFP/Cris Bouroncle.

Although in the civil War in 1863 Pigs feasted on the bodies of soldiers killed in battle.

[RobertSeattle]

3. BS

The Bush Administration has kept us safe from hurricanes for the last six months !!! - It must be the direct leadership of our dear Leader W.


:evilgrin:

[LynnTheDem]

Thank Gawd for bush!!!

:rofl:

[LynnTheDem]

4. dupe

[Wordie]

5. K&R It's important for everyone to be aware of this looming problem!

I've heard reports that we can expect rougher hurricane seasons (global warming effect?), so this is just simply unacceptable. The system needs to be able to resist a Cat5.

[OneBlueSky]

6. "The people of New Orleans need to get back to at least the level . . .

of hurricane protection we had before Katrina," Corps spokesman Jim Taylor said. . .

well, that's comforting . . . :sarcasm:

[rodeodance]

8. band-aid approaches never work (think of our health care 'system")