The Army Corpse of "Engineers" is effing up NOLA again!

[tannybogus]

<snip>
In a yearlong review of levee work here, The Associated Press has tracked a pattern of public misperception, political jockeying and legal fighting, along with economic and engineering miscalculations since Katrina, that threaten to make New Orleans the scene of another devastating flood.
<snip>
The corps says its work is making the city safer, but there are serious doubts.

At every step in the scramble to correct the engineering breakdowns of Katrina, independent experts have questioned the ability of the corps, an agency that has accumulated ever more power over the fate of New Orleans, to do the right job.

On the road to recovery, the agency has installed faulty drainage pumps, used outdated measurements, issued incorrect data, unearthed critical flaws, made conflicting statements about flood risk and flunked reviews by the National Research Council.

At the same time, the corps has run into funding problems, lawsuits, a tangle of local interests and engineering difficulties - all of which has led to delays in getting the promised work done.

An initial September 2010 target to complete the $14.8 billion in post-Katrina work has slipped to mid-2011. Then last September, an Army audit found 84 percent of work behind schedule because of engineering complexities, environmental provisos and real estate transactions. The report added that costs would likely soar.

A more recent analysis shows the start of 84 of 156 projects was delayed - 15 of them by six months or more. Meanwhile, a critical analysis of what it would take to build even stronger protection - 500-year-type levees - was supposed to be done last December but remains unfinished.
<snip>
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080823/D92O5PU00.html

Don't build houses. Build arks.
:crazy:

[Taverner]

1. OK - clearly the problem is BROKEN

Remove the ACOE

Bring in a private contractor. Just this once.

Look, I'm not for privatizing everything - but just this once, do it to code and do it with a fixed budget. Leave plenty of room for profits and buy-offs. Just get it fucking done right.

[tannybogus]

2. They'll bring in Halliburton or KBR on a no-bid contract.

I'm with you. The ACOE has got to go, and somebody with a good reputation

has to be hired. It's gettin' late early.
:spank:

[Taverner]

3. OK bad bad bad

Shit, I'd even rather have whomever Willie Brown uses for his money-sucking projects.

True, the Bridge Project was a clusterfuck.

But say, SFO airport - that was his guys, and they did a smack up job (although we'll find out for sure next earthquake)

[tannybogus]

7. Not a bad, bad, bad idea. Just have to find the right people to do it! nt

[Taverner]

9. Problem is doing something on that scale is not easy

You need someone experienced in serious-assed structural engineering.

Someone tested.

Someone who build something that withstood some kind of serious environmental ass-whipping

Building bridges in earthquake country

Building bridges in flood country

Building buildings anywhere in Florida

That kind of thing

[tannybogus]

10. True!

I don't care who they hire, they should have legitimate inspectors going over every piece of work.

If they have it planned out, the inspectors should watch them like hawks to make sure they don't

deviate. The problem a lot of times is that the inspections happen after everything is done, and

then the tendency is to let it stay.

[DCKit]

12. The Dutch offered their expertise some years back and were turned down.

Don't know if it was hubris or fear of further exposure (for all the existing bad work), but it was a stupid, short-sighted move.

[ben_meyers]

4. I question the timing of this article

They just know there will be a tribute to N.O. at the convention next week and here they go blaming the victims again. See, it was all the decades old corruption and graft in LA. that created the problems and nothing has changed.


FTA:

But the past remains prologue in another sense, too: This majestic city is still perilously at the mercy of the next hurricane.

"What we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history," said Tim Doody, the president of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East, a consolidated regional levee board created after Katrina to improve levee protection.

"What happened after Betsy? Katrina," Doody said. "And what's going to happen after Katrina? Pick a name and put it on it and it's going to happen again unless we pull together to make sure."

[tannybogus]

6. There is a lot of info out there about this.

Here is an article by "National Geographic."
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/070506-orleans-levees.html

I think the article smacked everybody around. In addition, the anniversary is coming up so you will see a lot of articles.
This happens to be an election year. It's time to stop blaming anybody, and start shaking the crap out of the people in charge.
Inertia has set in on the stop position. Hard to get things rolling again.

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. Did you say "anniversary?" Cake anyone?

:mad:

[magellan]

5. Eff'd up on purpose

...to make people scream for privatizing the process. Once that happens, there's no going back. And it won't be only NOLA getting soaked.

[RB TexLa]

11. They don't care about safety they care about budget appropriations. They have a plan to remove

every tree from within 20 or 50 yards of the levees along the Ouachita River.

[ColbertWatcher]

13. The ACOE needs real leadership ...

... and a top to bottom shake up.

The ACOE is like any government agency: they have a mission statement, professionals willing and able to do a good job, but they need funding and an administration that isn't going to steer them toward failure.

Just think of how well FEMA did under Clinton and what a shame it was under the GOP.

Or, the FDA and how they were able to keep pet food safe for 60, 70-odd years until the GOP handed the agency over to corporations, which suddenly made pet food dangerous.

The ACOE is supposed to build or fix things. There are a lot of things in America that need fixing after 8 years of the GOP. The ACOE can do these things as long as the projects are fully funded, anyone cutting corners is held accountable and the leadership is competent.

With Obama and Biden I can see the ACOE no longer a laughingstock and their work becoming a priority again.