It's All About Design Flaws

[infrogmation]

This needed to be more widely seen. Letter to the editor in the Hartford Courant, via Suspect Device.

I take issue with the statement that "Katrina was proof that the levee system is unable to withstand the strongest hurricanes" [editorial, Jan. 11, "New Orleans Needs Leadership"].

The Army Corps of Engineers built the 17th Street canal to hold a column of 14 feet of water. According to its own report, mistakes in design caused the concrete structure to unzip from its foundation under a load of only 4 to 5 feet of water. The identical design at the London Avenue canal performed nearly identically in its failure.

This acknowledged engineering failure was responsible for flooding tens of thousands of homes, including mine.

It means the Army killed more U.S. citizens on American soil than at any time since 1865.

Had these levees not failed, political incompetence at the federal, state and local level wouldn't be an issue.

To those who would ask "Why would you build a city below sea level?" the answer is the same as why I would snack on peanuts in an aluminum tube five miles above the Earth: It was engineered to be safe. Had the Army Corps of Engineers built the last Boeing I flew in, the wings would have come off halfway down the runway. And the spin would be all about the race and class of the people aboard at the time of the crash.

Mike Moser
Orlando, Fla.
The writer is a former resident of the Lakeview section of New Orleans.

Comments

[jdquintette.livejournal.com]

Reposting it, bruh.

It's All About Design Flaws

[infrogmation.livejournal.com]

And of course this doesn't even deal with the "below sea level" meme that's been propagating in bizarre distortions at least since Brownie's curious claims about the Superdome.

For the record, New Orleans was not built below sea level. The older parts of town were and are well above such; the areas below are some of the modern suburbs built on drained back swamp that has subsided, and includes no inhabited area lower than a couple feet below. And mean sea level really isn't the problem. The problem was a massive hurricane producing a huge tidal surge that put some areas up to 30 feet above sea level under water. Combined of course with the problem that the project for the USACOE to provide the city with protection from the greatest level of storm anticipated for the region which Congress mandated back in the '60s was badly bungled.

You're Preaching to the choir.

[jdquintette.livejournal.com]

Gee thanks Dan. That would certainly explain why my former residence at Laurel and Duffossett took no water, while my current pad at St. Philip and Hagan has a floodline two steps up on the porch.:-)

BTW I incorporated that letter in todays post at "Our Man In New Orleans" as well.
http://vancouverjazz.com/jdoheny/

you might find the site that hosts that interesting as well.
http://www.vancouverjazz.com

If you scroll down a bit on the portal page, there's an interesting 25 minute TV documentary from 1967 on my late teacher and mentor, saxophonist Fraser Macpherson.

[yellowdoggrl.livejournal.com]

I'm going to use the Boeing analogy from here on out. Thanks for posting that letter.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Had these levees not failed, political incompetence at the federal, state and local level wouldn't be an issue.

Though, since there was also considerable advance expectation that Katrina might produce a storm surge so large that even correctly functioning floodwalls would not help, this fact does not give federal, state and local officials an out.

(The only reason this is worth saying again being that Bush actually tried to use this as an excuse.)