Worst Engineering Ever

The flooding of New Orleans was caused by: Incompetent design by the Army Corps of Engineers.

From article in today's Times-Picayune:

"This is the largest civil engineering disaster in the history of the United States. Nothing has come close to the $300 billion in damages and half-million people out of their homes and the lives lost. Nothing this big has ever happened before in civil engineering."

"That miscalculation was so obvious and fundamental, investigators said, they "could not fathom" how the design team [...] could have missed what is being termed the costliest engineering mistake in American history."

So. It wasn't that the storm was worse than the city's protection system was supposedly designed to deal with.

It wasn't that some corrupt SOB local contractor or politician massivley skimped on mateials to line their own pocket (which had been my guess).

It was that the ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS screwed up the design from the start.

Somehow, I thought they had some idea of what they were doing, and could get it done. Isn't this the organization that built the Panama Canal? Built logistical support under the most extreme conditions allowing victory in WWII?

Or are people more familiar with the Corps than I unsurprised at this massive level of incompetence?

One of the sub-groups of the Krewe du Vieux is going as the "Coprse of Engineers" this year, outfits a combination of Engineers and Grim Reapers.


( full Times-Picayune article text mirrored )

Bearing gifts of Gold, Frankinscence, and MREs

I seldom get to malls, and especially tend to avoid them during the Commericalmass Holiday Season, but I'm damn sorry I missed this:

The recently reopened Lakeside Mall in the suburb of Metarie had various topical variations in this year's Xmas Tiny Town display, with blue tarps on house roofs, piles of tiny dead refrigerators, and a closed pumping-station.

article on the New Orleans community with photos..

...And the Mall management had it taken down.
Which is another reason to avoid Lakeside this Commercialmass.

End of November update

The roofers are zipping along at a good pace; I may have my new roof finished by tomorrow.

I have a local contractor supervising an otherwise all Maya crew from Chiapas and Guatemala.

I've talked to lots of folks who rode out the storm, the majority of whom say they wouldn't do so again. Yesterday I had the first incident of one of my neighbors who stuck around berate me for having left. "You know it never floods here", I was told. Um, I do know that we're on higher ground than most of the city, but I didn't know what this storm would do. And I'm not fond of sticking around when winds are blowing windows out, roofs off, and walls down, and sending shards of broken glass flying at speeds great enough to drive them into wooden walls like nails. Even if it doesn't flood.