Back to Katrina

[fred_smith]

What did I tell you about New Orleans and Lousiana…

Levees’ Construction Faulted In New Orleans Flood Inquiry
Contractors’ Misdeeds May Have Led to Breaches, Panel Is Told
Investigators yesterday added a possible new explanation for some of the flooding that devastated New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina: contractors who may have skimped on construction materials in building the city’s floodwalls and levees.

Experts probing the cause of the flooding have received at least a dozen allegations of major cheating by builders and possibly others involved in levee construction, two investigators said in testimony before a Senate panel. They said these were potentially criminal acts that may well have contributed to the collapse of the city’s flood-control system on Aug. 29.

The allegations, although not proved, have prompted investigators to request a meeting next week with federal law enforcement officials to share details of the reports. The list of alleged misdeeds includes the use of weak, poorly compacted soils in levee construction and deliberate skimping on steel pilings used to anchor floodwalls to the ground.

“What we have right now are stories of malfeasance and some field evidence that seems to correlate with those stories,” said Raymond B. Seed, leader of one of three independent teams of experts investigating why the levees failed. Seed, an engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley, said it is not yet clear how big a role such acts played in the failure of the levees.

The reports emerged from one of two Senate hearings held yesterday to examine why New Orleans’s levee system failed so spectacularly, and how it might be rebuilt to prevent catastrophic flooding by the next hurricane.

Most of the devastation caused by Katrina was inflicted not by high winds, but by massive flooding that resulted when the city’s levees breached. Four major breaches and dozens of smaller ones occurred on the morning of Aug. 29, sending water surging across 80 percent of New Orleans and swamping an estimated 100,000 homes. About 1,000 people died.

The levees were designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and were built primarily by contractors hired by the Corps. The Corps has launched its own investigation of the levee failures; Paul Mlakar, a Corps scientist leading the inquiry, said though it is too early to draw firm conclusions, he promised a thorough investigation, with final results in July. The Corps is also cooperating with the independent investigations by the state of Louisiana, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the University of California team, which is funded by the National Science Foundation.

Leaders of the three teams yesterday presented preliminary findings of their two-month probe to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. In recent weeks, findings by the independent investigators have pointed increasingly to human error – flaws in design, construction, or both – as a probable culprit in the breaches of two key floodwalls along Lake Pontchartrain.

Although Army Corps officials initially suggested that the 17th Street and London Avenue canals were simply overwhelmed by Katrina’s storm surge, the new findings confirmed that the two floodwalls were never overtopped by rising waters. Instead, the concrete walls toppled when their earthen foundations weakened and gave way.

washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co … 02775.html

[jdsmith]

For the doubters of Fred:

:nyah:

[Jaboney]

Cheating contractors. Sounds like the bastards who put up half of the buildings that came down here six years ago. :fume:

[Richardm]

Same story, different emphasis.

Levees’ Construction Faulted In New Orleans Flood Inquiry
Contractors’ Misdeeds May Have Led to Breaches, Panel Is Told
Investigators yesterday added a possible new explanation for some of the flooding that devastated New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina: contractors who may have skimped on construction materials in building the city’s floodwalls and levees.

Experts probing the cause of the flooding have received at least a dozen allegations of major cheating by builders and possibly others involved in levee construction, two investigators said in testimony before a Senate panel. They said these were potentially criminal acts that may well have contributed to the collapse of the city’s flood-control system on Aug. 29.

The allegations, although not proved, have prompted investigators to request a meeting next week with federal law enforcement officials to share details of the reports. The list of alleged misdeeds includes the use of weak, poorly compacted soils in levee construction and deliberate skimping on steel pilings used to anchor floodwalls to the ground.

“What we have right now are stories of malfeasance and some field evidence that seems to correlate with those stories,” said Raymond B. Seed, leader of one of three independent teams of experts investigating why the levees failed. Seed, an engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley, said it is not yet clear how big a role such acts played in the failure of the levees.

The reports emerged from one of two Senate hearings held yesterday to examine why New Orleans’s levee system failed so spectacularly, and how it might be rebuilt to prevent catastrophic flooding by the next hurricane.

Most of the devastation caused by Katrina was inflicted not by high winds, but by massive flooding that resulted when the city’s levees breached. Four major breaches and dozens of smaller ones occurred on the morning of Aug. 29, sending water surging across 80 percent of New Orleans and swamping an estimated 100,000 homes. About 1,000 people died.

The levees were designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and were built primarily by contractors hired by the Corps. The Corps has launched its own investigation of the levee failures; Paul Mlakar, a Corps scientist leading the inquiry, said though it is too early to draw firm conclusions, he promised a thorough investigation, with final results in July. The Corps is also cooperating with the independent investigations by the state of Louisiana, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the University of California team, which is funded by the National Science Foundation.

Leaders of the three teams yesterday presented preliminary findings of their two-month probe to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. In recent weeks, findings by the independent investigators have pointed increasingly to human error – flaws in design, construction, or both – as a probable culprit in the breaches of two key floodwalls along Lake Pontchartrain.

Although Army Corps officials initially suggested that the 17th Street and London Avenue canals were simply overwhelmed by Katrina’s storm surge, the new findings confirmed that the two floodwalls were never overtopped by rising waters. Instead, the concrete walls toppled when their earthen foundations weakened and gave way.

[Rascal]

Where is the proof, fred?

Please provide a response that does not include the UN, Germany, France, Russia and Clinton. Thank you.

[politbureau]

I think the point Fred is making is that if there wasn’t gross incompetence on the local level, there never would have been a major disaster that exposed the incompetence of FEMA and the Department of Homeboy Cronies.

I have to say I’m in complete agreement with Fred.

[irishstu]

I have to agree at least in part with Fred (for once ).

However, the levees were only designed for a, what’s it called,“Category 3” hurricane, whereas this was a level 5. So this is fairly moot at the end of the day.

If it had been level 3 and they had failed, it would be a different matter.

[fred_smith]

However, the levees were only designed for a, what’s it called,“Category 3” hurricane, whereas this was a level 5. So this is fairly moot at the end of the day.

If it had been level 3 and they had failed, it would be a different matter.

Irrelevant. The category was not the problem, the shoddy construction that stemmed directly from the corruption and patronage was.

All of this is as Rascal pointed out “alleged” BUT as I predicted from Day 1, this would be about corruption and patronage and local officials would be to blame. I know New Orleans and nothing that happens there ever suprises me (unfortunately).

Rascal: glad to see you back. And I will not bring Germany into this even though your present election woes are so reminiscent of the voting and bargaining that goes on in New Orleans… whoops! haha

[irishstu]

@fred_smith

However, the levees were only designed for a, what’s it called,“Category 3” hurricane, whereas this was a level 5. So this is fairly moot at the end of the day.

If it had been level 3 and they had failed, it would be a different matter.

Irrelevant. The category was not the problem, the shoddy construction that stemmed directly from the corruption and patronage was.

I agree, and I see that there are several stories now about the cost-cutting, etc. I don’t doubt it for a minute. What I’m trying to say is that it’s going to be hard to prove that these levees would have failed if it had been a category 3 storm. If you’re the constructor and you’re accused of using sub-standard methods, you can simply say that it would have been enough for category 3, which was what you were asked to construct.

[Elegua]

Not so fast…

Who was saying local authorities didn’t f/up?

The beef is that FEMA had no plan or capability to deal with such an event - which seems strange to me for an organization designed for exactly that purpose. [/quote]

[fred_smith]

I agree, and I see that there are several stories now about the cost-cutting, etc.

What cost cutting. These projects were all inflated far beyond their real cost. You don’t mean cost cutting. You mean cutting back on qualty materials to pocket even more money. Not the first time this happened in the Big Easy and won’t be the last.

I don’t doubt it for a minute. What I’m trying to say is that it’s going to be hard to prove that these levees would have failed if it had been a category 3 storm. If you’re the constructor and you’re accused of using sub-standard methods, you can simply say that it would have been enough for category 3, which was what you were asked to construct.

Also irrelevant. The damage was not from wind damage but water pressure. The levees are built to a certain height to deal with a certain level of water so the category strength of the storm (wind) would be irrelevant. It is not the water flowing over them that destroyed them but the water within. See the difference?

Rascal:

What does rechtaberei mean? haha Gunther Grass has a new short story coming out on this. I hope he is not modeling it after you! haha

[fred_smith]

Not so fast…

Not so fast yourself.

Who was saying local authorities didn’t f/up?

Not the point. We all admitted long ago that they were 90 percent to blame.

The beef is that FEMA had no plan or capability to deal with such an event - which seems strange to me for an organization designed for exactly that purpose.

Prove FEMA had no plan or capability to deal with such an event. You are wrong. There was a plan and that entailed the city of New Orleans and the state of Lousiana following the plans that they submitted to FEMA which required them to deal primarily with response for the first 72 to 96 hours as is the case with EVERY natural disaster.

Again, the media exaggerated the lack of response. The stories of horror were mostly not true. Where they were true, FEMA was not responsible. Please explain to me where FEMA is responsible for preventing looting by local police authorities. Also point to me where FEMA is responsible for ensuring that state officials are actually able to function without losing their heads and where FEMA is required to assess and then tell the governor of a state how many national guard troops he or she should ask for! Bah!

I will sing the song again and again and again. This is ALL about corruption and patronage.

The levees failed not because of lack of funding or attention but because of the kind of shoddy workmanship that characterizes such projects all over the Third World and for the same reasons.

[politbureau]

I have to say that I’m personally shocked that local officials in New Orleans are so corrupt. And thank god the District of Columbia, the seat of our nation’s government and a prime target of terrorists, is in such good hands because, as Fred has made clear, local government is about all that’s standing between us and a good ass-kicking by Mother Nature or Osama bin Laden.

[Elegua]

Says you…

I will sing the song again and again and again. This is ALL about corruption and patronage.

Agreed - patronage and cronyism got the head of FEMA his job…just as it may have gotten Nagin his.

We’ll not rehash the argument… we’ve gone over this before PPPPPPP.

[fred_smith]

Thank you for conceding so graciously. That proof was going to be awfully hard to come by but I was kind of hoping to see the effort.

[politbureau]

This whole debate just strikes me as classic, goofy inside-the-box thinking as if the whole scope of the problem is merely fixing blame and that’s it.

What’s been done to fix the root problem to make sure it doesn’t happen again? Nada, as far as I can tell.

And why a ‘solution process’ to national disaster problems that seems unable to conceive of anything more solid than fundamental reliance on an inherent weak link: local government?

[Elegua]

Spook,

Don’t waste your breath - you’re looking at an administration that looks at facts selectively…ie. the facts as they see fit. Most administrations fall for this - especially in the second term. What I found really amazing is how from day one they believed thier own headlines. Hubris -> Fall -> Ouch

Look at any of thier tax packages, social security reform, economic platforms, WMD intel…etc… Voodoo economics no doubt

[irishstu]

@fred_smith

I agree, and I see that there are several stories now about the cost-cutting, etc.

What cost cutting. These projects were all inflated far beyond their real cost. You don’t mean cost cutting. You mean cutting back on qualty materials to pocket even more money. Not the first time this happened in the Big Easy and won’t be the last.

I don’t doubt it for a minute. What I’m trying to say is that it’s going to be hard to prove that these levees would have failed if it had been a category 3 storm. If you’re the constructor and you’re accused of using sub-standard methods, you can simply say that it would have been enough for category 3, which was what you were asked to construct.

Also irrelevant. The damage was not from wind damage but water pressure. The levees are built to a certain height to deal with a certain level of water so the category strength of the storm (wind) would be irrelevant. It is not the water flowing over them that destroyed them but the water within. See the difference?

Hold on there Fred. I haven’t finished.

Please don’t tell ME what I mean to say. I KNOW what I mean to say. By cost-cutting, I meant that the contractor got things done more cheaply, and pocketed the rest, NOT that he charged the government less. I think that should be pretty obvious for anyone with half a brain (or more).

And now onto your second point. You honestly think the strength of the hurricane had no bearing whatsoever on the levees failure? Are you absolutely sure? Are you sure the strength of the hurricane might not have contributed to the level of the water, or the lack of structural integrety of the levees? Ever been in a swaying building in very high winds? Are you a structural engineer by any chance?

[MaPoSquid]

@spook

This whole debate just strikes me as classic, goofy inside-the-box thinking as if the whole scope of the problem is merely fixing blame and that’s it.

What’s been done to fix the root problem to make sure it doesn’t happen again? Nada, as far as I can tell.

Well, I’d say that analyzing the root causes for the engineering failures is an important first step, and they’ve only had about a month so far in which to say “hey, the levees were built crappily”.

You’re an engineer, you know it takes time, especially for a civil-engineering system which was built up over the last hundred-plus years or thereabouts.

@spook

And why a ‘solution process’ to national disaster problems that seems unable to conceive of anything more solid than fundamental reliance on an inherent weak link: local government?

What else is there? They’re the ones on-scene, they control the fire and police departments (hah), there are laws preventing federalizing the efforts. When Bush proposed changing the Posse Comitatus law, the Left screamed that he was trying to become a fascist dictator. You can’t have it both ways.

[fred_smith]

Spook,
Don’t waste your breath

Please continue your encouragement of Spook. WE are all hoping he takes your advice!

you’re looking at an administration that looks at facts selectively…ie. the facts as they see fit.

Such as that Saddam was a threat? that he was trying to develop wmds? That we should take care of him while we still had the chance? Yup. Pretty selective unless you compare Bush’s statements with all major Democrats in the US and European politicians and UN officials as well.

Most administrations fall for this - especially in the second term. What I found really amazing is how from day one they believed thier own headlines. Hubris → Fall → Ouch

Where exactly is the hubris? fall? ouch? We have one new supreme court justice with another on the way. This is going to be an unequalled achievement if it goes through.

Look at any of thier tax packages, social security reform, economic platforms, WMD intel…etc… Voodoo economics no doubt

Social security does not require reform?

Economic Platform? Oh you mean the one that absorbed the bubble that had built up prior to the Bush administration, recovered and despite two major hurricanes grew at 3.8 percent in the last quarter?

WMDs… again, find ANY intelligence agency that did not believe Saddam had one and you get a star! The only difference is that some were against acting. Otherwise, supply those quotes where national leaders (other than Galloway) came out and said. I KNOW that Saddam has nothing to hide.