The Lingering Death of New Orleans

Back in 2005, I posted an article entitled "The Death of New Orleans". In that article, I warned that rebuilding the levees and the houses without raising them above sea level was a recipe for disaster. Then a bit later I posted another article about what went wrong with the levee entitled "Levee liabilities; What went wrong." in which I linked to data that indicated that not only was the original levee work not performed to print, but the the design itself was flawed due to a misread soil report that indicated a impermeable clay layer at a depth of 20 feet, when in fact the clay layer was much deeper. And that even if the layer had been where the designers thought it was, AND the sheet piling which was the foundation for the levee had been driven as deep as the print called for, it still would have buckled and failed due to too much weight on it and too little support from the water saturated unconsolidated silt that the wall was deriving it's support from. If water is ever allowed to percolate under the levee, it WILL fail.

The 17th street levee, after $22 million dollars worth of repairs is already leaking and is in danger of failure. $14 billion dollars has been allocated to repair and rebuild the levee system, to date $4 billion has been spent to what purpose?

I will say it again, the low spots of NOLA should have been bulldozed, the land should have been built up using dredged silt from the river, and then, and ONLY then should rebuilding be allowed to occur. Had this been done from the outset, NOLA would be safe now.