Wednesday, May 21, 2008

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.

6 Comments:

Blogger The Texas Patriot said...

My friend,

I could not have said it better! Once again, our tax dollars at work!

Tony in Duncanville

May 21, 2008 4:38 PM  
Blogger Sandra said...

Amazing how the more money they throw at a problem it still doesn't fix it. Oh wait I was thinking about our public schools. Maybe we can put both of these problems together and they will be solved.
/turning off sarcasm
Great post.

May 21, 2008 10:10 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

New Orleans is a cess pool of monumental proportions. Louisiana is infamous for crooked, oily politicians, and having lived there during my formative years I feel I have earned the right to make that statement.

Why anyone would want to rebuild that city knowing that ultimately it puts citizens in danger is just beyond all reason. New Orleans will never draw big industry back to the city. It will forever remain a second rate tourist attraction and Nagan turned downtown into a tenement tent city that attracts derilicts from all over the country. He wanted a "chocolate" town. Well - he got one. Effing N****.

May 22, 2008 8:23 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you think thats bad, just look at Sacramento Valley in California. The levee system there is in real bad shape. The population is much larger than New Orleans. And when it breaks the food sources for most of the country will be wiped out. As for waisting tax dollars, you should know that you paid $2,000 to move each FEMA trailer into the area. What you may not know is that many of them were never lived in and still sit where they were deposited in Alabama and I'm talking about 10 thousand of them. By the way the owner of the property where the FEMA trailers sit empty get paid $250,000 per month. So, when you are adding up the numbers of dollars waisted, don't forget to include the money that is still being spent. Not in New Orleans and not in Louisiana. Rather, in areas that were not effected by the storm and the people who are getting rich from it are not the people living in tents.

Mayor Nagan is an idiot but he has nothing what so ever to do with choosing where the money goes. That was do through No bid contracts by FEMA with KBR witch is a subsidiary of Dick Cheney's old company Halliburton. BTW, this is the same company that moved corporate headquarters to Dubai so it would not have to pay any US Taxes on the trillions of dollars you are spending on the war in Iraq. Another thing you should be aware of is that Dubai was one of the countries that supports terrorists and where Dick Cheney has bought property to retire to.

May 22, 2008 1:09 PM  
Blogger Rorschach said...

I happen to be a former Halliburton employee, and I take issue with your apparent contention that Halliburton is the focus of all evil on the planet. I know all about Halliburton, KBR, Dubai, and Cheney. Your rants about them are stupid and ill informed. I would suggest you save your asshattery and moonbattery for the Kos Kids and DUmmies. Final warning.

May 22, 2008 1:17 PM  
Blogger Rorschach said...

In regards to Halliburton and Dubai, you are a little incorrect.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/5795524.html

And Halliburton no longer owns KBR.

May 22, 2008 2:32 PM  

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