The Katrina Questions That Actually Need To Be Asked

[thedrifter]

The Katrina Questions That Actually Need To Be Asked <br />
by Oliver North <br />
Posted Sep 9, 2005 <br />
<br />
The Congress has questions about Katrina. The Congress wants their questions answered -- now! To satisfy...

[Joseph P Carey]

I think we might also add one more question. The levee along the Lake Ponchitrain at the 17th St Causeway was replaced 3 years ago. From all available information, the levee did not fail from the water spilling over the top of the wall, but instead failed when it buckled in the middle of the new repairs. The question is simple.

Why did the levee fail?

Other questions derive their roots from this question such as Inspections? Materials? Contractors? NO public officials? State of LA Public Officials?

The walls were made to work with over spillage, why did they not work?

It seems that everyone has questions about what happened after the fall of the Levee, and everyone seems to be working them selves away from the Levee.

Yes! The MONO (Mayor of New Orleans) did not use the city buses to transport people out. Yes! The MONO did not allow food stores and water into the city. Yes! The NOPD went shopping when prying eyes were gone. Yes! The MONO ordered People into the SuperDome and the Convention Center without food and water being there. Yes! The Police Chief of NOPD did have at least 1200 officers of his 1700 officers still working, present and accounted for, and he could not maintain control of the Convention Center or the SuperDome; he complained that he had only 200 policemen available to do that assignment. If so, why were there no LA State Troopers attached to his work force, or even the LANG?

Yes! All of these problems are symptomatic of confusion and anarchy, but what was the cause? The newly repaired Levee!

[redneck13]

&quot;NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR ANY CONGRESSIONAL SUB-COMMITTEE'S HEARINGS, OR COMMITTEE HEARINGS.&quot; Simple as that. <br />
Let the &quot;PEOPLE DO THEIR WORK.&quot; They/those in Charge? Are human beings capable of making...

[Wyoming]

Well, hell, Carey got one I agree with and like.

Now, if I can get a source or URL on the statement -
The levee along the Lake Ponchitrain at the 17th St Causeway was replaced 3 years ago. - I'll pass these questions about.

[Joseph P Carey]

Originally posted by bigalholmes165
Well, hell, Carey got one I agree with and like.

Now, if I can get a source or URL on the statement - - I'll pass these questions about.

Perhaps this might help. I copied several comments from the article about the Levee:
http://prisonplanet.com/Pages/Sept05/090905levees.htm

According to the New York Times, Dr. Shea Penland of the Pontchartrain Institute was surprised because the break was "along a section that was just upgraded. It did not have an earthen levee, it had a vertical concrete wall several feet thick."

It also seems that the broken section of the Industrial Canal levee was having "construction" work done on it recently.

Alfred C. Naomi, a senior project manager for the corps, was quoted in the same article as saying "there were still no clear hints why the main breach in the flood barriers occurred along the 17th Street Canal, normally a conduit for vast streams of water pumped out of the perpetually waterlogged city each day and which did not take the main force of the waves roiling the lake. He said that a low spot marked on survey charts of the levees near the spot that ruptured was unrelated and that the depression was where a new bridge crossed the narrow canal near the lakefront."

This would refute the speculation that a dip in the retaining levee or walls might have allowed water to slop over and start the collapse. So we have an unexplained crack in several feet of concrete.

Also these articles that clearly state the area where the 17th St wall was worked on, was where it calapsed:

http://www.kathryncramer.com/photos/new_orleans_flooding/oseiiod.html

http://prisonplanet.com/Pages/Sept05/090905levees.htm (These people even thought that someone blew up the levee, there were so many cracks in it)

The facts are, the water did not get into NO from coming over the top of the wall, the Wall Calapsed, and no one of any political elevation is saying anything about it. There were reports of cracks in the Levee before the storm. I would be looking at Government corruption in NO or LA, before I would start blaming others for their respose to a situation that was already a foregone conclussion, and I would have the owner of the Construction Company up before me to start answering some questions about his business practices, and local politicians he did business with.

Unfortunately, many of the articles I originally looked at are now deleted from the net. You go figure, heh?

[Wyoming]

i got this from 'greybeard', a friend of mine and Marine some of you may know.

Not to dispute or anything, but these are his comments.

FYI - neither one of us can spell Ponchatrain, but you get the drift.




The system consists of levees on both sides of the Miss River, both sides of the Atchafalaya, numerous gated control structures for releasing water, and locks, which allow access to and from the river proper, to smaller navigable channels such as the intracoastal waterway.

To begin with, the levees and control structures were never intended to keep floodwater from the gulf out of New Orleans. They are designed to only 'control' water from the north, and, to prevent the Mississippi River from doing what it naturally would have done long ago--take a new course down the channel now occupied by the deepest river in the world--the Atchafalya. This would spell the end of New Orleans as a port city and probably result in flooding of Morgan City.

The whole thing hinges on one premise. Floodwater itself is never to flow far enough south to raise the level to dangerous levels on the levees at New Orleans.

You've probably heard that the levee at NO was capable of handling a Cat 3 storm surge. Obviously, this was found to be untrue, and when you think about how the system is designed, you will see how dumb it was to even think that. IF it could hold back a Gulf induced flood, it would just be a byproduct of the original intent of the project, and not a primary goal. North of where the Red River and Atchafalya converge, just a few miles west of the Miss River, all the way north to it's headwaters, the Mississippi River levee system is designed to prevent flooding of both the farmland and cities. From this point south, there is only one goal and that is to protect New Orleans at all costs. Everything and everyone else is expendable.

The Miss River at New Orleans isn't a fast flowing or particularly deep river. It's wide and slow moving, after all, it is at or near sea level. There's no gradient. Even so, it moves a huge amt of water even during normal times. When the floods come from up river here's how it is handled. The 1st 2 structures are located north of Baton Rouge.

1. Flood water is diverted over the low sill structure just north of Old River. It goes south down the Atchafalya Basin.

More water comes:
2. The gates of the over bank control structure at Old River are opened. (The last time these were opened fully, in the late 70s, severe scouring of the structure occurred, which means flow rates were so high, that the water washed under the facility.) This released water also flows down the Atchafalya Basin.

Even more water comes from the north:
3. The controlling timbers on the Bonnet Carre spillway are opened. This is just above New Orleans, near LaPlace. This sends water into Lake Pontartrain, and then it flows out to Lake Bourgne and on into the Gulf.

Hurray!! New Orleans is saved!! Well, not quite hurray. Since more water can go out the Bonnet Carre floodway than the channel leading to the gulf can handle, the folks on the east side of the lake get flooded out. But hey, Bourbon St itself is worth a few hundred thousand acres of flooded farmers isn't it?

So, to answer your original question – ‘Why did the levees fail?’

1.Well, even if you believe the system was good for a category 3 storm surge, and I do not, this was a category 4 storm. The last category 2 storm that came to New Orleans, (Hurricane Georges) put water over the levee of Lake Pontchartrain and flooded most of the East end of the city.

2. Remember, the effects of a hurricane extend far out ahead of the storm, and only 12 hrs before the storm came ashore, it was rated at Cat 5. The water that were pushed ahead of this storm when it was still a cat 5 storm on Sunday evening, were already moving up the river and thru the salt water channel leading to Lake Ponchartrane.

3. The storm came ashore early Monday morning. By afternoon, it had moved on north, pushing the water up the river ahead of it. Later, Katrina veered off to the NE, as most of them do. As of Monday afternoon, New Orleans seemed to have gotten by without too much damage. The Levees held. Or did they?

What goes up--must come down--or more to the point, what goes upstream must flow back downstream.

All that water, pushed up the river, and onto the north shore of Lake Pontchartrane by the storm surge, came barreling back downstream when the hurricane moved off. What did it run into that evening?? High tide. Too much water in too confined of a space. You now had all the storm surge, the normal flow of the river, and the incoming tide, all in one place.

So, why weren't the levees built up higher since everyone knew N.O. was a disaster waiting to happen?

Levees (and dams, which is basically what a levee is) aren't straight up and down. That won't hold. They are an inverted , like this /\, much wider at the bottom than at the top. In the case of the levees on the Miss River, they are about 150-200 ft wide at the base and about 20' wide on top. The only way to make them higher, is to 1st make them wider. You can't do much widening on the river side, because it's too prone to erosion from both flow, and from boat traffic, and in New Orleans, the edge of the base is often under water.

The Corps of Engineers has tried for a long time to raise the levees in N.O. and has been able to in some places. But, in a lot of places, they can't, without displacing hundreds of residents, businesses, and industry because they can't widen the bases with those structures where they are. In some places, the buildings are right up against the levees. It would cost too much in tourist dollars, inconvenience, and traffic problems than the city was willing to put up with. NOW, since all those will likely be condemned anyway, perhaps they will be able to widen and raise the levees, but it won't do any good in the long run IMO.

One day, maybe next week, maybe next millennium, a category 5 storm will make landfall just east of where this one did and Nueva New Orleans is history once again--probably forever. Or, the inevitable will happen. The 'thousand year' flood will overpower the control structures at Old River and Morganza and the Mississippi will then empty out into the gulf at Morgan City.



A footnote –

Most of the highways in La are wavy. The dam place is sinking. About the only exception is I-49 which runs from around Lafayette to north La, and it may be bad by now too. I haven't been on it since 1994. I have been on I-10 when the Bonnet Carre floodway was rolling and you could feel the I-10 bridge shake. That sucker lets a LOT of water out.

The levees are earthen in most places, with riprap and concrete slabs placed on the watersides to reduce erosion. Even the ones down in N.O. are really decades and decades old, except for the canal levees, which are everywhere. The original levees were sandbars built up during floods, then built up a bit higher by state and local concerns after each big flood, till the one in the late 20s. After that, congress mandated that a federal group take over and shortly afterwards, the US Corps of Engineers took it over, maybe in the 40s.

Everything I've ever seen the CoE do was way overdone IMO, but then I ain't no engineer or hydrologist either. I don't think they are at fault, or their contractors. They only are able to do what congress mandates them to do, and basically, since the times N.O 1st became an important port, that has been to keep the city viable as a port at all costs.

Here's a rundown on what the CoE is doing in the area, and where they are.
http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/pao/response/HURPROJ.asp?prj=lkpon1 (http://)

Don't get me wrong, I've been to Nawlins lots of times, and love it down there, but personally, trying to keep the Gulf out, or the River from taking a straighter, shorter, faster flowing course is $$ thrown away IMO. No way in Hades can man beat mother nature forever. The whole delta is sinking, there are no more barrier islands built up by silt, salt water incursion is all but unstoppable, and it's a drowning bowl waiting to happen--Katrina X1000.

[BHABIT]

Ellie... I always enjoy your posts... however in regards to Katrina I don't think it helps having all the rhetoric from everyone that has NO idea what happened or what's going on except that what hey hear or read.

I'm born bread and raised on the Westbank of NOLA... I rode the storm out 20 miles north of Grand Isle with the center of the eye less than 30 miles from my front door. We clocked sustained winds of 145 mph for over 6 hours. I watched Katrina as it came into the Gulf off of Fla. I have my own hurricane tracking software as well as my own weather station so I have first hand knowledge of the storm.

There are so many issues that most of the American public has NO idea about. I will cover just a few and that won't even scratch the surface.

Levees: The levee system in NOLA as we know it today was started in the 1960's, at which time we still had the marshes an wetlands to the south. Originally we wanted a system that would protect us from a Cat 5 storm, however between the Army Corp of Engineers (ACE) and congress it was deemed far too expensive of an investment so we got a levee system that was supposed to protect us up to a Cat 3. Every year since the beginning of the upgrade of our levees our leaders and experts have pleaded with the government for additional money for furthering the expansion of our levees, pumps and wetland restoration and every year the government has either denied our request or promised us money that we never received.
Over the years our levees have been damaged in a way that most people that don't live behind them don't understand. As water speed is increased as it passes along a levee it acts as a knife cutting into the levee allowing water to seep into the base of the levee weakening it. Generally you can't tell when it happens unless you see seepage on the other side and yes there are many areas that this has been going on. Levees have to be surveyed by ACE they are the ones who make the recommendation to congress when local governments request money.

SCHOOL BUSES: The pictures that you see of all these school buses parked neatly in a lot unused... Unlike most places in the country our buses are not owed by the school board, city or state. These buses are independently owned and operated, leased out to the different school districts. Once the mandatory evacuation was given at 0900 27 Aug 05 the drivers of these buses evacuated with everyone else. Where was the Mayor to get drivers for these buses and even is he did do you want to risk thousands of lives to try to move people as the storm is ramping up. Remember the National Hurricane Service was still showing the storm passing east of NOLA up to this time.

Anyway I can go on and on about this. I would be happy to answer any specific questions, however there is one item that I’ll touch on before ending. You would think that the American people would demand that their government would do anything possible to protect their oil for their consumption. From the parish that I live in (Lafourche) 25% of the nations oil pass through here daily. America how much is that worth?

[jgorosco]

I have a question, and it might be a dumb question, but all the money that New Orleans receives from tourism, where does all that money go? How come the city officials couldnt set up a fund on their own back in the 60's to start bringing the levees to Cat5 standards. It is just a question and I am not pointing fingers. I think that all the oil that passes through there daily was making through from what I understood the gas rises were from fears of not being able to get oil. But you are correct that we do need to protect our oil.

[yellowwing]

I don't know jgorosco. I've been scrubbing the 'Net for half an hour and cannot find any specific info on "New Orleans city budget".

[BHABIT]

Although there is tourism money it’s not the cash cow that everyone thinks. Granted there are a lot of questions that can be raised about funds and how they are handled, however the questions I have would be directed to the state and not NOLA. But I guess one of my biggest questions would be to the feds. Why is it until only recently the feds got 95% of the revenues from the oil leases of our coast. It would seem to me if they didn’t want to help with the loss of wetland, highway repair going to the port or anything else at least they could give us that.

[Osotogary]

Try these links.
They are PDF Files.

http://senate.legis.state.la.us/FiscalServices/Publications/FY05-06/SummaryFY06AsAppropriated.pdf

http://senate.legis.state.la.us/FiscalServices/Publications/FY04-05/SummaryFY05AsAppropriated.pdf.

[Joseph P Carey]

I don't know gentlemen, I am just an old investigator, and when I look at things I try to eliminate all the other things of non-consequence. The amount of people that died, the convention center, the lack of getting people out of NO has nothing to do with the problem of which NO found itself in.

The problem was not the Hurricane; the hurricane had passed. The problem was the water that inundated the city from the 17th Street Canal.

From what I have seen, and what I have heard, and from what I have read of the 17th Street Canal where the breech occurred, it was the area of 300 feet that was most recently upgraded that fell apart. There is where all investigations should start!

Like Gunny Habit says, the buses for the school district are not owned by the school district, but he said nothing about the local transit system, and it says nothing of the fact that the MONO (Mayor of New Orleans) blocking shipment of food and water into the city, because he wanted the city evacuated, and he thought that food and water would just bring people back into the city. No matter the reasoning, all these things would not have been placed into play, had not the 17th Street wall fallen apart.

In the State of Huey Long, everyone knows it is not the job that counts, but how one gets the job that counts.

[yellowwing]

It was not the Mayor that blocked the Red Cross.


From the Red Cross FAQs on New Orleans (http://www.redcross.org/faq/0,1096,0_682_4524,00.html)
The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

[Nagalfar]

Seems we need to take a few prior examples of what to do here.. people sue gun makers for criminals using guns, women sue breast implant makers for problems that they were warned could happen, did happen, the ACLU can sue for anything and everything they want.. I vote we sue the French for selling us a piece of ground that is subject to flooding (amoung other problems), and talk the ACLU into doing if for us...

[Joseph P Carey]

Originally posted by yellowwing
It was not the Mayor that blocked the Red Cross.



Wing, my dear brother, your article by the Red Cross, states they were stopped by State Homeland Security, I am quite positive that they do not mean the National Homeland Security. As well as it also says that the State National Guard stopped them and turned them back, this of course was LANG. The same LANG the could not go into the city and bring the town under control until Thursday

Wing, old buddy, it sounds to me like it was all local government, not national that were denying food to the people in the SuperDome and the Convention Center...

But, again, we pull ourselves away from the wall. Yes, the wall! The cause of New Orleans' flooding, the recently reworked 300 feet of wall that just fell apart.

[yellowwing]

Bush on Katrina response: 'I take responsibility'
Reuters - Tue Sep 13, 2005 12:42 PM ET (http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=URI:urn:newsml:reuters.com:20050913:MTFH87 383_2005-09-13_16-41-14_N13573263:1)

WASHINGTON, Sept 13 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush took responsibility on Tuesday for any failures in the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina that struck two weeks ago and acknowledged the storm exposed deficiencies at all levels of government four years after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Asked if Americans should be concerned their government remains unprepared to respond to another major disaster or a terrorist attack, Bush said: "Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility."
[story continues...]

This reassures me. It tells me that the Boss now has a personal stake in the process and will ensure that it is set right.

[Osotogary]

That man has bigger cajones than all the finger pointers put together.

[GySgtRet]

Gary well said...!!! I looks like nobody else including the actuall people responsible for doing their jobs on the federal level. However, the local and state gobernments still need to stepup to the plate and give it a go.

Semper Fidelis