Whoa. Everything I had seen and read years before Katrina was about the danger NOLA was in due to hurricane... did anyone sound the warning about the levees being in danger of collapsing under their own decay, and not due to hurricane-force winds?

I think you may be off the USACE Christmas card list by now.

But seriously, we have all heard time and again about the power of blogs to usurp the role of traditional news media. Unfortunately, most blogging consists of little more than linking to traditional media and the occasional "Heh, indeed" or intellectual equivalent.

By contrast, what you have here is some real investigative reporting. Watch out, Paul, you may just be helping give blogs a good name. Ok, probably not, but very nice work anyway.

Paul,
Did you see any evidence of a bomb because one of our fine black leaders said that's what caused it.

Wowwwww.....just wow. That really is damning evidence. Very enlightening indeed.

Paul,

Great post! The media will use the information if they think it could possibly damage an opponent, or be helpful to a candidate they support. Otherwise, the story is so last year to them!

Do you know if there was a high-tide at the same time Katrina came ashore?

A point in the pictures posted(the video link doesn't work for me) that might of been missed. The housing around the area of the levee break didn't look hardly damaged by winds before or after the break. More proof of Katrina only being Cat 1.

Matt

i think you meant to say "sum total"

Excellent breakdown of the breakdown Paul. I learned quite a bit I didn't know already, especially the damning video evidence that is shown... That water was no where near "Overspilling" as they say.

little confused here, does this mean the govt. did blow up the levees? as alleged by the nutroots?

Great work, Paul. A few comments and observations:

1. Speculating on what actually triggered the collapse: I wonder how much rain had been dropped by the storm in the day or so prior, and where the water table levels were. Given that the existing leak probably created a local peak in the water table, possibly that and the rain just basically floated the base of the wall off of its foundation at that point.

2. My recollection from my own visits to N.O., and from relatives who used to visit there frequently (my dad sold his time-share there just a few months before Katrina), is that the local media was always harping about one levee or another being in imminent danger of collapse, going back to the '70s. Is this your impression? And if so, do you think that perhaps the crying-wolf media coverage desensitized everyone, including the local leaders, to the possibility of an actual collapse?

3. If Congress did allow the CoE to be sued, do you think it would do any good? After all, the funding for any settlement or judgement would still have to be approved by Congress. Do you think it would make a difference in how the money flows and what use it gets pot to, compared to the grants that Congress has already allocated?

Again, great job on putting the videos and other bits together.

In light of this fascinating evidence, I encourage any intrepid blogger in the Boston area to create video/photo evidence of the Boston 'Big Dig' tunnel before it collapses and floods during rush hour. It may prove invaluable some day ...

You mean this video I posted two months ago?

Not bad for an amateur.

My recollection from my own visits to N.O., and from relatives who used to visit there frequently (my dad sold his time-share there just a few months before Katrina), is that the local media was always harping about one levee or another being in imminent danger of collapse, going back to the '70s. Is this your impression?

Well, not really. I must admit that I paid far less attenion to levee stuff a year ago -- we all did. But having said that the big thing down here was always coastal restoration. And now more than ever it seems imperitive.

If Congress did allow the CoE to be sued, do you think it would do any good? After all, the funding for any settlement or judgement would still have to be approved by Congress. Do you think it would make a difference in how the money flows and what use it gets pot to, compared to the grants that Congress has already allocated?

BIG BIG BIG monster difference. basically the "real" money from the feds is only covering VERY limited uninsured losses.

If it were a suit then pain and suffering and punitive damages comes into the picture. That means that someone like me who lived in the next parish (county) could sue for big bucks. -- I'm not the suing type but I'd do it big time.

========

Jim, all of us had the video months ago. Laura has had it on her site for months. The difference is I knew what it meant the instant I saw it.

Okay, so I'm back on Monday for the promised revelation.

On reviewing your evidence, you have a case to make. But, I have a fundamental aversion to saying "the Corps caused the flood", and I think you are intentionally missing why so many people would profoundly disagree with that statement. The reason is that a statement like this seems to preclude the potential for other causes, and obscures the reality of the situation:

1) The city was constructed below sea level. Was that a Corps decision? NOLA? Greedy developers?

2) I believe that the private contractors who constructed the dikes (the Corps usually designs things then hires contractors to do construction) did not do what the design told them to do. Would this then be a design failure or a construction failure? I would assume that if private companies did the work, then they were local NOLA contractors. Were they?

3) The dike was leaking for a year before it broke? And NOLA did what exactly during that year? Whine to the Corps? Did they even do that much?

4) I seem to remember that NOLA is assigned the task of dike and canal maintenance. Also that these jobs were routinely handed out to political cronies. True?

5) And I suppose all funds provided to NOLA for for dikes was well spent, with no waste?

6) As you know, structures have design lifetimes. Beyond that, you're on your own. When were the dikes in question built?

So, before getting animated, hostile, sighing etc., why not spend some time investigating the real cause of the dike failure, and assigning at least some of the blame where it rightly belongs?

Finally, while I have never doubted your intelligence, I have previously doubted your engineering expertise. I apologize. However, you should be gravely concerned with the fact that your posts read as if you have no such expertise, at least to another engineer.

Let's see a good why tree analyses.

In light of Paul's stunning evidence, I'm so friggin' mad because it just magnifies government incompetence when it comes to the overwheleming neglect by local, state and national governments and agencies to repair necessary and dangerous and outdated structures such as the N.O. leeves.

In Seattle, we have a disaster in the making when it comes to our Alaska Way Viaduct—an inner city double-decker freeway that carries 110,000 cars a day and is routinely clogged with traffic. If anyone needs a reminder of why double decker freeways do not work along the earthquake-riddled west coast, I present the 1989 Cypress Freeway in Oakland, CA as evidence.

More chilling: The Viaduct is almost 2x as long as the Cypress and, since the 2001 6.8 Nisqually quake which badly damaged the Viaduct, there have been only minimal repairs made. Seismologists have repeatedly warned state and local governments that the Viaduct needs to be replaced, almost immediately. Even a temporary retrofit would help–thought very little.

But how have local and state governments responded? With...with...with dilly-dailying! They've even gone so far as to cater to nutty ideas like digging a 3-mile long underground tunnel that skirts the seawall. (Thank you Boston's "Big Dig" for "inspiring" Seattle's and Washington's civic leaders with that reckless idea.) Meanwhile, several seismologists are worried that as "little" as 5.0-5.5 quake, with any kind of sustained length, could bring the Viaduct down. It could all happen at any moment. And if it happens during the morning or afternoon rush hour? Forget it, it'll come close to 9/11 numbers.

The frustrating part? I've attend every major public meeting on the Viaduct and spoken to the Seattle City Council as a citizen and nothing. Not a peep. Not a "Dear God, we need to get this done..."

Meanwhile, time until our next quake just keeps ticking away...just as it was before with New Orleans and Katrina...

>1) The city was constructed below sea level. Was that a Corps decision? NOLA? Greedy developers?

Yes, that would be the greedy developers 300 years ago.

>2) I believe that the private contractors who constructed the dikes (the Corps usually designs things then hires contractors to do construction) did not do what the design told them to do.

Do you also belive in the tooth fairy and the easter bunny?

You see that's the problem. You make grand statements and you have no clue about which you speak.

If you had read the ipet report... That is if you knew what the ipet report was.. It SPECIFICALLY said there was no problem with the construction. It was the design that was flawed.

But in your brain it doens't matter what the facts are because "you believe" something.

If you knew what the hell you were talking about I'd have read point #3.. But the first 2 proved that not only are you ignorant but you don't let that slow you down.

Amazing.

I am sorry. The videos and pictures did not convince me of much. They were sketchy and taken from odd angles. Long walls tend to have high spots and low spots and the one side did look like it was near the top. Other side was too vague to really see.

The fact that the government did not know the exact moment the wall failed is not surprising. Also the definition of what is meant by the wall failing varies. A watermark on walls argument is a bit week too. I am not saying your conclusions are wrong only that your evidence did not convince me. It struck me as evidence produce by someone with a bias.

Paul,
Congratulations on some great work! Now let's start linking this all over the web like they did on the CBS news Rathergate story. This is citizen journalism at its best.

If you knew what the hell you were talking about I'd have read point #3.. But the first 2 proved that not only are you ignorant but you don't let that slow you down.

It is this sort of holier than thou, arrogant attitude that makes me suspect of everything you post. And while I find this information enlightening to a point, I find it hard to see past that arrogance and believe what you say.

And I know and have read the history of the discussions prior to this post.

>It is this sort of holier than thou, arrogant attitude that makes me suspect of everything you post. And while I find this information enlightening to a point, I find it hard to see past that arrogance and believe what you say.

Don't. Go get the ipet report and read it. Don't take my word for it.

Problem Solved

>I am sorry. The videos and pictures did not convince me of much.

Wayne - I hope that what Paul has presented here, although it didn't convince you, at least planted enough doubt for you to check into it further. All those older posts on the levee breaks are well worth reading, with a lot of good links to back up his assertions.

New Orleans was doomed with or without Katrina, we just didn't know it.

New Orleans was "doomed" the moment is was founded some 300+ years ago.

Yes, it is a man made disaster, but one decades and centuries in the making. And one that is not for the reasons you think. NOLA should have been abandoned long ago. There is simply no way anyone can fight the natural forces at work in the delta, in fact the efforts over the decades to fight them has only made the situation worse for the whole Mississippi delta. The levee systems and the Old River complex are exercises in futility designed to keep a doomed city alive just a wee bit longer.

You see, this is not the biggest disaster that will happen to NOLA. The Corps of Engineers freely admits that there is no way that they can continue to keep the Mississippi going down it's present channel to NOLA-that eventually the Old River complex will fail and the Mississippi will go where it has wanted to go for a long time, down the Atchafalaya. When it fails, and it will, the Mississippi will never go back down it's "current" channel to New Orleans and eventually NOLA will be located on a salt water estuary and eventually claimed by the sea, as all the other former deltas of the Mississippi have.

Want to look for someone to blame for all of this, go right ahead. But I am afraid that you will find that the people who are most to blame are those who have insisted that New Orleans be "kept alive" and not to let nature take her course. That blame goes a long way-from the US government to the state of Louisiana to the city of New Orleans to the citizens of Louisiana and New Orleans to all the party people who would show up by the millions for Mardi Gras. They all have been living in a fool's paradise.

There is an old expression which states "You can't fight Mother Nature", and in New Orleans case that happens to be quite true. I am sorry if what I have said hurts, but it is the fact of the matter. The sooner we all adjust to this simple fact the better off we will all be.