The "BigUneasy", a different view of New Orleans

[Region Rat]

No I don't have a clue about levees. I was born yesterday.

That's good to know. Because the way you are arguing, one would think that you agreed with the fact that a corrupt and incompetent COE went ahead building levee's willy nilly, knowing a century in advance that the barrier wetlands would disappear and the city would be threatened by a large hurricane, all for their financial gain. Oh, and to flush the undesireables out of the city. Yea, that one too.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

That's good to know. Because the way you are arguing, one would think that you agreed with the fact that a corrupt and incompetent COE went ahead building levee's willy nilly, knowing a century in advance that the barrier wetlands would disappear and the city would be threatened by a large hurricane, all for their financial gain. Oh, and to flush the undesireables out of the city. Yea, that one too.

See, this is the problem with discussing an issue with people who are not informed about the specific issue. You are generalizing about levees and river flood control with no consideration for the actual problem which was significantly exaggerated in New Orleans by both under building the levees ignoring the science completely and just arbitrarily stating only smaller hurricanes would ever hit the city, and, building the MrGo canal which was a fiasco on several levels including its contribution to the system wide levee failure. In addition despite the fact levees are needed for flood control and dredging is needed on a major waterway, that didn't mean the loss of the wetlands should have just been ignored.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

See, this is the problem with discussing an issue with people who are not informed about the specific issue.

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

.... Well, this thread is going nowhere quick.

Can someone link me to a good overview that isn't this documentary?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

A government agency is corrupt and inept ?

Surprise, surprise, surprise ! </gomer pyle voice>

 

[rwguinn]

That's good to know. Because the way you are arguing, one would think that you agreed with the fact that a corrupt and incompetent COE went ahead building levee's willy nilly, knowing a century in advance that the barrier wetlands would disappear and the city would be threatened by a large hurricane, all for their financial gain. Oh, and to flush the undesireables out of the city. Yea, that one too.

When they started the levees, dirt design was pretty primitive, but effective-look how many earth dams still stand.
I would think, at the time, a Cat 3 hurricane was considered defensible, Cat 4 and up, not worth the added expense and effort--not to mention the uncertainty of whether it would even work. They figured rebuilding was cheaper, and people would go to higher ground-there were a lot less of them there, at that time.
Hind sight is wonderful, but people forget-technology was at a pretty basic level and we didn't have weather sats and such back then...

 

[Metullus]

See, this is the problem with discussing an issue with people who are not informed about the specific issue.

Irony.

You are generalizing about levees and river flood control with no consideration for the actual problem which was significantly exaggerated in New Orleans by both under building the levees ignoring the science completely and just arbitrarily stating only smaller hurricanes would ever hit the city, and, building the MrGo canal which was a fiasco on several levels including its contribution to the system wide levee failure. In addition despite the fact levees are needed for flood control and dredging is needed on a major waterway, that didn't mean the loss of the wetlands should have just been ignored.

New Orleans is a city below sea level; there is no level of protection that will guarantee its integrity. I do not know where the idea that the COE or anyone else "just arbitrarily stat[ed] only smaller hurricanes would ever hit the city", that is certainly not what conventional wisdom was - far from it. New Orleans and the Gulf Coast remembered Camille & Betsy; we knew that it was only a matter of time before a major storm came upriver. And we knew that such an eventuality would be catastrophic. This is why storm tracking was a regional pastime, this is why many of us were not at all shy about evacuating in the face of even much smaller storms. This is why even new-comers knew the significance of the names "Betsy" and "Camille."

The planning was not that a big storm would not hit, only that few people were willing to undertake the expense and inconvenience of upgrading the existing system. The levees were hardly under built - they simply were not adequate for a storm beyond their capacity. Someday the River levees will be topped, too. It will happen, we just do not know when. Which system should have priority when we retrofit? Better to ask why it was that people were allowed to build in the lower, more vulnerable areas such as the 9th ward. Ask why so many folks did not bother to obtain flood insurance even though their homes were backed up on canals that ran higher than the roofs of there houses. Ask why people got so complacent that they refused to evacuate even when it was all but certain that a large storm was heading their way.

Why not just remove the Old River Control Structure and let the river flow where it wants to go - through the Atchafalaya - thus killing two birds with one stone: reducing the threat to NO and saving the wetlands. It is, after all, yet another product of the COE...

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

.... Well, this thread is going nowhere quick.

Can someone link me to a good overview that isn't this documentary?

Here's a starting point. I'll see if I can dredge up the court ruling.

Army Corps liable for Katrina damage, US court finds

November 19, 2009

... a federal judge ruled late Wednesday that the Army Corps of Engineers – and thus the US government – is liable for a big chunk of the damage caused when hurricane Katrina pushed ashore on Aug. 29, 2005.

The landmark ruling awards $719,000 to four plaintiffs from the city's Lower Ninth Ward and neighboring St. Bernard Parish who filed suit in 2006. The only such liability suit to actually reach a courtroom, the so-called "Mr. Go" ruling (after a shipping channel in the area) opens the floodgates for a raft of new litigation from as many as 100,000 other residents.

More important, the ruling – which called the Army Corps "myopic" in its maintenance of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet canal (aka Mr. Go) – now puts pressure on President Obama to help the region settle claims that could reach into the billions of dollars. (Without a court judgment, the Bush administration had refused calls for a settlement.)

At the beginning of the trial this summer, US District Court Judge Stanwood Duval asked, "You all know what this is about: ... What did the Corps know, when did it know it, and when should it have known?"

He answered in a 158-page ruling late Wednesday.

"It is the court's opinion that the negligence of the corps, in this instance by failing to maintain the MR-GO properly, was not policy, but insouciance, myopia, and shortsightedness," he wrote.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Irony.

Great minds think alike.

 

[Alareth]

New Orleans and the Gulf Coast remembered Camille & Betsy

I grew up in Gulfport and you could still see signs of the damage Camille wrought decades later.

The biggest problem the Gulf Coast has when it comes to hurricanes has been the deforestation and construction on the barrier islands making them unable to live up to the barrier part of their names.

 

[Travis]

As always you get what you paid for. For decades the Corps Of Engineers wanted to rebuild the levees and were told that it was a waste of money. They also wanted to rebuild levees in California and were also told that was a waste. Of course minds change after the "hypothetical" disaster becomes an actual disaster.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

As always you get what you paid for. For decades the Corps Of Engineers wanted to rebuild the levees and were told that it was a waste of money. They also wanted to rebuild levees in California and were also told that was a waste. Of course minds change after the "hypothetical" disaster becomes an actual disaster.

The documentary pointed out this is a fallacy. The corp not only got the money it requested, (more was apparently not requested), but there was tremendous waste in the decision to build the MrGo canal. By the time the canal was finished, most ships were too large to go through it. In addition, the sides of the canal were never stable requiring repeated dredging that allowed more and more tidal salt water to encroach, further killing the flora, leading to further unstable sides, more slumping and on and on it went.

This link has a diagram of the MrGo canal issues I noted here. It also has a link to the court ruling outlining why the flooding was due to the corp's negligence and not simply because the city was built partially below sea level.


Case 2:05-cv-04182-SRD-JCW
Document 3415
Filed 03/15/2007
Page 1 of 41

 

[Alareth]

As always you get what you paid for. For decades the Corps Of Engineers wanted to rebuild the levees and were told that it was a waste of money. They also wanted to rebuild levees in California and were also told that was a waste. Of course minds change after the "hypothetical" disaster becomes an actual disaster.

Reminds me of an example. Back in the 90's in Florida the National Forest Service made several attempts to do controlled burns in an area near Daytona Beach to clear out underbrush and make them less of a fire hazard.

Every time the locals threw a fit about not wanting to suffer the inconvenience of the smoke.

These areas became overgrown and in '97 when the entire state turned into a tinderbox from a drought, uncontrollable fires raced through these areas and into these same communities destroying houses.

When it was all over these people pointed at the NFS and said how could you let this happen? Why didn't you do anything to prevent this? It's all your fault!

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

A one sided documentary saying the villains were wrong? TELL ME MORE.

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

also, mind linking me to how the judge determined they were at fault?

That is seriously just a listing of them at fault and no reason why.

CORRECTION: Found it in later pages.

 

[Alareth]

The documentary pointed out this is a fallacy. The corp not only got the money it requested, (more was apparently not requested), but there was tremendous waste in the decision to build the MrGo canal. By the time the canal was finished, most ships were too large to go through it. In addition, the sides of the canal were never stable requiring repeated dredging that allowed more and more tidal salt water to encroach, further killing the flora, leading to further unstable sides, more slumping and on and on it went.

This link has a diagram of the MrGo canal issues I noted here. It also has a link to the court ruling outlining why the flooding was due to the corp's negligence and not simply because the city was built partially below sea level.


Case 2:05-cv-04182-SRD-JCW
Document 3415
Filed 03/15/2007
Page 1 of 41

I don't think you'll find many people who will defend MRGO or claim it wasn't a colossally bad idea but the COE didn't just build it on a whim, they were directed to build it by Congress.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

A one sided documentary saying the villains were wrong? TELL ME MORE.

Do you have evidence the documentary presented the case falsely?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I don't think you'll find many people who will defend MRGO or claim it wasn't a colossally bad idea but the COE didn't just build it on a whim, they were directed to build it by Congress.

The documentary did not confine all the blame to the COE. Many political decisions were also involved. The main gist of the COE criticism was specifically that the Corp's decision making shifted over time out of the hands of the engineers and scientists and into the hands of the project managers. The project managers ignored the science. And when reports and plans were inconsistent with the science, the science was just changed and that's where the engineers and scientists just went along.

After Katrina, the scientists and engineers who told the truth in their reports were punished. One lost his job, one was given a dead end position and so on. The engineers and scientists responsible for things like the report which said there was nil chance of a category >3 hurricane hitting NO, were never held accountable.

This is a classic case of the politics overriding science. It is a repeating problem and one that is of interest to the skeptical community. In addition there are the scientists and engineers who didn't stand up to the political decisions makers. There are many reasons a person doesn't question authority even when the person should. Some reasons are selfish. Some reasons are part of human nature not to go against the flow.

 

[Metullus]

The documentary did not confine all the blame to the COE. Many political decisions were also involved. The main gist of the COE criticism was specifically that the Corp's decision making shifted over time out of the hands of the engineers and scientists and into the hands of the project managers. The project managers ignored the science. And when reports and plans were inconsistent with the science, the science was just changed and that's where the engineers and scientists just went along.

After Katrina, the scientists and engineers who told the truth in their reports were punished. One lost his job, one was given a dead end position and so on. The engineers and scientists responsible for things like the report which said there was nil chance of a category >3 hurricane hitting NO, were never held accountable.

This is a classic case of the politics overriding science. It is a repeating problem and one that is of interest to the skeptical community. In addition there are the scientists and engineers who didn't stand up to the political decisions makers. There are many reasons a person doesn't question authority even when the person should. Some reasons are selfish. Some reasons are part of human nature not to go against the flow.

I am curious. What do you understand the role of the Project Manager is? You are quick to say that the Project Managers are at fault and that they ignore the engineers and scientists so I must assume that you have a clear idea of the role they all play in the process.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I am curious. What do you understand the role of the Project Manager is? You are quick to say that the Project Managers are at fault and that they ignore the engineers and scientists so I must assume that you have a clear idea of the role they all play in the process.

Are you a project manager?

The impression the documentary gave of the COE's project managers were people who knew how to manage, but not how to engineer. In other words, a group or project leader with management skills, but not an engineer or scientist with those skills. And if they were skilled engineers, then they were not interested in the scientific facts or evidence based reality.