The "BigUneasy", a different view of New Orleans

[Metullus]

It's nitpick, not nit pik.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Another abandoned thread?

 

[Metullus]

Who'd have thunk it...

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

So to recap:

You still have not provided a report that says that a cat 3+ storm will never strike NO.

You still have provided no evidence that "science was ignored".

You still have provided no evidence of corruption at the COE as a cause of the debacle after Katrina.

You still have provided no evidence that COE Project Managers are at all at fault for Katrina.

Did I miss anything?

I was hoping we would have these answers by now. It's been 10 days.

 

[Metullus]

I was hoping we would have these answers by now. It's been 10 days.

I've been sitting by my phone...

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I've been sitting by my phone...

That sounds boring. I've been touring Iceland and didn't have any time for forum conversations for the last 2 weeks, incredible volcanic features and glacier fun. Walking within the continental rift was awesome. And the Zodiac boat cruising the foot of the huge glacier that calves off into a large lagoon, complete with seals basking on the bergs was a treat.


On the other hand, all you've been asking about was answered before I left as far as I can tell from reviewing the thread. There was clear evidence the COE changed the science in their reports to match the system they built. There's no COE report that says, OK, we'll build a weaker levee system but the history of hurricanes hitting this region suggests it will be inadequate.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

There was clear evidence the COE changed the science in their reports to match the system they built.

Great! Then you can post a link.

 

[Metullus]

On the other hand, all you've been asking about was answered before I left as far as I can tell from reviewing the thread. There was clear evidence the COE changed the science in their reports to match the system they built. There's no COE report that says, OK, we'll build a weaker levee system but the history of hurricanes hitting this region suggests it will be inadequate.

So, you can point out where you posted evidence of a report that says that a cat 3+ storm will never strike NO? Perhaps you can point me to it since I have not found such evidence presented in this thread.

And you can point out where you posted evidence that "science was ignored"? Excellent! Lets see it.

You can point out where you posted evidence of corruption at the COE as a cause of the debacle after Katrina? Great. Lets see it!

You can point out where you posted evidence that COE Project Managers are at fault for Katrina? Wow! Where dat?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

So, you can point out where you posted evidence of a report that says that a cat 3+ storm will never strike NO? Perhaps you can point me to it since I have not found such evidence presented in this thread.

And you can point out where you posted evidence that "science was ignored"? Excellent! Lets see it.

The fact the levees were only built for a cat. 3 or lower storm is not controversial. The fact the levees failed is evident. I can't believe you are actually trying to argue this is not a fact.

You can point out where you posted evidence of corruption at the COE as a cause of the debacle after Katrina? Great. Lets see it!

You can point out where you posted evidence that COE Project Managers are at fault for Katrina? Wow! Where dat?

I told you repeatedly that convincing evidence was presented in the documentary. If you are unable or have no desire to see the actual documentary, the evidence for the claims and reviews of the claims made by Shearer are easily found on the Net.

NPR story: Filmmaker Says Katrina No Natural Disaster

In this excerpt, Ivor van Heerden, the former deputy director of the LSU Hurricane Center, says the Corps made fundamental errors....

(Soundbite of film, "The Big Uneasy") Dr. IVOR VAN HEERDEN (Former Deputy Director, LSU Hurricane Center): There had obviously been no oversight of the Corps of Engineers in their operation. And as we dug deeper, we found clerical errors, we found misinterpretation of data, mis-scribing data - as we look from bridge to bridge. The kind of mistake at the London Avenue Bridge is what you learn about in second-year engineering.

[NPR interview of Shearer) "I have to say, Neal, none of this is what I think. I'm in the comedy business. I don't know what I think. But I went to the people who led these investigations. I went to a whistleblower who is inside the Corps of Engineers. I went to people who spent years and years looking at this stuff, and they are the people who tell this story."

(emphasis mine)

The court ruling I previously posted about was also brought up in the NPR interview. You keep saying no evidence has been posted in this thread while completely ignoring the court ruling:

After the disaster, a lawsuit was filed in district court against the Army Corps of Engineers. One of the people who appears in the documentary is Judge Stanwood Duval. He sits on the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Louisiana and issued a ruling last year that states that the Army Corps of Engineers was negligent in its prevention efforts.

Judge STANWOOD DUVAL (U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana): The Corps' lassitude and failure to fulfill its duties resulted in a catastrophic loss of human life and property in unprecedented proportions.

The Corps' negligence resulted in the wasting of millions of dollars in flood protection measures and billions of dollars in congressional outlays to help this region recover from such a catastrophe. By 1988, it knew that indeed all of the engineering blunders that it made now put the parish of St. Bernard at risk, despite the existence of a levee, which it had spent money to construct.

The Corps cannot mask these failures with the cloak of policy.

(again emphasis mine)

I believe I mentioned also something about:

Mr. SHEARER: Yes, we get into the story of the consequences for the two lead investigators and for the whistleblower.

The larger point, Neal, is that we bring out in the film is that there were negative career consequences, negative life consequences, for the people who basically looked into this, found what was wrong and stood up and told the public.

There were no negative career consequences for the people inside the Corps of Engineers who made these misjudgments, mistakes and who now are tasked with doing it all again better.

Democracy Now interview with Shearer: "The Big Uneasy"–In New Doc, Harry Shearer Makes the Case that Katrina Was an Unnatural Disaster

In my film is a whistleblower from the Army Corps of Engineers whose responsibility was to test and install the new pumps on those outfall canals, which are essential to keeping those canals at a safe water level defined by the Corps. She says unequivocally the pumps never passed their testing. They failed. They self-destructed. They were installed anyway. And they will not withstand a hurricane event.

Harry Shearer Sheds New Light on a Five-Year-Old Katrina

The mistakes made by the Corps of Engineers
In The Big Uneasy, Van Heerden, who the Times-Picayune says was eventually dismissed from LSU for prodding into the Corps, says “There would obviously be no oversight of the Corps of Engineers and their operations. As we dug deeper, we found clerical errors, misinterpretation of data, misscribing data, as we looked from breech to breech … In many locations, levees were built at ten feet when they should have been built at fourteen feet. They had new model data available to them from 1979 onwards that they ignored.”

The New Orleans paper, the Times-Picayune also reported extensively on the COE's choice to ignore the science.



Very short clip from the movie noting contractor complained to the COE but was ignored. Also on the link are 10 additional clips from the movie and the trailer.



Harry Shearer to Host Live Chat on My Damn Channel Friday, September 24 to Discuss His Documentary, The Big Uneasy The Big Uneasy Playing at IFC Center in New York and Laemmle Sunset 5 in Los Angeles through September 30

"People who've seen the film are almost always shocked by the depth of the problems the investigators and the whistleblower have uncovered," Shearer observes. "I'm clearly no expert -- except at funny voices and characters -- but I have absorbed a lot of what Doctors Bea and van Heerden, both excellent teachers, have learned, and I can certainly answer questions about the film, the process of making it, and the even more arduous process of getting it before the public, despite the best efforts of certain public radio networks." My Damn Channel Founder/CEO Rob Barnett says, "Harry has done an amazing job uncovering the truth about an event that most of us only understood emotionally until now.

The transcript should be out shortly if it isn't already.



This thread is about financial and or political influence on decisions to ignore inconvenient scientific evidence. This thread is not about me. The attempt here to change the subject to, "SG is making claims she cannot back up" is rather transparent, and frankly boring. If this topic were more obscure then maybe one could successfully detract from the thread topic and try to make the thread about me. A more valid approach would have been to criticize the claims in the documentary, not to try to change the thread focus to the straw man of my making claims based on personal knowledge.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

This thread is about financial and or political influence on decisions to ignore inconvenient scientific evidence.

What is new or earth shattering about that ?

Why would you expect the COE to build projects they were not funded for or authorized to do ?

Sounds like business as usual in the US of A ...

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

The fact the levees were only built for a cat. 3 or lower storm is not controversial. The fact the levees failed is evident. I can't believe you are actually trying to argue this is not a fact.

The levees only being built for a cat 3 hurricane <> "clear evidence the COE changed the science in their reports to match the system they built".

I can't believe you can't grasp this simple concept.

This thread is about financial and or political influence on decisions to ignore inconvenient scientific evidence. This thread is not about me. The attempt here to change the subject to, "SG is making claims she cannot back up" is rather transparent, and frankly boring. If this topic were more obscure then maybe one could successfully detract from the thread topic and try to make the thread about me. A more valid approach would have been to criticize the claims in the documentary, not to try to change the thread focus to the straw man of my making claims based on personal knowledge.

 

[Metullus]

The fact the levees were only built for a cat. 3 or lower storm is not controversial. The fact the levees failed is evident. I can't believe you are actually trying to argue this is not a fact.

I have never argued that the levees were designed for anything more than a cat 3 storm; neither have I argued that the levee did not fail. For you to suggest that I have is disingenuous.

You have repeatedly asserted as a fact that a report was issued by the COE that no storm greater than a cat 3 could ever strike NO. You also asserted that I could find said report in the court ruling. You have provided no such document and there is no such document in the court ruling. No amount of obfuscation on your part will change that. In fact you have made the comically absurd demand that I comment on this "report" without providing me any evidence that it even exits!

You have also repeatedly asserted as fact that "science was ignored". Yet you have not presented any evidence to support this. You have not shown an example of what science was ignored.

I told you repeatedly that convincing evidence was presented in the documentary. If you are unable or have no desire to see the actual documentary, the evidence for the claims and reviews of the claims made by Shearer are easily found on the Net.

NPR story: Filmmaker Says Katrina No Natural Disaster(emphasis mine)

Nice interview. Lots of opinion, most of which deals with difficulties with design and implementation issues post-Katrina. Some arm waving about mistakes, but no evidence that supports your claim.

The court ruling I previously posted about was also brought up in the NPR interview. You keep saying no evidence has been posted in this thread while completely ignoring the court ruling:

You said that the ruling included evidence of corruption and the report that states that a cat 3+ storm will never hit NO. Neither is true.

Democracy Now interview with Shearer: "The Big Uneasy"–In New Doc, Harry Shearer Makes the Case that Katrina Was an Unnatural Disaster

Again, where is the support for your assertions?

Harry Shearer Sheds New Light on a Five-Year-Old KatrinaThe New Orleans paper, the Times-Picayune also reported extensively on the COE's choice to ignore the science.

Again, where is the support for your assertions? Lots of opinion, but nothing about ignoring science, corruption, evils PMs, or any reports that state that there will be no cat 3+ storms.

Very short clip from the movie noting contractor complained to the COE but was ignored. Also on the link are 10 additional clips from the movie and the trailer.

Cool, something almost concrete. I cannot speak for the project specifically, but I can say this: there is nothing unusual with the kind of disagreement described. The mere fact that Pittman disagreed with the design criteria (after bid and award) does not mean that they were correct and the design wrong. The fact that the levee failed (if indeed it did) does not mean that Pittman was correct - we simply do not know. It might well be that the failure had nothing whatever to do with the concerns Pittman raised. We do not know what criteria was used by the COE to overrule Pittman. Finally, even if Pittman was correct and the design concern that they brought forth was implicated in the failure that merely supports an assertion of a design error and not corruption.

This thread is about financial and or political influence on decisions to ignore inconvenient scientific evidence.

Yup, and I am asking you for evidence in support of this. Evidence that has as yet not been placed before us.

This thread is not about me. The attempt here to change the subject to, "SG is making claims she cannot back up" is rather transparent, and frankly boring. If this topic were more obscure then maybe one could successfully detract from the thread topic and try to make the thread about me. A more valid approach would have been to criticize the claims in the documentary, not to try to change the thread focus to the straw man of my making claims based on personal knowledge.

So, we are to accept as revealed truth whatever you assert? You have mad it about you when you refuse to provide evidence, you lie about where one can find the evidence, and when you misrepresent the statements and opinions of others.

All I said in the beginning is that what you presented was inconsistent with my experience.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

What is new or earth shattering about that ?

Why would you expect the COE to build projects they were not funded for or authorized to do ?

Sounds like business as usual in the US of A ...

Did I say the topic was earth-shattering?

If you want to exclude all the topics where political and financial interests result in denial of inconvenient scientific evidence, you might as well close up the forum. So I'm not sure what your gripe is. If the topic doesn't interest you that the Katrina disaster was more the result of manmade events than natural ones, then don't post in the thread.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I have never argued that the levees were designed for anything more than a cat 3 storm; neither have I argued that the levee did not fail. For you to suggest that I have is disingenuous.

You have repeatedly asserted as a fact that a report was issued by the COE that no storm greater than a cat 3 could ever strike NO. You also asserted that I could find said report in the court ruling. You have provided no such document and there is no such document in the court ruling. No amount of obfuscation on your part will change that. In fact you have made the comically absurd demand that I comment on this "report" without providing me any evidence that it even exits!

You have also repeatedly asserted as fact that "science was ignored". Yet you have not presented any evidence to support this. You have not shown an example of what science was ignored.

Nice interview. Lots of opinion, most of which deals with difficulties with design and implementation issues post-Katrina. Some arm waving about mistakes, but no evidence that supports your claim.


You said that the ruling included evidence of corruption and the report that states that a cat 3+ storm will never hit NO. Neither is true.

Again, where is the support for your assertions?


Again, where is the support for your assertions? Lots of opinion, but nothing about ignoring science, corruption, evils PMs, or any reports that state that there will be no cat 3+ storms.

Cool, something almost concrete. I cannot speak for the project specifically, but I can say this: there is nothing unusual with the kind of disagreement described. The mere fact that Pittman disagreed with the design criteria (after bid and award) does not mean that they were correct and the design wrong. The fact that the levee failed (if indeed it did) does not mean that Pittman was correct - we simply do not know. It might well be that the failure had nothing whatever to do with the concerns Pittman raised. We do not know what criteria was used by the COE to overrule Pittman. Finally, even if Pittman was correct and the design concern that they brought forth was implicated in the failure that merely supports an assertion of a design error and not corruption.

Yup, and I am asking you for evidence in support of this. Evidence that has as yet not been placed before us.

So, we are to accept as revealed truth whatever you assert? You have mad it about you when you refuse to provide evidence, you lie about where one can find the evidence, and when you misrepresent the statements and opinions of others.

All I said in the beginning is that what you presented was inconsistent with my experience.

I take it you didn't read anything I cited and pretty much ignored my post. Not a surprise there.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Did I say the topic was earth-shattering?

If you want to exclude all the topics where political and financial interests result in denial of inconvenient scientific evidence, you might as well close up the forum. So I'm not sure what your gripe is. If the topic doesn't interest you that the Katrina disaster was more the result of manmade events than natural ones, then don't post in the thread.

It interests me that people who choose to live below sea level, in an area prone to Hurricanes, are trying to demonize the institutions that provided whatever mitigation was in fact available.

 

[Metullus]

I take it you didn't read anything I cited and pretty much ignored my post. Not a surprise there.

Huh? Did you even read my post?

I read every cite and watched the youtube video. I ignored nothing. I commented on every point you made.

Look, if you do not want to discuss your OP, then fine just say so.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It interests me that people who choose to live below sea level, in an area prone to Hurricanes, are trying to demonize the institutions that provided whatever mitigation was in fact available.

But the issue in this case is that the hurricane did not cause the flooding. The MrGo canal and the destruction of the protective wetlands because of Mississippi River dredging over the years caused the damage. In addition, the Army Corp of Engineers produced false reports about the science to support their decisions was dishonest.

You are griping about a separate issue: where people choose to live and who is responsible for natural disasters when those choices result in vulnerability. I agree with you on some bad choices. People who build in known regular flood plains shouldn't be bailed out every time the rivers they build by overflow their banks.

But one has to decide which disasters are to be insured by the US public as a whole (IE via taxes) and which should be insured by individuals. Do you also think anyone who lives in the path of hurricanes or tornados, or people who live in potential earthquake zones should also just be required to insure themselves?

The people in New Orleans had a reasonable expectation that the place they lived was protected by levees. They had a reasonable expectation the ACOE did a competent job designing and building those levees.

What area of the country do you live in? Are there any natural disaster potentials there? Do you carry insurance for those potential disasters?

I'm having a hard time finding any major metropolitan area in the US that doesn't have some risk of floods, hurricanes, tornados and/or earthquakes. Why single out people who live below sea level?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

The people in New Orleans had a reasonable expectation that the place they lived was protected by levees. They had a reasonable expectation the ACOE did a competent job designing and building those levees..

What information did they have on which to base those expectations.

Do you think they may have made assumptions based on the idea that the guvm'nt was going to take care of them ?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Huh? Did you even read my post?

I read every cite and watched the youtube video. I ignored nothing. I commented on every point you made.

Look, if you do not want to discuss your OP, then fine just say so.

You have repeatedly asserted as a fact that a report was issued by the COE that no storm greater than a cat 3 could ever strike NO. You also asserted that I could find said report in the court ruling. You have provided no such document and there is no such document in the court ruling. No amount of obfuscation on your part will change that. In fact you have made the comically absurd demand that I comment on this "report" without providing me any evidence that it even exits!

You have also repeatedly asserted as fact that "science was ignored". Yet you have not presented any evidence to support this. You have not shown an example of what science was ignored.

When you quit making the discussion about what I have or have not cited, documented, or posted to your satisfaction, and instead discuss the issues which are supported in the documentary, I'll be happy to carry on a discussion with you.

As for claiming I have not supported my assertions, the discussion is about the assertions made in the documentary. And not only have those been supported, I've also posted references which describe how those assertions were supported.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

What information did they have on which to base those expectations.

Do you think they may have made assumptions based on the idea that the guvm'nt was going to take care of them ?

Care to actually look at the core issue of the film?

The MrGo canal, the mistakes made in the foundation soil support of the levees and the destruction of the wetlands caused the flooding, not Katrina.

Previously posted:

After the disaster, a lawsuit was filed in district court against the Army Corps of Engineers. One of the people who appears in the documentary is Judge Stanwood Duval. He sits on the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Louisiana and issued a ruling last year that states that the Army Corps of Engineers was negligent in its prevention efforts....

...The Corps' negligence resulted in the wasting of millions of dollars in flood protection measures and billions of dollars in congressional outlays to help this region recover from such a catastrophe. By 1988, it knew that indeed all of the engineering blunders that it made now put the parish of St. Bernard at risk, despite the existence of a levee, which it had spent money to construct.

I also see you ignored my question, why is building in this particular hazardous area any worse than building in an area at risk for other kinds of floods, hurricanes, tornados and/or earthquakes?