Engineers Point to Flaws in Flood Walls' Design as Probable Cause of C 1

[eric1037]

Very interesting article on possible design issues for levies in NO.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/24/national/nationalspecial/24levee.html?pagewanted=print

 

[dgillette]

The Times said:

"Yet in building the wall, corps officials acknowledge, they did not drive the steel pilings - the main anchors for the structure - any deeper than 17 feet.

This isn't quite right. The steel in question was actually sheet pile cutoffs, rather than "anchors." The Washington Post's interviews with members of the NSF investigation team referred to sheet piles that didn't cut off the seepage in the peat when the canal prism was cut deeper than the sheet piles.

The Times isn't ENR or the ASCE JGGE.