-
1
- #1
vooter
Structural
- Dec 22, 2004
- 122
September 22, 2005
Faulty Levees
The official explanation for the collapse of some of the flood walls protecting New Orleans has been that Hurricane Katrina simply overwhelmed the system. But
reports yesterday in both The Washington Post and The New York Times suggested that Katrina might not have been as powerful as advertised and that the real
culprit was the system itself - flood walls so poorly constructed that they were easily breached.
This points a finger at either the Army Corps of Engineers, which oversaw the design and construction of the flood walls, or Congress, which appears to have
underfinanced the projects, or both.
Corps officials have said all along that the system was not designed to protect the city from hurricanes larger than Category 3, and corps spokesmen continue to
insist that Katrina was a Category 4 hurricane when it hit the Gulf Coast. But federal meteorologists now say that New Orleans did not get the full brunt of the
storm, whose strongest winds passed dozens of miles east of the city. What's more, sustained winds over Lake Ponchartrain reached only 95 miles per hour, even
less than the winds of 111 to 130 miles per hour in a Category 3 storm.
Other research, meanwhile, has turned up serious weaknesses in the thinner and less stable flood walls built along the city's canal system beginning in the 1960's.
The failure of these walls - particularly along 17th Street and London Avenue - led to much of the devastation.
Here again the research seems to contradict the official version, which is that extraordinary surges reached the top of or even "overtopped" the flood walls,
causing some sections to collapse. Yet Louisiana State University researchers doubt the water ever got that high. Even if it had, they argue, it would have been
contained by properly constructed flood walls - essentially concrete slabs that resemble the sound barriers found beside highways.
A detailed analysis of the storm and of the city's defenses will take months. It is not clear, for instance, whether the flood walls' weaknesses were the result of
faulty engineering and shoddy workmanship on the corps' part or whether they resulted from Congress's unwillingness over the years to provide enough money
and leadership to do the job properly. What is clear is that whatever investigation Congress undertakes, either on its own or with outside counsel, it must meet
high standards of diligence and spare no one, including those in Congress.
Faulty Levees
The official explanation for the collapse of some of the flood walls protecting New Orleans has been that Hurricane Katrina simply overwhelmed the system. But
reports yesterday in both The Washington Post and The New York Times suggested that Katrina might not have been as powerful as advertised and that the real
culprit was the system itself - flood walls so poorly constructed that they were easily breached.
This points a finger at either the Army Corps of Engineers, which oversaw the design and construction of the flood walls, or Congress, which appears to have
underfinanced the projects, or both.
Corps officials have said all along that the system was not designed to protect the city from hurricanes larger than Category 3, and corps spokesmen continue to
insist that Katrina was a Category 4 hurricane when it hit the Gulf Coast. But federal meteorologists now say that New Orleans did not get the full brunt of the
storm, whose strongest winds passed dozens of miles east of the city. What's more, sustained winds over Lake Ponchartrain reached only 95 miles per hour, even
less than the winds of 111 to 130 miles per hour in a Category 3 storm.
Other research, meanwhile, has turned up serious weaknesses in the thinner and less stable flood walls built along the city's canal system beginning in the 1960's.
The failure of these walls - particularly along 17th Street and London Avenue - led to much of the devastation.
Here again the research seems to contradict the official version, which is that extraordinary surges reached the top of or even "overtopped" the flood walls,
causing some sections to collapse. Yet Louisiana State University researchers doubt the water ever got that high. Even if it had, they argue, it would have been
contained by properly constructed flood walls - essentially concrete slabs that resemble the sound barriers found beside highways.
A detailed analysis of the storm and of the city's defenses will take months. It is not clear, for instance, whether the flood walls' weaknesses were the result of
faulty engineering and shoddy workmanship on the corps' part or whether they resulted from Congress's unwillingness over the years to provide enough money
and leadership to do the job properly. What is clear is that whatever investigation Congress undertakes, either on its own or with outside counsel, it must meet
high standards of diligence and spare no one, including those in Congress.