Jun 01 2006
NO Levees Failed Due To Natural Causes
A little known fact is that the tip of Louisiana is sinking into the Gulf of Mexico. Has been for decades if not longer. Some if it has been accelerated by development – much of it attributed to the dikes erected all along the Mississippi River to control flooding. When we stopped the flooding of the River (back in the 1800’s and 1900’s) we seriously reduced the amount of sendiment that washed out into the Louisianna delta. The delta retained itself by rebuilding with the silt.
After a hundred years or so the lack of silt has caused New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana to slowly sink. Again, this is not new and has been known for years (as I reported here back in August 2005). What is new is recent satellite data shows that the New Orleans levees had been in areas sinking much faster than realized, and it was this sinking that made the TOO LOW to stop a breach:
For example, the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, built more than three decades ago, has sunk by more than 3 feet since its construction, Dixon said, explaining why water poured over the levee and part of it failed.
“The people in St. Bernard got wiped out because the levee was too low,” said co-author Roy Dokka, director of the Louisiana Spatial Center at Louisiana State University. “It’s as simple as that.”
The subsidence “is making the land more vulnerable; it’s also screwed up our ability to figure out where the land is,” Dokka said. And it means some evacuation roads, hospitals and shelters are further below sea level than emergency planners thought.
Will this be reported by the finger pointing media? Don’t count on it. Until they can figure out how to blame Bush for this it will go unreported.
"New Orleans Sinking Faster Than Thought"…
From Breitbart / AP: Everyone has known New Orleans is a sinking city. Now new research suggests parts of the city are sinking even faster than many scientists imagined _ more than an inch a year. That may explain some of the levee failures during Hurr…
AJ —
It’s not fair to say that NO levees failed due to “natural causes” as if that were in opposition to human failure. There were numerous design failures and failures to adjust to the surrounding environment (“natural causes”), and those human failures are the ones people are concerned about. The Corps of Engineers has just today released their study (provisionally final) Study. The NYT has a piece on it and the study is downloadable from the Corps. Reading thru the executive summary, remarks are made on your subsidence point, for example. (Parenthetically, I don’t know how much new news is envolved here; “final” report or otherwise, I think the subsidence issue has been reasonably well known for some time, tho perhaps not just how much a role that played in the levee failures)
Re: people blaming Bush, I don’t think most people blamed Bush/the Administration w/ respect to Katrina, for the flooding itself (I know that there were outlandish complaints out there, some even from folks who should easily have known better; I’m taking about “most”, tho (indeed, I hazard, not simply “most” but “the overwhelming majority”). Rather, what so many people found so lacking in Bush/the Adminsitration was in its preparations for that particular storm, and the response of the Federal Govt to the storm in the days immediately following, particularly.
— Regards
AJ– Katrina has become a monster that will not die. The media loves it, for it provides innumerable victims. Loads of fodder for bashing.
My folks missed most of the bashing immediately after the disaster. We were part of it. Of course, when we did emerge into communication again, we found a media firestorm that not only had not helped us, but failed to match in any way our story. The media simply used the hurricane victims for its own purposes. It politicized a disaster, which–as one local wrote–is despicable.
Now, after innumerable Congressional posturing; media specials; the Weather Channel leading a parade of hurricane readiness scares, the truth is farther away than ever. We are living with the Katrina Lie.
Just a few points:
One acquaintance who grew up in Louisiana reports that corruption is a way of life there and has not, cannot change. Somehow the MSM has not been inclined to muckrake these facts.
The NWS has constructed a scenario in which it was Paul Revere and no one listened to its warnings. Not so. Most of those in the area near my folks, and south of them, received incomplete, incoherent NWS information about the storm until almost the last minute. The NWS was at the mercy of the storm as much as everyone else.
My wife’s cousin worked from the first with parts of the White House staff (VP’s office) in the Alabama part of the storm; and, although he reports FEMA was a tremendous handicap, the White House support was not.
Trudi Rubin? of the Philadelphia Inquirer used the storm to beat upon America and Americans, calling us, as I remember, a ‘failed country.’ Evil grandstanding in a time of national need, as was most of the bashing.
Actually, our community worked together without rancor to survive. No sign of anything among peoples of all ages, incomes, races, backgrounds, except the best of what America is. We received support from every part of America–from Vermont to Oregon. It was the little people who meant the most. They with their churches were first to reach us. And they are still here. God bless them, our country, and who we are as a people.
Which is the real story of Katrina.
Trudi–along with all the MSM who made lucre off suffering–should be humbled and banished. They should pick a part of the world that is failed and needs their leadership.
Finally, the best evaluation of New Orleans (not where we were) and what happened comes below. I recommend RJ Neuhaus’ summary. We are not God, nor is the Federal Government, and it behooves us to remember that.
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0511/opinion/neuhaus.html