Katrina, 5 years later: still no global warming connection

Well done for your consistency and doggedness in holding warmist feet to the fire!

You live in a bowl, you swim in a bowl.

Keith W., I’m not sure where you’re getting your information. While there may be some room to argue that the incompetence of local levee boards contributed to the catastrophe in New Orleans, the bulk of the responsibility has been shown to be with the Corps and its contractors. The levees which failed had not been built to spec, and inspection and maintenance had been woeful. Those levees were primarly on the outflow canals through which rainwater is pumped out of the city into the lake. They were not the levees that directly protect the city from Lake Ponchatrain’s water. Moreover, the Corp’s constuction of the MR GO, and its failure to properly maintain that fools errand of a waterway, greatly enhanced Katrina’s surge into the city, and especially St. Bernard Parish. And, to say that Katrina had nothing to do with the flooding, although a meme here in New Orleans, is of course untrue on its face. Even though the so-called experts insist Katrina was a Cat 2 at New Orleans, I find that hard to believe to this day. In Slidell and on the Mississippi Gulf Coast Katrina did far more damage then 1969’s Hurricane Camille, a documented Cat 5 at its landfall. My wife’s house in Pass Christian, which survived Camille, was but a slab after Katrina. The wind damage in New Orleans from Katrina rivaled that from Cat 3 Betsy in 1965, a storm which made a more or less direct hit on The Crescent City. Experts notwithstanding, Katrina was a vicious storm here in the Big Easy, and one which brought powerful forces to bear on the city’s flood protection system. I tend to believe that even if the Corps had done its job properly, some flooding would have occurred in the city, albeit nothing like what actually happened.

Physics deniers. Living below sea level is risky.
I still remember my surprise at the president telling them to evacuate.

In related news, Al Gore has dropped the [hurricane frequency] related slide in his traveling PowerPoint show. – Anthony

Gore is merely updating his portfolio of Fear, discarding broken weapons.
He’s still at it with his mantra of clearcutting civilization and personal freedom as the only solution.

The Katrina disaster was anthropogenic, all right, but had nothing to do with CO2.
First, the government encouraged hundreds of thousands of people to live below sea level behind a level 3 levee.
And second, since the 1920s the US Army Corps of Engineers has been diverting the Mississippi silt out to sea rather than allowing it to form a natural delta to the east and west of NO.
The country needs a deep water port with a big labor force at the mouth of the Missippippi, but it doesn’t have to be at the historic NO. The logical thing to do in 2005 would have been to designate a new main channel for the Mississippi to the E or W of the old channel, and then to build a port of Newer Orleans on it, above sea level. A downsized historic NO would then be retained as a cultural and educational center.
But no, the government continues to encourage hundreds of thousands to live below sea level behind dubious levees, and to channel the Mississippi mud far out to sea.
Deja vu all over again…

The effects of Katrina on New Orleans could arguably have been predictable and certainly should have come as no surprise to public officials. 40 years before what was then the nations 1st billion dollar hurricane caused eerily similar effects on New Orleans and the response had similarities: The 9th ward flooded after the flood wall failed and people drowned in their attics, charges were made that the levees were purposely destroyed and the president had to be convinced with political reasoning to visit the devastated city. In 1998, there was a fiasco at the Superdome similar to that that happened in 2005. It is remarkable that no one even seemed to suspect that what happened before could happen again. Of course, the media remains ignorant to this day. It was not global warming…it happened before and some day will probably happen again. See link http://wp.me/pduTk-2UO

symonsez says:
August 29, 2010 at 3:43 pm
The effects of Katrina on New Orleans could arguably have been predictable and certainly should have come as no surprise to public officials.

It was predicted, and was widely known in the emergency management community for decades. I recall New Orleans being discussed in emergency management conferences in the late 1980’s as an example of a city that was living on borrowed time.
It was not a question of “if a Katrina like disaster would happen in New Orleans” but a quest of “when a Katrina like disaster would happen in New Orleans.
The topography of the coast and the city made this disaster (ie major hurricane related flooding) inevitable. The only question was what the specific failure would be that would cause the flooding (storm surge, levee failure, or pumping failure) and would the local authorities plan effectively for the obvious consequences of those likely modes of failure, and respond according to that plan in a timely manner so that the citizens could get out of the basin before the storm induced flooding overwhelmed the pumping capacity that keeps New Orleans dry in a storm.
Larry

Hurricane Katrina was more about a failure of the Army Corps of Engineers than it was a fierce, massive (insert adjective) storm. No doubt Katrina was a major hurricane, but she was a CAT-3 when she hit NOLA. But there were other storms that were just as windy and dumped just as much rain on NOLA, but the pumps designed to remove the flood water from the city worked in those cases. Theoretically the levees surrounding the city were designed to withstand a CAT-3 hurricane.
The biggest problem that Katrina posed was she did not strike the city with a direct blow. The Army Corps had fortified the levees on the Gulf of Mexico side of the city excepting a direct hit, but they pretty much ignored the levees on the Lake Pontchartrain side. These levees had sunk about 1 metre since they were built in the 1960’s until 2005, since as we all know; NOLA is sinking about an centimetre every year.
Unfortunately, because of the track that Katrina took to the east of the city, the return flow from the storm in the northeast quadrant cause a high storm surge on Lake Ponchartrain, breaching the levees on the north side of the city, and finally causing them to fail. All the flood control in NOLA also failed simultaneously as it was overwhelmed by the flood waters.
You can watch a presentation titled “Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans: Subsidence Measurements from Space” here:
http://www.cspg.org/events/webcasts/2007-webcasts.cfm
In addition, this disaster was predicted in a 2001 article in Scientific American. It’s amazing how humans have the capacity to ignore patently obvious disasters that are just waiting to happen.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=drowning-new-orleans-hurricane-prediction
New Orleans is still sinking, thanks again to the Army Corps who have channelled all the sediment from the Mississippi river out to the Gulf of Mexico instead of allowing the river to flood over the delta to replenish the delta with sand, silt and mud allowing it to stay above sea level. They do this to preserve the deepest sea port in the United States and to try to save the city of New Orleans. But New Orleans will have to be abandoned eventually because the sinking is accelerating – not decreasing.
Additionally, geological history tells us that the Mississippi River has built 7 lobes of the entire Mississippi Delta in the past 4600 years. Including the current location. This occurs when the Mississippi River breeches its levees upstream (avulsion). It is reasonable that the Mississippi River will switch lobes and New Orleans will have a creek flowing through it. I think the Army Corps is in a fight with the river to prevent it from switching again, in the area of Baton Rouge. The current delta location will be abandoned because when humans get into a fight with Mother Nature, she always wins!
Today, President Obama announced he was going to help NOLA rebuild . I’m not arguing politics since George W. Bush also made the same promise, but it is a huge mistake to pump billions of dollars into the sinking city which will have to be abandoned one day anyway. When I was in NOLA in April, I stopped to look at how much the downtown area is BELOW the level of the surface of the Mississippi River. Even the Tragically Hip know that, “New Orleans is Sinking”

Hurricane Katrina and the associated flooding should have caused Americans to start the conversation at least about where the city of New Orleans will be relocated once the Gulf of Mexico swallows the current location. It’s not a matter of if.

Thanks to all of you who have provided me evidence of your consensus based on the settled science that we New Orleanians should abandon our heritage, architecture, music, cuisine, lifrstyles and over 300 years of history so as not to ever trouble you again. Help me out here, but haven’t I heard these settled science requires giving up our lifestyle arguments made by others on this blog? Oh, yeah, wait . . . . AGW supporters, that’s it.
Be sure when y’all finish getting rid of the all of us down on the bayou that you give the Dutch a call. And the people of Venice. And . . . . and . . . .

Phil Nizialek says:
August 29, 2010 at 6:45 pm
Thanks to all of you who have provided me evidence of your consensus based on the settled science that we New Orleanians should abandon our heritage, architecture, music, cuisine, lifrstyles and over 300 years of history so as not to ever trouble you again.
==========================================================
You’re too emotionally involved to see the situation from a rational viewpoint.

Sure, Tom. So long as none of my federal dollars are used to rebuild the Floriday Gulf Coast barrier island playgrounds after the next hurricane to follow Ivan’s path . Oh, or to rebuild Miami Beach when the next Andrew comes through.

Stanwilli says:
August 29, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Hurricane Katrina and the associated flooding should have caused Americans to start the conversation at least about where the city of New Orleans will be relocated once the Gulf of Mexico swallows the current location. It’s not a matter of if.
A big chunk of it relocated to Houston and San Antonio 5 years ago.

Have you ever considered, Scott, that maybe the irrational ones are those that advocate the abandonment of a 300 year old city? Should we abandon all the hurricane prone coasts? There have been destructive, devasting hurricanes in New England, Long Island, the Carolinas, Florida, and all up and down the Texas Coast. All these places have been rebuilt, often with federal dollars. All will absolutely suffer catastrophic damge in the future from hurricanes, yet I don’t hear you calling on the people there to abandon their homes. And how about all those who develop the shifting sands of barrier islands, don’t buy insurance, and insist that their homes and businesses be rebuilt after storms. Let’s get rid of them while we’re at it. Are those who insist on living in river floodplanes irrational as well? To the extent they think about it, they buy federally subsidized flood insurance to protect them when their federally built levees are overtopped or fail. I have no doubt the Missouri will flood far more often than hurricanes will hit New orleans. Why don’t we stop helping them as well? Make ’em move to high ground, i say! The feds spent billions rebuilding the Bay area after the ’89 earthquake. No doubt that will happen again, to devastating effect. Why not abandon San Francisco? Move that culture to less shakey ground, as you say. What’s the difference?

Tom in Florida says:
August 29, 2010 at 7:12 pm
Phil Nizialek says:{August 29, 2010 at 6:45 pm}
I have no objection to you keeping whatever you want, just stop asking me to pay for your folly 5 years later. Pay for it yourself.
=============================
Tom in Florida??
In Florida, Tom??
In Florida??
How many hurricane disasters have “we” paid for there??
Where is your American generosity??
What an ingrate!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

I see a lot of people discussing how NO should be moved or shouldn’t…but I think the largest factor is the Mississippi in the end. We know from history that it shifts and when it does, do we keep NO where it is? Or do we move NO to where the Mississippi moves to? It is a relevant question, is NO culture based on its actual location or its location where the Mississippi meets the Gulf?
I don’t care who you are, but fighting against a river the size of the Mississippi is foolhardy… And someday that decision will have to be made. It might be 100 years from now, when the city is 350 years old (?)…. but it is a question that will someday need to be answered.
As for moving the city, I am not sure what the issue with this is at all…
To me, a city is the culture of the people and if you move the people, the city stays the same, its just rebuilt. But I digress..

Chris and Phil,
Thank you for your replies. Obviously this is an emotional topic. My point is simply that habitable coast lands come and go with the tide.
The historical importance of an area doesn’t matter.
We need to get over the belief that the world needs to remain the way it was when we first discovered it as children. The world changes, that’s a fact.

Scott Ramsdell says:
August 29, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Chris and Phil,
Thank you for your replies. Obviously this is an emotional topic. My point is simply that habitable coast lands come and go with the tide.
=====================================
No.
It is not an “emotional” topic. Rather, it generates “emotion” because there are some real issues of truth and falsehood to be examined here.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

Scott Ramsdell says:
August 29, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Chris and Phil,
We need to get over the belief that the world needs to remain the way it was when we first discovered it as children. The world changes, that’s a fact.
===============================
Who here….[to use your words, not mine definitely!] “believes” that “the world needs to remain the way it was when we first discovered it as children.”????
Huh??? I certainly didn’t.
As a child, when I “discovered” the world, the shopping mall was in full swing.
I would be happier than a puppy with two peters [lol] if all shopping malls went away….that’s for dang sure!
And DUH double DUH….the world changes.
No one is saying it isn’t.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

Tom in florida, lol..sorry to go off topic, just had to respond to your flood insurance thing. I live in Nevada at an elevation of 5200 feet, my mortgage requires I get flood insurance which costs me 1000 a year. Supposedly, the valley I live in is subject to a 500 year flood. I paid good dollar to get my house surveyed, and it is over 5 feet above the “500 year flood” elevation, yet I still could not get out of the requirement. Even if I did flood, my carpets might get a little wet, but there would be a niagra falls of water taking out the entire city of reno before it could physically get higher than that.

Scott Ramsdell says:
August 29, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Chris and Phil,
I would ask you to consider how many of the sunken cities we’ve discovered need to be raised and returned to their former glory?
And then I would ask you what, other than time, differentiates those cities from our cities along coastal waters?
===============================
Are you talking about “Atlantis”???
Oh. OK. Gotcha.
Keep that up, bro.
You obviously have NO recon or intel about the geopolitical significance of coastal cities.
I would be interested to know….where you live!
Maybe that would explain the source of your bias??
Or is it just your ego??
That unique and fatal flaw in homo sapiens to NOT back down on an argument, even when they are wrong….and even when the longer they talk…the more ridiculous they sound.
Atlantis?? Please spare me. ROTF.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

Hurricanes are untamed beasts. And New Orleans could not survive a real one. oh Katrina was big. But during Iniki, the anemometer at Lihue, 20ft above sea level, failed at 130 mph. A mere hour into the event. At The Pacific Missile Range (about 1000 ft, Makaha Ridge), at 228mph. One hour, That is sustained winds over an hour or so. The hurricane lasted about 4 hours.
I saw one house literally disappear in seconds. It appeared to blow up.
In an after study, Fujita wondered that the mini-tornadoes may have generated winds in the F-4, F-5 range. Luckily these beasts are small in area.
The water mass was incredible. Easily going 400 yards inward, sometimes twice that distance, on an island that is steep, with masses of beach sand, rock, hard surfaces and serious slope intervening.
A city built on silt, under water, does not have a chance.
Sorry.

People have mentioned the Netherlands and Venice in the context of New Orleans. Please note that neither location, thankfully, is known for its hurricane risks.

savethesharks says:
August 29, 2010 at 9:48 pm
Are you talking about “Atlantis”???

Talk about cutting a strawman out of whole cloth (to murder the proverb…) but did you see “atlantis” mentioned even once?
Five minutes research can show you that there are many examples of submerged towns and cities around the world. The Black Sea is littered with them. Ancient Mycenaean Greece is surrounded by then. Hell there are even submerged towns around the coast of England. Dogger Bank is probably full o submerged settlements too, but nobody’s really checked so I can’t say for sure.
Your talk about “geopolitical significance” misses the point, I believe. The city isn’t the significant item. The river and the coast and the natural harbour formed there are what matters. Maintaining New Orleans may be important but it will be submerged one day. Man can only do so much against nature before nature inevitably wins, as teh inhabitants of Alexandria can attest only too well.
In fact Alexandria is a pretty good comparison. It thrived as a major port city, serving as a cultural centre to boot and was the single most important city in Egypt for hundreds of years. It had that “geopolitical significance” thing going for it. Then the canal silted up, half the city fell in to the Mediterranean and things sort of went downhill from there.
New Orleans serves a similar role, but its time is limited by two factors: the river will move one day, and the city will be overwhelmed by a natural disaster. It’s inevitable, when you have a city built so precariously, that it will be destroyed one day. And yes the same goes for LA and Phoenix and all those other cities that are built in precarious places.
The problem is that the maintenance of New Orleans increasingly doesn’t make sense. The city is sinking faster and further and the process of attempting to preserve it is only making things worse in the long-run. Pumping water out of the city is what is causing it to sink below sea level in the first place.
All cities sink. London is sinking all the time because of its location on what was once a tidal marsh and because water is constantly pumped out of the ground beneath it. Thing is, the city has been sinking for centuries. Originally it was built on aluvial loam but now, to steal from Pratchett, London is mostly built on London. You dig down and you find old buildings in the foundations.
Chicago is even more extreme. In order to mitigate the problem of floods in a city that was sinking in to the ground they did the only thing that seemed sensible at the time. The built everything a floor higher. They built new roads over the top of the old roads and filled everything in underneath. Ground floors became basements, first floors became ground floors. Houses were extended upwards. Now, a man with a map and a sledgehammer could probably make his way across the entire city without ever seeing daylight.
What makes New Orleans so special that it can’t engage in a little creative thinking to solve the problem? The levee system doesn’t work any more, that much is obvious. All the talk about corruption and “well they didn’t maintain it properly” doesn’t matter. They could be maintained perfectly but the city is still sinking, and it will continue sinking as long as the current thinking prevails. Abandon that. Build a giant platform on stilts, or mound up some hills or something. Anything’s better than letting it all sink and then expecting everyone else to protect it because of its “geopolitical importance”.

savethesharks says:
August 29, 2010 at 9:48 pm
….
Atlantis??

Not a bad nickname for the lower 9th ward!
Too bad it’s not still Greater Lake Pontchartrain …

Harry Shearer’s documentary, “The Big Uneasy”
comes out tonight, August 30. He interviews various
people about the levees. Should be interesting.

“”” Well Katrina was five years ago; and the water level has gone down to where the roads are dry again.
Maybe it is time for the people huddling inside their homes to venture out and go to work somewhere.
When the town of Valdez Alaska, was devastated by a major earthquake (was it a nine something) back around 1964; the people of the town just moved about three miles or so down the road, and built themselves another town. So far as I know; the president (Johnson) did not visit Valdez five years later to see if everybody got out of their home safely, and can make it to the polls in a couple of months to vote for him.
Katrina, and New Orleans are symbols of what is wrong with America today; everybody just sits on their duff waiting for somebody to come along and move them. How does that old cowboy song go about the “houndog” that is howlin’ cos it is sittin’ on a thorn; and it’s just too darn lazy to move over.
The new deeper swimming pool walls they are erecting around New Orleans; will simply ensure that the next big one will flood the place even deeper, and kill even more people; but it sure as hell is not going to stop any hurricane that wants to go on in there. It took the French to build a town below sea level at the end of a major river delta system. Americans shouldn’t compound the felony, by trying to rebuild the place in the same location.

Mr.George Smith,
Where do you get such ideas? Have you been here lately?

“”” Phil Nizialek says:
August 30, 2010 at 10:01 am
Mr.George Smith,
Where do you get such ideas? Have you been here lately? “””
Not sure what “ideas” you are referrring to; I generally don’t “get” ideas. I do see current “NEWS” bulletins; both from the national major TV networks; and other sources such as PBS on either TV or radio.
What I do recall from the actual event, was a news account of a local politician commandeering National Guard relief personnel and equipment, to take him on a special trip to his home so he could retrieve a bunch of cash that he had stashed in his refrigerator. There was no follow up report on how many stranded perons actually drowned while he was attending to his own critical needs.
The local Mayor, and the State of Louisiana Government were also instrumental in helping to deflect help from outside sources; that probably could have made things easier. Seems to me some teenager who figured he could drive a bus, had more common sense than the local government authorities.
And no I have never been there; and it is not on any list of places that I haven’t been to; or would want to go to. But if you like it there, then that is great; the whole idea of having different places, is so not everybody is in the same place.
I’m sure that at the time, there were plenty of people who may have suggested that Pompei, and Herculaneum were not such great places to be living, in the event of an eruption somewhere; but that didn’t stop people from living there (and dying).
If the news stories that we are getting contain strange “ideas”, perhaps you should contact the media, and tell them what is wrong with their reports.
I’m quite sure that I heard all weekend and also this morning, that the President would/did visit the city; and if everything down there is kosher as you seem to imply; then why would he go there; given that he is faced with a national collapsing economy with continual job losses; including all those jobs lost in Louisiana, because of his imperial edict on the cessation of offshore oil drilling.
If somehow I heard it wrong, and none of this happened; then I do apologise; but they are not my “ideas”.

What Phil Z and Chris said.
For those who really want to take a look at a full assessment of the cacophony of failures, read the report (linked below) headed by Robert Bea. There were failures at all levels of government, from local boards to federal.
One of the earliest dates from the 1960s, when the Corps wanted to build flood gates and pumping stations at the head of the outfall (drainage canals). A similar system was in place in adjacent Jefferson Parish (Metairie and Kenner) which did not flood from the storm surge (though there was some flooding, but that is a different story). This system prevents the storm surge from entering the canals and stressing the floodwalls that failed (17th Street and London canals), flooding the central part of New Orleans. Had these floodwalls held, there would have been little (if any) flooding near the Superdome as well as in the Mid City, Lakeview, and Gentilly neighborhoods (areas between the 17th Street and Industrial canals).
The original Corps plans for the flood gates and pumping stations was opposed by the New Orleans Water and Sewerage Board, responsible for pumping rain water into the outfall canals. They feared that the pumping stations, operated by the Levee Board, would not function during a storm. The boards could never come to an agreement, and under additional pressure from the city (the stations would be ugly) and environmental groups, the Corps dropped the plan and adopted the plan of raising the flood walls on the outfall canals.
The newly raised flood walls were completed in 1999, essentially modern structures. The construction of these structures is a lesson in how not to build anything.
To start with, the walls were designed with a Factor of Safety of 1.3. That is that they were built to be 30 % stronger than necessary. Compounding this, the survey of the underlying strata was insufficient to demarcate the variable underground layers. This was followed by the Corps averaging the values across the length of the survey in their design specifications. Since the walls need only fail at one point, this assumption combined with the low Factor of Safety (the 1.3 value was used historically for levees that protected agricultural land) to almost ensure failure at some point.
These mistakes might have been moot had the Corps used the data from a pilot study that built and tested the wall design on nearly identical foundation soils in the nearby Atchafalya basin. These test walls failed but the results were never incorporated into the built designs. Well when the experiment was repeated during Katrina, the walls failed in the same way (several feet below being overtopped).
As a Russian engineer said after I related the story, “Ah, we know this well, Potemkin Village!”
The final act has not been fully played out in court. Those flooded by the failure of the floodwalls cannot sue the government for negligence. However, the residents of New Orleans East, the Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish still have a suit active in federal court (last I looked). They have standing since the damage in these areas was exacerbated by the construction of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO, “Mista Geaux”) which was a commercial project by the Corps and not a flood control project.
Why am I still here? Too may reasons.
Later!
http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cenv_fac/32/
(A very large file)

LiamW says:
August 30, 2010 at 11:30 am
What Phil Z and Chris said.
There were failures at all levels of government, from local boards to federal.
======================================
Exactly! This is our bloated, inefficient, bureaucratic government in action.
It is a horrible, damnable even, shame that the USA with all its reasources, can’t even engineer a flood wall right.
Again…for those of you who oppose “your” tax dollars on fixing these problems….I will say again:
Direct your pressure to congress to end waste and pork spending, and concentrate on the only [ONLY] two things the federal government should ever have its greasy, greedy, bureaucratic hands in the taxpayer’s purse to fund:
INFRASTRUCTURE and DEFENSE.
You want to know why we risk catastrophic failure of our crumbling infrastructure??
Because there are taxpayer-funded Senators sitting on their fat asses in their swank offices with so many taxpayer-funded support staff, you would not believe.
And you know the rest…
Meanwhile….bridges fail, cities “sink”, and rusty electrical grids fry.
God help us all from another Carrington Event. You want to talk about a real disaster. That will make Katrina seem like childs play.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

Tom in Florida,
Explain to me how rebuilding the resorts of Destin and Pensacola Beach, both of which appear to be in Florida, makes more sense than rebuilding New Orleans. I guess it may have something to do with the cultural significance of the strip centers, tiki torch restaurants and miniature golf courses in those places.
By the way, one of the reasons some people in New Orleans didn’t have flood insurance when Katrina hit was because of the premium increases associated with Lily and Ivan. Who’s goring whose ox, my friend?

Interesting, Tim, but note that your account does not confirm George’s that Jefferson commandeered National Guard resources during the hurricane to retrieve his loot. That, of course never happened, and is one more example of the misinformation people like George rely on for their opinions. That being said, George’s story is an amalgamation of several seedy New Orleans stories. Some politician (I don’t recall who) did use NG resources to get stuff (I don’t remember what) out of his house during the storm. Jefferson did stash bribe $$$ in his freezer. The feds found it there, and it played a major role in his conviction. Interestingly, though, the money had nothing to do with corruption in New Orleans. In any case, the two stories are wholly unrelated. That’s not to say there hasn’t been a lot of corruption here. This place is far from perfect. I’m just not sure it’s so bad we need to bury it at sea.

Mr. George,
The freezer was in Virginia.
You have so many of the facts wrong, it is best that you read the report that I linked above. It is large (~650 pages). But, to really talk about decisions that we have to make down here, you need to be better informed. There are very few factually written MSM articles out there. I don’t have time to go over all of your misconceptions. I tried to give a brief summary of the actions of the Corps that led to the flooding. Finally, the pumps did not fail. The water through the floodwall breaches was about to swamp the electrically driven pumps and they were turned off. They would have been of no use anyway, since they pump the water into the outfall canals whose flood walls had breached.
Gotta run….

Phil Nizialek says:
August 30, 2010 at 9:39 am
Ah, Mr. Archonix, welcome to the debate. May I address a couple of your points?

You may, and your points are well taken sir.
Not been a mister for some time. It’s quite nice. 🙂
I was originally going to mention the old quarter of the city not flooding but I took that out, as I wasn’t actually sure on the point; I knew that parts of New Orleans had flooded and that it seemed counter-productive to keep pumping those areas out when the pumping itself was taking them further below sea-level.
What we have here is, I believe, a polarised debate. Neither side is willing to give ground to the other lest they be seen as losing face. Well I don’t mind losing face, as I’ve lost plenty of it over the years and have little left to bother with. The idea that the entire city should simply be moved is silly, and I wouldn’t think to suggest that but, on the other hand, the idea that it can be preserved in it’s present form in toto is also silly. There is no attempt at mitigation, merely the erection of barriers that reinforce a denial that things can ever change, when Katrina demonstrated quite amply the folly of denial and the equal folly of building residences on land that is below sea level in an area with historic propensity towards floods.
Were nature to take it’s course, New Orleans would become rather like Bruges, which was once a major port but is now entirely land-locked, yet still prospered after that. The “geopolitical importance” of the city mentioned elsewhere in the thread is not inherent to the actual city, as I pointed out; it is merely a function of the connection between river and sea. Zeebrugge now serves as the port that Bruges once was.
The city doesn’t have to move, you can just built another one further down.

Mr. George, I’m not sure where to start in responding to your latest post. Let’s begin, though, by my being clear that I didn’t accuse you of making up stories. Rather, I opined that your views about New Orleans and its people might have arisen from misinformation. Your latest post confirms my suspicions. Now, I’ll address your most recent points in order.
I don’t think accusing the Corps of negligence is “making up a story.” May I suggest you read LiamW’s post of 11:30 today, and peruse the attachment thereto. After you’ve done that, if you still think the Corps is blameless in the tragedy of August 29, 2005, I would be glad to address your reasons further.
The outflow canal levee failures had nothing to do with the failure of the pumping sysytem. It was, in large part the other way around. The pumps failed because they flooded from water entering the city after the levees breached. Don’t believe me. Read it for yourself. It’s all in the attachment to LiamW’s post.
I’m not sure to what “canal the city built through all this’ you are referring, so I’m having a hard time addressing this point. I’d appreciate a little more information on this one.
As for the politician with the money in his freezer, I merely pointed out to Tim that your version grouped together two unrelated stories into one Katrina myth. The freezer/fridge dichotomy is as unimportant to me as it is to you. As I said to Tim, a local politician did commandeer army resources to get to his home before others had access to the city. It may even have been the guy who later had bribe money in his freezer. No one, however, commandeered NG resources to get bribe money out of their fridge, freezer, or anywhere else during the flooding. If I’m not mistaken the guy who did these things has been sentenced to a long prison term, so I’m not sure what the point was of bringing him up in any case. If you intended to remind me that some people abuse their authority during an emergency, I freely concede the correctness of that position. I just don’t think that problem is unique to New Orleans.
I doubt you are imagining the NYT article you reference, since I have read it as well. That being said, I don’t think I have stated in my posts that everything in New Orleans is perfect five years out. What I have said is that I object to those who, like our friend at the NYTs, focus only on the problems of rebuilding a destroyed city, and leave folks like you with the impression that nothing has been accomplished here since the storm because, as you so colorfully put it, we’re all just sitting on our duffs waiting for someone to help us. To me, that story line is disingenuous. Much has been accomplished, both with and because of outside help, for which we are grateful, and through our own sweat and toil, which we give eagerly.
I have no views about the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. That’s a long time ago, and much has changed in that city, I am sure.
Your comments about us having hurricane parties and not heeding warnings to evacuate are misplaced. Sure, some hundreds of reckless youths stayed behind and caused untold grief while becoming the focus for the news people looking for the worst in folks. But see the second paragraph of my post of 3:34 PM yesterday for a discussion of this topic. You are simply wrong that New Orleans had “plenty of time to evacuate.” No one who has ever evacuated a major city in the face of a life threatening event would ever make such a statement. There’s simply no such thing as “plenty of time” when major hurricanes threaten.
Your thinly veiled accusation of racism in your ninth ward comment really grates. I really shouldn’t dignify it with a response, but what the hell, I’ve already wasted this much time trying to reason with you.
You admit you know nothing about New Orleans, have never been here, and don’t want to, so it follows you have no understanding of the rebuilding process here and what motivates it. The fact is that when citizens, as opposed to government planners, rebuild destroyed cities, they do so by regrowing the city organically from the neighborhoods that have survived the disaster. And so it has been in New Orleans after Katrina. The first neighborhoods to rebuild were those adjacent to the French Quarter, Mississippi Ridge and Esplanade Ridge, where damage was less because those places were high ground. Those rebuilding drew on the still existing services of the areas that survived the calamity. As neighborhoods recovered, places adjacent to those could rebuild, and so on. While this organic growth wasn’t the only way places in the city rebuilt, it did predominate.
Geographically, the lower ninth is separated from the rest of the city by a canal. As a result, it was, pre Katrina, a more or less self contained city within the city accessed only by bridges. The devastation in the lower ninth was total. Few buildings survived, and none which could offer the neighborhood needed services such as groceries, dry cleaners and such. Because it is geographically isolated, it is difficult for the folks who lived there, many of whom are poor and lack cars, to return there by drawing on the services of other, redeveloped adjacent neighborhoods. Although houses have been rebuilt, the people have not returned, in my view in large part because the services are not readily available.
Not every problem in the South can be explained away by racism, Mr. George, despite you folks in California trying to make it so. The world really is much more complicated than that.

Mr. George, on the topic of the inaccuracy of MSM reporting I agree with you wholeheartedly. I, too, have had the misfortune of dealing with the media during “newsworthy” events. Not once in my experience have they ever gotten even the most basic facts correct. It boggles the mind. It’s also way off topic, Mr. Moderator, so that’s the last I’ll say on that.

“”” Phil Nizialek says:
August 30, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Mr. George, on the topic of the inaccuracy of MSM reporting I agree with you wholeheartedly. I, too, have had the misfortune of dealing with the media during “newsworthy” events. Not once in my experience have they ever gotten even the most basic facts correct. It boggles the mind. It’s also way off topic, Mr. Moderator, so that’s the last I’ll say on that. “””
Well Phil you may regard it as off topic; but I don’t. After all, I base my judgements on what I read; since I don’t have time to go and get all the news originally from where it happened for myself.
So if someone accuses me of making stuff up in my “idea” generator; I feel it is quite on topic to point out were the possible errors really lie.

“”” Your comments about us having hurricane parties and not heeding warnings to evacuate are misplaced. Sure, some hundreds of reckless youths stayed behind and caused untold grief while becoming the focus for the news people looking for the worst in folks. But see the second paragraph of my post of 3:34 PM yesterday for a discussion of this topic. You are simply wrong that New Orleans had “plenty of time to evacuate.” No one who has ever evacuated a major city in the face of a life threatening event would ever make such a statement. There’s simply no such thing as “plenty of time” when major hurricanes threaten. “””
Well I can’t remember whether it was three days or four days of advanced warning that the city had notice from the National Hurricane center in Florida; during which time, the mayor apparently did not even conclude that he should move a whole bunch of buses to higher ground so they would be available for use in an evacuation. Maybe that is not a long time; but if that apparently too short a time had been used effectively ; perhaps a lot of people would have been saved. Even in my own family; when it comes time to go out to dinner; some family members don’t seem to understand the concept of going to the front door and exiting; shutting and locking the door behind them.
If you have a major city like NO; and even I with very limited and indirect knowledge of the place, regard it as a major city; having a known perennial hazard situation; namely the possibility of Hurricanes or severe river flooding even; would have in place an emergency plan for dealing with such situations; time permitting; up to and including possible evacuation of the city.
Just this past weekend; a very large number of people; some estimates put it at from 300,000 to 500,000 actually descended on Washington DC, to all gather on the National Mall, for some kind of a rally; and then they all got up and left; and even had time to pick up any trash they might have had and put it where it would not junk up the place before they left.
And that was all completely un-organized by anybody; people just showed up. I know of persons from California who did the round trip in under 24 hours; and they were simply going to a party; not seeking to escape a major impending disaster, that they had been warned about.
So what is a reasonable amount of time in your view for people to get in a bus, car, plane or train and go to some safer place; and I expect there are always a lot of people who have no car; which is why you have contingency plans in major cities to take care of the needs of all.
And the Federal Government cannot do that; they are not equipped to do that; and have not the means of doing that. FEMA is a relief agency that arranges low cost rebuild loans for persons after some calamity; they have no infrastructure for moving large numbers of people.
So what is the capacity of new Orleans Stadium; and how many days does it take to empty that place out after a football game.
It seems that too many people simply don’t understand the concept of crisis and are ill equipped to handle a real emergency; even if their life; or the lives of others depend on it.
And in today’s world you will have people standing around yakking on their cellphones or looking up some app on their strawberry or whatever pocket toy they can’t do without.
I hate to mention the evaccuation of Dunkirk in 1940; not a huge number of persons by today’s standards; but they all had to be gotten onto ships; and the docks were under constant attack so they were unusable. But everybody pitched in with whatever they had to get things to work.
I’m sure anxious to learn what you think is a reasonable length of warning that a category 5 hurricane should give to people; before it slams into them.

I’m giving up the ghost here, Mr. George. You can have the last word on all this. No more points for me to make. See ya.

Here’s a good topo map of NO, from the Wiki Drainage in NO page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Msyelevst.jpg
Most everything north of the Mississippi embankment, including Metairie, is below sea level, and Lake Pontchartrain (really an estuary opening into the Gulf) is 3 feet above sea level (on average). The Lower 9th Ward is 7-9 ft below sea level, and therefore 10-12 ft below lake level. My heart goes out to the people that the US Army COE suckered into living there!
How about we release the Mississippi through the airport into Lake P for a half century until the lake silts up, and then turn it west for a while? It won’t really be natural, but eventually we must simulate an orderly delta buildup.
I’ve been dutifully watching Brian Williams, but the 9th ward should have been conceded to Lake P 5 years ago.

Ref – RW says:
August 31, 2010 at 2:19 am
…”They said nothing of the sort…”
______________________________
They didn’t? Hummmmm… this is worse than I thought. They agreed with him? The WMO ‘agreed’ with Fat Albert? Are you sure? Maybe… maybe.. it wasn’t that they ‘agreed’ with him, but they didn’t say anything one way or the other? Interesting! Well, maybe not ‘interesting’, maybe it’s.. ah… hummmmmmm..

“”” Phil Nizialek says:
August 30, 2010 at 6:41 pm
Well, George, you did write about the failure of the ninth ward to have been repaired, “or is the repair work being rationed out to people who are worth helping.” Well Phil, you at least did quote exactly what I wrote.
And I did gather from what limited TV coverage of the event, I saw; that that particular area of NOL was a poor neighborhood.
It was however you who point out that the the inhabitants are largely African-American; and it was you who equated ethnicity rather than economic status, with being worth helping (or not) I did not; and never have.
It is not for us to judge who is or is not worth saving; we help whoever is in need; if we can.
The Office of The Census still have some unemployed chap harassing me, because on April first of this year, I responded to their first question “How many people were living in this house on April 1 2010?” with my answer (3), and for their second question, ‘how many people live in this house?’ I put —– since I did not understand the question, and that is what I mailed in on April 1. I did not answer any of the other superfluous questions; since it is a violation of Federal Law to discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin or whatever; and also against my belief system.
I told the harasser that the next census will be on April 1/ 2020 and if I am still around, I will tell them how many people live in whatever asylum I happen to be.