TOTAL INFORMATION ANALYSIS

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Louisiana State University's Dr. Ivor van Heerden should know that the U.s. Army Corps of Engineers has been putting out a line of BS about how the levees (concrete floodwalls) collapsed. Why does he seem to trust them to "help" with a forensic investigation?

From a transcript of NBC's Meet the Press Sept. 25:

Mr. Russert: There seems to be a debate going on, Doctor. The Corps of Engineers said that the flooding is caused by overtopping, water going over the top of the levee. But I want to read a story from The Washington Post for you and our viewers. "Louisiana's top hurricane experts have rejected the official explanation for the floodwall collapses that inundated much of New Orleans, concluding that Hurricane Katrina's storm surges were much smaller than authorities had suggested and that the city's flood-protection system should have kept most of the city dry. ... With the help of complex computer models and stark visual evidence, scientists and engineers at Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center"--that's you--"have concluded that Katrina's surges did not come close to overtopping those barriers. That would make faulty design, inadequate construction and some combination of the two the likely cause of the breaching of the floodwalls along the 17th Street and London Avenue canals--and the flooding of most of New Orleans."

Is it the overtopping or faulty design? What is going on in New Orleans?

Dr. van Heerden: Well, I think in terms of the London Avenue and the 17th Street Canal, those flood walls weren't overtopped. We're still in the middle of a forensic investigation. It is starting to look like they were underdesigned. We did get an e-mail and a phone call from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers out of Maryland, and they have asked to join our forensic team. So hopefully between their resources and ours, we'll be able to go grab those wall sections and, as they do in an air crash, bring them to a hangar and really do a thorough investigation so we can know exactly why they failed.

| Posted at 02:34 | PERMA-LINK |

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