TOTAL INFORMATION ANALYSIS

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Do you know what can heave the ground over and upwards 8 feet?

Military-grade explosives for one.

From Times-Picayune Oct. 4:

"A child's clubhouse, built about 25 years ago by a civil engineer for his son, provides another clue pointing to possible design or construction flaws in the structural failures that breached two canal floodwalls and inundated the city during Hurricane Katrina.

Engineer Gus Cantrell, 60, and son Daniel Cantrell, 33 -- now a structural engineer himself -- returned to the family's Pratt Drive house last week for the first time since Katrina struck. They discovered the old clubhouse sitting a few feet from its original location next to the London Avenue canal levee -- on top of a pile of mud and silty sand about 8 feet high.

The Cantrells believe that extreme pressure from high water pushed soil under the base of the floodwall away from the canal and upward in an arc, something known as a heave. That appears to have raised a mound of earth into the back yard under the clubhouse. The wooden clubhouse's base is now even with the edge of the house's roof, Daniel Cantrell said.

"Once that happened, the wall would have been compromised, not have been able to support itself," he said.

That is different from initial theories offered by the Army Corps of Engineers that the floodwalls were topped by storm surge and raises more questions about design and construction.

[...]

A similar heave may have occurred at the breach in the 17th Street canal, where soil also appears to have been pushed forward and upward.[...]

The Cantrells' clubhouse is virtually undamaged. It was built sturdily, Gus Cantrell said. . . "It appears that the structure had not gotten wet at all."

That suggests the heave occurred first, precipitating the wall's failure.

[...]

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Labels: Katrina

| Posted at 02:46 | PERMA-LINK |

Comments:
Why does the second line of the article refer to military grade weapons? what are you trying to get at?


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posted by  Anonymous : 5/10/05 18:35

 

the levie explosives were set in place before the huricane as planned.It was driven to its target .then delta force dropped in with sniper fire to ward of any wittneses to the removal of any left over explosives.bam thats it man.core of engineers was sent in to document what was done by natural disaster and to try and figure out what happened when a diver discoverd burns in the concrete and he snuck a peice out to the forensic lab ther you go.what eles you want to know?


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posted by  Anonymous : 6/10/05 01:28

 

Rather it was bombs or water. One thing for sure is that the government did not live up to the same standards she holds in other parts of the world. We all know this government could have done more but the question REALLY is, why they didn't?
Further more, why aren't we hearing about the 1800 or 2000 children still missing. It's hurtful when I watch Fox news, Cnn, and all these other news channels push stories of ONE GIRL! "so and so is missing, if anyone has seen her place contact your local police." 1000's of children, no news stories.
That's funny to me. If you can push one for months than you shouldn't have a problem push the 1000s. It should be on the news everyday, everynight. I can't help but question why they don't receive the attention that others receive.
It's hard to beleive 200,000 to 300,000 people are out of work and it makes the news atleast once a week.
Just trying to gey through to the unemployment office on the phone is a story in itself. It is unreal how difficult it is getting through to the unemployment office on the phone.
People are looking for work! Many have found work, but many or still out of work. It's funny how all of that just seems to fade away from the news. Not only did fema let the people down. The entire system proves to stubble when it comes to it's own citizens. Yes we had to evacuate our homes but aren't we still American citizens?
I wonder.


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posted by  Anonymous : 31/10/05 22:38

 

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