Wednesday, December 14, 2005
 The second cover story for the sabotaged levees and floodwalls in New Orleans has in part focused on the depth of the metal sheet pilings. Supposedly, they had not been driven deep enough into the ground, and for this reason, the levees spontaneously combusted hours after the eye of Category-3 Katrina passed tens of miles to the East of the city.
This supposed "defect" in the Army Corps' levees was repeated ad nauseam with the insinuation that those corrupt Louisianans had something to with it. This "fact' was even presented in the hastily-thrown together "scientific" documentary aired on PBS' Nova program last month. This has now been proven false, though the misinformation is indelibly imprinted on the sagging minds of self-impressed yuppies who watch PBS and consider themselves informed intellectuals.
From Times-Picayune Wednesday, December 14, 2005: "Measurements of sheet pilings pulled Tuesday from the 17th Street Canal confirmed that the foundation had been driven to the depths required by the Army Corps of Engineers. . .
The pilings removed from beneath four wall segments on the north and south side of the break averaged 23.5 feet long, corps officials said. That means they extended to about 17 feet below sea level, as described in corps design documents.
The measurements, however, were somewhat surprising because recent seismic/sonar testing by the corps had predicted that the sheet piles just north and south of the breach reached to only about 10 feet below sea level. That's the same depth found by a testing company hired by Team Louisiana, a group of six Louisiana State University professors and three independent engineers investigating the levee failures for the state Department of Transportation and Development.
That depth raised questions about possible malfeasance in the construction and prompted the corps to spend Monday and Tuesday pulling sections of the floodwall for examination by forensic experts. Corps officials said they plan to measure sheet piling at the ruptured London Avenue and Industrial Canal for measurements as repairs there proceed.
While the hands-on measurements seem to reduce the possibility of criminal conduct, corps officials and independent engineers said serious questions remain about how the wall failed during the Aug. 29 storm.
"The investigation will be ongoing until we find out exactly why, the scientific and engineering reasons why some levee parts of the system were able to withstand the forces of this hurricane and others did not," said Brig. Gen. Robert Crear, commander of Task Force Hope, which is assisting in the recovery of the New Orleans area.
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----- Labels: Katrina
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