(Fed) 2006 (levee) rebuilding effort based on 1959 study

Corps ignored data that showed higher levees needed

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_03_07.html#118967

Weather data showing the need to raise the height of levees to defend New Orleans against stronger hurricanes was not incorporated in Army Corps of Engineers designs, even though the agency was informed of the new calculations as early as 1972, government records show.

The heights of floodwalls and levees currently being rebuilt by the corps are based on research for a likely worst-case storm done in 1959. When new weather service research in the 1970s increased the size and intensity of that storm and its projected surges, the corps stuck to its original design specifications when work began in the 1980s, including for structures that failed during Hurricane Katrina.

Corps headquarters officials in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. New Orleans District engineers currently involved in reassessing the area’s hurricane protection system, said the lack of changes in the past probably can be traced the corps’ legal restriction to building only what Congress authorizes.

Katrina grazed New Orleans, it's only a matter of time before that direct hit and then it's over. Hope none of the new rich white residents that will take over New Orleans gets left behind.

WAYS!

I'm sure they would back up everything to 1959 if they could. They sure are trying. So girls, do you want to be teachers, nurses, secretaries or housewives? All you black men out there, do you want to be porters, waiters, shoe-shine boys or dead?

“I can only guess, but what I think you’ll find is that since the authorization (in the legislation) never changed, then the people involved felt they couldn’t change (design specifications),” said Janis Hote, a corps engineer who, like most of the local staff, was not involved in those earlier projects.