Not quite certain what "poor John Lind" means? I'm presuming it was
garbled up somehow.
Chuck Norcutt wrote:
> But, FWIW, the commanding general of the Army Corps of Engineers said in
> an interview yesterday that even had this work been done it wouldn't
> have prevented the dike failures at the points where they occurred.
[plus the rest I snipped off about Cat 3 survival design that is an
accurate broad overview]
I spent a short tour detailed with the CoE 20 years ago (even though I
was Signal Corps; the reasons for that are another long story). The
"New Orleans Problem" has been well known and well understood within
natural disaster and flood control agencies for decades. As long as its
hurricane survivability was left at its Cat 3 status quo, it was not a
question of "if" but "when" a storm of Katrina magnitude would result in
levy breaches.
AG Schnozz provided some insight . . .
It's all but utterly impossible to plug a levy breach with water pouring
through it. Even a very slow moving water mass has incredible energy
and force that takes out anything and everything dumped in to plug it
until water stops moving. It's all but impossible to dump anything into
the breach. Closing a gap without causing a bigger breach resulting in
losing everyone and everything on the ground doing it on/around a
destabilized structure . . . and faster flooding . . . is at the crux of
the problem. With flood control design, and flood fighting when a flood
occurs, only Divine Intervention can stop the energy of moving water and
the forces it generates. One can only redirect and shift them to
something that will absorb/dissipate them . . . the kinetic energy WILL
go somewhere. Once a levy or dam is "topped" and the potential energy
is unleashed it's "game over" for the structure. With extremely rare
exception, little if anything can be done until water stops moving.
Why it was never dealt with is a wide range of Public Policy failures
spanning decades and elected/appointed officials at all levels of
government including New Orleans (city), Orleans Parish (county) and
Louisiana (state), not just the federal level. Primary ownership,
jurisdiction and control of flood control in very nearly all instances
is city, county and state, not federal. If I were to start asking the
"tough questions" about Public Policy failures which I won't do here, it
would begin with the city and work its way up, and would include
officials spanning three decades of public office at every level of
their legislative and executive branches.
John's Public Policy Problem Solving Rule:
The longer a problem has been identified but not (or inadequately) dealt
with, the less likely it is to be addressed and resolved.
Epoxy a 6 inch long 4x4 block to to the middle of your kitchen floor.
Resist all temptation to remove it for a month. In less than that time
your entire family will automatically and subconsciously walk around and
over it as if it's invisible. After that, it won't get removed until a
house guest trips over it and breaks their arm (or worse).
-- John Lind
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