Lundi Memorial Day

Editilla Rides Amongst'yaz!
Well, I have to make this fast. No laptop and I can't afford to hang on this cyber'cafeity cool as i'tis. Flora is my jumping off place. I used to run a fresh juice bar here up until 911 and of course business for anyone named Ali went south after that so I went to work down the street selling Mardi Gras beads nationwide for Mardi Gras Zone. I was delivering for Angeli when the storm hit. Enough history. I rode the bike out to the 17th Street Leak today to see it for myself. It is four "wet spots" of flowing water directly in the middle of the new repair job of "I Wall" about 40 yards out from the base of the levee. I say flowing water because when I flicked a cigarette ash into it, the flow was evident across the ground. Just looking at the "spot" it looks like a wet spot but when you see the water running it makes more sence...10 seconds for my sample ashes to flow 1 foot. That seemed fast to me. mean, as soon as the ash hit the water it started moving towards the Lakeview neighborhood. The largest Leak is appx 15 yards long. There are four spots which may represent one large leak or four separate streams of moving water. One of the spots, I sank into the mud immediately 3-4 inches. Another one, the largest, I stood and pranced on it with my feet like we used to do at the beach at the water's edge to watch the water come up through the sand, because right by the ocean the beach is actually just sitting on top of water...well, when I pranced on this spot water splashed up around my ankles and I sank down about 6 inches in no time. Just pushing my feet up and down caused the water to come up out of the ground. All four wet spots had flowing water. I really wish Mat McBride or some other smart blogger would go out there and look at this. I wish everyone would go and see this FAILED LEVEE.
Now on to the levee and flood wall itself. OK, this is right at the pump station so the wall sections count 1-17 from Robert E Lee away from the lake until they get to the "I Wall. There are 17 sections of this new "I Wall" then the older wall begins again. On the other side there are rocks piled all down the "Repair" except on the section of "I Wall" and then a short section of the older wall has rocks then no rocks the length of the Canal that I saw. Right at RE Lee there is bulldozer and other equipment that has done fresh and Extremely Muddy still, work there and then you walk along the wall to the New I Wall to see the Leaks. This area where the bulldozer is represents a new thing for me. Deep fresh wet mud. With my hands I was able to dig down nearly a foot and it was wet the whole way. On the "wet spots" I could not dig down because the hole filled with water at just 6 INCHES...FLOWING WATER...I COULD SEE IT MOVING WITH MY OWN LYIN'EYES. Four spots-not one...all four in a radius of 30 yards. I paced all of this off. Then I walked the wall all the way to 17th Street and back(you have to climb through a gate along the wall and there is fencing along Fleur dis Lis street) This jaunt revealed that the houses along the levee have indeed developed their yards right up to the base of the levee and have trees along the base with 6-8 foot diameters and 40-50 foot limb spreads which means their roots stretch out and into the levee by at least 20 feet under ground. Most trees' root systems spread and descend into the ground equal to their above ground presence. Follow me here. These are HUGE trees not little trees with root systems which have most surely invaded the structural integrity of that levee.
As for the joints between sections of the wall: the New I Wall seems a fairly tight fit though it is new and hasn't had time to settle. I found the joint compound brittle.
The older sections are what worries me. As far down as a foot in may of them (I stopped counting at 20 seams between joints) I could see daylight between the old joint compound and the edges of each section of Wall. They have done nothing to refit these seams with new compound or even newspapers. All up and down the seams in 3 out of 5 I could stick my index finger up to the first knuckle and on four seams I could stick my thumb up to the first knuckle and on one or two seams I stuck TWO FINGERS UP TO THE FIRST KNUCKLE at about 3-4 feet up from the ground between the compound seal and the old wall. Had I wanted, I could have easily dug out this very old and corroded joint sealant compound with my bare fingers--easily, a child could do it really the stuff just falls away it is so old. I would like to know why with the water down they did not think of replacing this stuff. I mean on at least half of the seams I looked at along the older sections I could see daylight between the cracks--DAYLIGHT--at the tops and even sometimes little cracks about 2 feet down from the top of the walls.
So there you have my eye'witness report. The LEAKS are frightening and they are not just simple seepage. Water does not coagulate like blood and just keeps flowing and eroding whatever it is flowing around. Please everyone go and see for yourself. Go to the wall at Robert E Lee and walk about 50 yards back from the lake and there they are working in a clearing of bare ground. I think this is the one in the AP Photo. Please also check the seams of the wall for yourself as did I. Reach Up and Touch this joint compound and watch it crumble away. Please do this.
Tim you came on my own site to try to mislead my readers and insinuate that Robert Bea was just a paid hack so I have checked: The ratio of money paid to his groups study that refuted the IPET study's cost is a ratio of 1-20 and Robert Bea's group was not paid with our tax dollars and many of the engineers working on Bea's study worked the equations and modeling pro bono. So Tim you are a fuckmook in the broadest sense that I ever heard Ashley apply the term. And if you do not go and check out these levees you are a coward. And if you do not tell me why you chose to support the Lying Murderers in the Corps of Engineers and oppose a Real Engineer who was there the moment the water fell enough to get there you are an abject failure as a human being. Do you, Tim, either work directly for or for a company contracted to the Corps of Engineers? What gives, Tim, as you have shown me something even more dangerous than Lying Engineers like the Corps: you have shown me a Spinner Baited Propagandist masquerading as an Engineer. Robert Bea has built levees. You I would bet my left testicle have built nothing. I have balls. You do not. So please take one of mine---but to get it you must get off of your pandering ass and go look at the Leaks in front of those failing I Walls and do your own engineering if you actually can which I really doubt. I am challenging you, Tim. Come off it and help people who read this blog understand this dire situation in the levees, prove me wrong with engineering rather than picking on me or questioning Robert Bea's almost half a century of marine, coastal and structural engineering experience. He was building things before you were born, you spoiled child. You are worse than the Corps because you try to spin the story as an uninterested, unrelated party when I suspect you actually work for them or benefit financially somehow...as if maybe there could be some doubt as to Robert Bea's finding that the Corps was guilty of 1st Semester Engineering Mistakes in building those levees which failed. By the way, Tim, it may take me a while but I will get to the bottom of your Corps Panzying.

Now all that said....
I will be performing my music tomorrow night at Neutral Grounds Coffee House on Daneel Street at 7pm. Please come...I consider it heart and soul fine art and hope you all will too. I also plan to donate the proceeds of my set to the FYYFF fund so I hope one of Y'all comes too. I just haven't had the time or inclination to push this on this site or get emails around to some of youz so...
Tuesday, May 27th/7pm.
Have to go...clock is ticking at the Cyber Cafe. If any of youz have laptop that you may want to get rid of cheap please let me know.
Thanks all,
Editilla O'rilla d'Aphasia

Dimanche

Thank you New Orleans Daily Photograph

Small signs of rebirth help buoy Big Easy

Tension follows archbishop's Mass

Revitalizing the Jewish Community

Flood Stage Levels current 'real-time' guage readings ~USGS

Demand safe levees! Demand the 8/29 Investigation! Saturday, May 31 is our Day of Action!

Money restricts riverfront project
~A city agency is pressing ahead with plans to redevelop several miles of New Orleans' east bank wharves, but questions are growing about where it will find the money to carry out the nearly $300 million "Reinventing the Crescent" project. Although Mayor "Baby Head" Ray Nagin and Building Corp. Chief Executive Officer Sean Cummings had talked earlier about seeking state money through the annual capital outlay budget, Cummings told a City Council committee on Friday that the city did not ask Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration to include money for the project in the capital budget this year.~Thank you, Times Picayune.

Survival of the silliest
~James Gill

La. same-sex ban may drive away conference

Governor Jindal's counsel defends his work for tribe

Gollott's seafood celebrates 75th

New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival: A Photo Essay
~all about Jazz

Editilla gotta tol'yaz~ Jazz Fest is over.
But da'City is still poppin!-->

June Fests in and around New Orleans

WWOZ ~WTUL
GAMBIT ~NOMENU

Support WWOZ online!
I renewed my membership online and so can you.
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Viva La WWOZ! Viva La Pucelle d'Orléans!



Just in case any'youz might'a
t'ought ol'Editilla
ain't got'no Soulas...



Ridge
Brody
Evie
Great Editillitos!

















Oui aim to please--so you aim too, please?

Samedi

The New Orleans Recovery Continues, Feds Welcome to Jump Aboard~Harry Shearer

'This Little Wet Spot' alarms experts
AP Photo/Bill Haber
~In this area, water seeps under the levee of the 17th Street Canal levee, background, Tuesday, May 20, 2008, in New Orleans. Outside engineering experts who have studied the project told The Associated Press that the type of seepage spotted at the 17th Street Canal in the Lakeview neighborhood afflicts other New Orleans levees, too, and could cause some of them to collapse during a storm.
~“I personally do not at all believe that this little wet spot is anything that is going to cause a breach or a failure of any kind,” Donald Jolissaint, chief of the corps’ technical support branch in New Orleans.
License: PE.0020426
Listed Disciplines: CE
Status: ACTIVE
Expiration Date: 3/31/2009
"It is all based on a 30-year-old defunct model of thinking, and it means that when they wake up to this one — really — our cost is going to increase significantly,"
said Bob Bea, a civil engineer at the University of California at Berkeley.

Licensee Name:	BEA ROBERT GLENN
License Type:	GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEER
License Number:	126
License Status:	CANCELLED-The license has been delinquent for more than three years. The right to practice has expired. Please Note: There is currently no inactive status for engineering or land surveying licenses; therefore, some licensees choose to allow their licenses to expire.
Expiration Date:	June 30, 2001
City:	MORAGA
State:	CA
Actions:	No

Licensee Name:	BEA ROBERT GLENN
License Type:	CIVIL ENGINEER
License Number:	15707
License Status:	CANCELLED
Expiration Date:	June 30, 2001
City:	MORAGA
State:	CA
Actions:	No

~~Robert G. Bea is professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He has 48 years of experience as a marine coastal and offshore engineering industry consultant and research scientist. Please follow the link. Bea has more structural experience in his little toenail than Jolissaint could piss into a thimble if he had a penis. Compare and Contrast~Jollisaint: shit in one hand half a dozen in the other, white bread (and) Bea: Diamond Vajra and Gumbo.
Editor's note and UpDate: Due to a reader/nola-blogger's come'upance, I reposted this article with the flippant statement by the Corps Tech Support Director, Donald Jolissaint, along with adding his engieering license, which I had been unable to locate when I questioned it in the original post: Jeudi. You may check the comments section of that post to see how said nola-blogger upbraided me without backing it up by providing said license number. So I went and found it listed with the state of Louisiana, realizing that I must have been typing the name wrong on the dozen or so previous attempts I had made to locate this man's engineering certification. My apologies for the lack of clarification.
The reason Donald Jolissaint's flippant remark about a "little wet spot" is so important to me--especially now that I see he has aquired a license from the State of Louisiana for what That is apparently worth--is because people had alerted the Corps to "little wet spots" in that very levee before it failed due to Corps of Engineers criminal malfeseance--and one of my best friends died in the flood, as well as: the 18 other bodies that I saw, Vera, the 27 bodies my nephew scraped off the floor of the Convention Center, with a snow shovel, in the first clean-up crew to enter the building, the senior citizens in St Rita's, another friend who just hung herself this spring 3 years later, and everything else that contributed to the crucifixion of New Orleans. People were telling the Corps that the levees were leaking and the Corps response was--AND CONTINUES TO BE--don't worry about it. Then the 17th Street Canal levee FAILED and the rest is some of the darkest history this country has ever pertetrated on its own citizens.

My statement still stands about Kevin Wagner, the corps' senior project manager for levees and floodwalls in Orleans Parish. I reconfirmed from the ASCE that he has not been an active member of the ASCE since 1995 and even then had only an "affiliate" membership ususally applied to non'engineers. No, apparently one does not have to Be an Engineer to belong to the American Society of Civil ENGINEERS. Is this the man who signed-off on stuffing the levees with newspaper? Whoever inspected that job and signed-off on it had to have know they were using newspaper. Did an Engineer sign that inspection? Tim, or anyone else, if you can find this project director fuckmook's license then I will post it. Come on, Tim the data'mining engineer, I'm waiting.
Do you know the difference between paper mache and ShiNola? You pay for the Corps to take classes in this bullshit, so they can continue to make public statements quite often uttered by Public Relations spokespeople-- NOT ENGINEERS. They do this regularly. They have proven themselves to be liars and incompetent--and haughty too boot--but damn good at PR. My father graduated 17th in his class from Georgia Tech and was both a Civil and Electrical Engineer (certified many states). His opinion of the US Army Corps of Engineers? NOTHING IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN A LYING ENGINEER. Nothing.
Tim had asked me to question Robert Bea's engineering qualifications. There you have them, stunning in the dim glare of such Bourgeois Naivety as Tim is also an engineer, he says, though I am at a disadvantage in my new hobby of questing for engineering credentials to verify that since Tim also failed to provide his own. Tim, it is not my fault that the Corps of Engineers is ruining the trust we have placed in your trade. Sorry. That is an even bigger shame than what they did to New Orleans when you think about it because the Corps has built suspect structures ALL ACROSS AMERICA. This is why there is such an uproar in the Engineering community over the ASCE Public Relations mis- directing whitewashed IPET study regarding those failed levees. This is why we know of Robert Bea. And, to quote Tim's own post about "The Line", this is why I am here and not in New Orleans.
The Line. I saw the real line, wading the green mile.
Now I finally truly understand Liptrap's Lament,
bless her heart.
Thank you, Tim, for showing me what it really means and for the heads-up on your fondness for that forking icehole, Jolissaint. I hope I have fixed the problem and addressed your concerns for accuracy. Again my apologies for any offense towards your trade. Now go take it up with your fellow engineers...and I would suggest you get it straightened out before hurricane season, which starts June 1st. Your new home may depend on it. Hell, your life may depend on it. And don't forget the Day of Action!

I try to back up my statements and I expect the same from someone who accuses me of shoddy blogging. I launched the NO News Ladder November 11th. I am not a blogger, as considered by the Nola blogging community. If I have publicly led anyone to think that I consider myself part of this community I will never make that claim again and sorry if readers have been misled. You do not find me listed on 9 out of 10 Nola blogs as connected to that community. If the presence of Ashley's picture on my site offends any of you other nolabloggers who have it on your sites, like Tim, then I let me know and I will suck up my own grief over losing him and take it all away from the New Orleans News Ladder. I don't need this kind of shit from friends of Ashley's and have no intention of disparaging his good name in the blog-o-sphere. So if any of you think I am being a presumptuous impertinent asshole outsider then let me know and we can change that view. I may take it all down anyway. I liked Ashley alot, loved his blog and respect the hell out of his blogging. I really do not want to offend his memory. I do not want to be percieved as getting my rocks off on the tragedy of that Federal Flood. I remain a dues-paying member of WWOZ. I have that connection still to the city. It keeps me out of McDonald's with a rifle. It keeps me alive. It is the very reason that I have DSL Ultra and a bad'ass computer system custom'built by a 60 year old hacker...well, I also wanted to make sure the Ladder would hang every day too. This day last year I did not own a computer and checked my email at the Library. This time last year--indeed only a couple of weeks ago--I had to put down my dog Flora, named for the Cafe, my protector in the darkness and the entire reason I stayed for the flood until she could go too. Now there was no one around me who had even the slightest clue of what went down, what it means...then over the summer my cat died and another friend committed suicide and I went to observe the 2nd anniversary of the flood in New Orleans and meet the Rising Tide. It was the first time since the Federal Flood that I felt at all safe or comfortable around a group of more than 6 people. As Ashley pointed out when he handed me a beer: I was the only goober at Buffa's with a computer. I know I am an ignorant fool college drop'out, but what is your excuse for defending a member of the Corps That Flooded New Orleans and put me out and down the road to Hell?
Do you work for the Corps, Tim? What?
You claim to be an engineer, Tim, so what gives?
I apologized for what? Not being able to find this creep's license because I could not stop crying? I made a mistake and asked readers to fill me in but you decided to just hit me, with no information. No, Tim. I apologized for a lack of clarity that pissed you off. I am all about clarity, so since you came onto my playground it is time for you to back up your support for the Corps of Engineers. Trust me, more people from around the country and the world will see it here on the Ladder than on your blog. So, come off it, Tim. Show us that you have more than raisins between your legs and shit between your ears.

I am just a not very smart guy, a former artist, who used to live in New Orleans until six days of that Federal Flood. I am older than you. Now I work as an apt building maintenance man, in training to learn how to do livingry and finding refuge on the long road'ho...doing whatever it is one's gotta do and still trying to get sane again. Ain't that much to running from fear really...you just do it. Despite regular, costly returns, I don't know if I will ever be able to live in New Orleans again due to what I went through those six days and dark nights. My physical and emotional trauma was such that when I saw the picture above of that "little wet spot" and read Engineer Jolissaint's remark I fell into a pretty bad way, snapped back immediately to August 30th, which remains in my psyche. I did not expect this and it ain't funny. I'm talking about insanity, not just a bad mood or simple depression but trembling dry heaves and real breakdown, back to not sleeping through the night, back to the nightmares. I have not slept more than a couple of hours at a stretch since seeing the picture of those FAILED LEVEES minutes after the article hit the internet Wednesday night.
THAT IS NOT A LITTLE WET SPOT---IT IS A FAILED LEVEE BEFORE THE FIRST DAY OF STORM SEASON!!!! HELLO GODDAMN IT???
IS THERE A FORKING ENGINEER IN THE HOUSE?
YEA'N'VERILY--MAY I HAVE A WIT'N'AAASS?
Who ya'gonna believe? Me? Or your own lyin'eyes?
I see in that picture the same arrogant lying bullshit from the Corps that nearly killed me the first time their levees failed. I see in that picture and Jolissaint's remark that they may have every intention of deliberately flooding the City again for reasons known only to the Exquixotic Corps of Engineers.
I see in that picture no future...only the past.
I must thank you as well, as this exchange has served to illustrate to me something that I have been thinking of in relation to my own lost feelings of connectedness to New Orleans since the Federal Flood. There is a real difference between the people who stayed for the storm and survived that first week of the flood and the people who evacuated before the storm. The only faith that I have left lies in Buddha's 1st Noble Truth: Pain is Real---FOR EVERYONE! That is all I have to say about "Your Fucking Line", Tim. You are there. I am here. That says it all, eh? I may not be a Nolablogger but as a Nolafugee I can take whateva whereva it lands
on the long road or in the middle of my broken heart,
one step, one day, one peace at a time...
Sinn Féin!
I am most gratified to find people still posting photos of the flood. Thank you 911review ~cynthia yoo.

Demand safe levees! Demand the 8/29 Investigation! Saturday, May 31 is our Day of Action!

River crests, begins a slow fall

Flood Stage Levels current 'real-time' guage readings ~USGS
Editilla ax'in everyone to get on the horn to the USGS about the Corps' levees failing again. The USGS is civillian and has proven that we can trust them in the way Mark Twain did
--with his Life, on the Mississippi.
This is the crux of the biscuit. Nothing else matters but sound levee constuction. Without adequate levees you can hang it up on the Rising Tide. There will be no NOLA blog-o-sphere. There will be no internet. There will be no community cohesion. There will be no WWOZ. There will be nothing but darkness, mahem and Black Water and Michael Chertoff unleashed. I was there.
The Corps has proven that they will kill us all rather than face their criminal negligence. Do I sound like I am kidding? We must take matters into our own hands. We cannot depend on the Times Picayune to cover this set-up for the next flood. Please join Levees.org in opening the new Hurricane Season with Our Day of Action May 31st!

Morganza review panel gets acquainted with levee system

Swiss Blackwater probe concludes

Lafayette Cemetery No 1 of New Orleans~Spectral Review

Maverick at NOMA

Solo Sun. brunch: Galatoires or Com. Palace?~Chowhound New Orleans

Post-Katrina Music (NOLA/GULF BLOGATHON) ~mlharges-Daily Kos

Music Of My Mind: Belong
~Noah Bonaparte Pais

Renard Poche–The new P in Funk~Toulouse Street

Jazz Vipers, “Blue Drag”
~Voices of New Orleans

To Miss New Orleans
David Steinberg

Vendredi

NOLA/Gulf: Deja vu all over again~Mike Stagg~Two news stories conspired this week to remind New Orleans residents just how fragile their recovery is — and how indifferent the Bush administration it to that recovery.
The first story was that a combat brigade of the Louisiana National Guard has been notified it will be heading back to Iraq.
The second story was that, after millions of dollars spent re-engineering and re-building one of the levees which failed after Katrina, the 17th Street Canal levee is leaking now.
~Editilla has been so in need to see a hot'shot smart blogger jump on this Levee Leak Set'Up, as I am way to psychologically disqualified to deal with true criminals such as the Corps of Engineers as Dictated by the current Junta Disaster Response Team.
~After yesterday's near complete breakdown upon seeing that new wet spot in front of the new levee, Editilla has gotten a grip and come to feel that the Corps may indeed be planning to flood the city again with obvious engineering malfeseance because they can and get away with it as we have seen. Why else would they sanction stuffing newspaper into levees? Why else would they call a 40 foot long "boil-seepage" a "little wet spot"?
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Hardly a simple leak,
those levees are failing right before our lyin'eyes.
So when the city floods this next time Michael Chertoff can swing into action with DHS under Presidential Declaration, keen like a velociraptor to make up for his Operation Crucifix Assfuck of New Orleans in August '05 with an even more coldly efficient, much greater assfuck (ubberlative) replete with more Black Water Security and established camps in Texas and Arizona and bum'fuck whereva for evacuees. This is settled Law.
Remember how NeoConCons hate to get caught with their pants down. Laugh all you want, Gentle'Rillas.
What I see in the AP Photo throws me all the way back to that first week of the flood. You do not want to go there.
Oh No No No.
I have met the enemy and he ain't us.

Living on Sponge Cake
~Wet Bank Guy

Forecast predicts unusually active storm season

Flood Stage Levels current 'real-time' guage readings ~USGS
Editilla ax'in everyone to get on the horn to the USGS about the Corps' levees failing again. The USGS is civillian and has proven that we can trust them in the way Mark Twain did
--with his Life, on the Mississippi.
This is the crux of the biscuit. Nothing else matters but sound levee constuction. Without adequate levees you can hang it up on the Rising Tide. There will be no NOLA blog-o-sphere. There will be no internet. There will be no community cohesion. There will be no WWOZ. There will be nothing but darkness, mahem and Black Water and Michael Chertoff unleashed. I was there.
The Corps has proven that they will kill us all rather than face their criminal negligence. Do I sound like I am kidding? We must take matters into our own hands. We cannot depend on the Times Picayune to cover this set-up for the next flood. Please join Levees.org in opening the new Hurricane Season with Our Day of Action May 31st!

Review~The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast~Mark Holden

New Orleans Is Not a Libertarian Experiment~John McQuaid

An improv on New Orleans
~pico @ Docudharma

Firms controlled by New Orleans Building Corp. CEO owe taxes
~Editilla grouses and hazards a guess~
Is this what they mean by: "ReInventing Accounting"?

McCain's Katrina Shame~Patriot Daily News Clearing House

Indian Guest Workers in New Orleans: "We Are Slaves Here"
~Citizen Orange

Katrina art an indelible watermark~Lolis Eric Elie

US Senate Passes 8.7B Appropriations For Louisiana and Gulf Coast~Bayou Buzz

Bill would send $6 billion to N.O.~Advocate

Senate OKs bill with Katrina relief~Picayune~Out of the three articles on this bill I will leave it to our Gentle'Rillas to decide the most informative. However, considering the Picayune least, Editila is more interested in the way the Picayune did not mention not a word of Senator Landrieu's statement for the record, from the Senate floor, pointing to the yesterday's article on the recently failed levees (leaks) (that means they are failing) as further evidence that the whole flood control system should be reorganized, and that this cast more doubt on the Corps ability to exute their mission as mandated by Congress. Why has the TP not pursued this failed levee story? Why coddle the Corps of Engineers that flooded their newspaper's offices? Must we have to fight the local newspaper as well to establish the 8/29 Commission?

Travelers shift gears as costs rise

How An Illinois Gal Got "Katrina Brain"~Spirit of Louisiana 1976

An Event Apart New Orleans~David Sutoyo

Gulf Coast preps for pet shelters during hurricane

Jeudi

New Orleans Levees Failing!!!
'This Little Wet Spot' alarms experts~In this area, water seeps under the levee of the 17th Street Canal levee, background, Tuesday, May 20, 2008, in New Orleans. Outside engineering experts who have studied the project told The Associated Press that the type of seepage spotted at the 17th Street Canal in the Lakeview neighborhood afflicts other New Orleans levees, too, and could cause some of them to collapse during a storm.
~“I personally do not at all believe that this little wet spot is anything that is going to cause a breach or a failure of any kind,” Donald Jolissaint, chief of the corps’ technical support branch in New Orleans.
License: PE.0020426
Listed Disciplines: CE
Status: ACTIVE
Expiration Date: 3/31/2009
Mr. Donald E. Jolissaint
PELSB

"It is all based on a 30-year-old defunct model of thinking, and it means that when they wake up to this one — really — our cost is going to increase significantly,"
said Bob Bea, a civil engineer at the University of California at Berkeley.
~~Robert G. Bea is professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He has 43 years of experience as a marine coastal and offshore engineering industry consultant and research scientist. He has successfully developed and implemented more than 40 significant industry- and government-funded cooperative research programs. Mr. Bea, a former member of the NRC Marine Board, has served on numerous national and international research and advisory committees, including seven NRC committees. He is currently a member of the Committee on Human Performance, Organizational Systems and Maritime Safety and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He conducts research on human and organizational factors and on design, construction, and operation of marine structures. Mr. Bea has a B.S. degree in civil engineering and a M.S. degree in engineering from the University of Florida.
AP Photo/Bill Haber~Hat T'n'T-dsbnola

Demand safe levees! Demand the 8/29 Investigation! Saturday, May 31 is our Day of Action!

Corps of Engineers addressing repairs made during rapid-response phase~March 9th Times Picayune~"We are going to finish these repairs, but I don't think a 1-inch separation between a floodwall and a slab of concrete 10 to 20 feet wide would let enough water in to cause a catastrophic failure," said Kevin Wagner, the corps' senior project manager for levees and floodwalls in Orleans Parish. Editilla cannot find this creep's engineering certification anywhere. I did find out from the ASCE that he has not been an active member of the ASCE since 1995 and even then had only an "affiliate" membership apprently reserved for non'engineers. This is the man who signed on stuffing the levees with newspaper?
To quote the founder of Levees.org, Sandy Rosenthal: "Protecting New Orleans from catestrophic flooding ain't rocket science--it is geo-technic science."
"Most of that (Task Force) Guardian work was just done so fast that I don't know how much design or forethought could have gone into it," said Larry Ardiron, director of the state transportation department's Hurricane Protection Operations, "I think they're probably doing the best they can, and they probably have too much to do, but sometimes they do things that just don't make sense."
Poor Editilla just needs to hear from an engineer goddamn it.

Flood of Criticism
~Berkley Science Review
“If it had been built as it should have been built, we would be repairing some shingles and mopping up some wet carpets.” Thus Dr. Robert Bea, UC Berkeley professor of civil and environmental engineering, sums up the flood control system in New Orleans and its failure during Hurricane Katrina. But rather than merely tearing off some shingles and soaking carpets, Katrina wreaked its by now all-too-familiar devastation, flooding around 80 percent of New Orleans, killing over 1,500 people, displacing far more, and causing tens of billions of dollars in damage. Bea is part of a team of investigators based at UC Berkeley that has spent the last year trying to figure out exactly what went so horribly wrong during Katrina. The team’s conclusions, published July 31, 2007 in the 1,300 page, Independent Levee Investigation Team Final Report, are a scathing criticism of the engineering and organizational failures preceding the 2005 disaster—a disaster, they argue, that could have been prevented. Moving toward a brighter future, they say, will require nothing less than a total overhaul of the system that creates and maintains flood protection infrastructures not just in New Orleans, but in the United States as a whole. Image courtesy of USGS.

A writer's take on the new New Orleans lest we forget to know what it means when levees fail

Why a Gulf Wetland May Become a City~Lessons from Hurricane Katrina have been quickly forgotten as developers plan to turn an important wetland in the region's fourth largest city.~"If we don't nip this [project] in the bud, the pressure will be to develop more and more, and the Corps is critical to stopping that," says Bob Davis, a former Corps engineer and an agency critic.

Jindal-backed voucher bill for New Orleans advances

Post-Katrina Tax Shelter Expiring When It Is Most Needed

NetSquared Mashup Challenge: Bringing Together Government, Nonprofit and Grassroots GIS in the City of New Orleans
~Alan Gutierrez

nola~a tee, a rock, a cloud

School Group Heads To New Orleans

Preserving New Orleans
~Eureka Dejavu

Foodies, sidewalks and the rest of it

Meet Mr. Paul Konar, hunger strike strongman

Comforting Traumatized Rescue Animals

Go Leveeland!

Summer Festivals in Louisiana 2008~misc New Orleans stuff

Mercredi

Louisiana Farms~Go Green NOLA ~Y'all know how we d'Aphasias like da'Maps. This one comes from local harvest.org ...whence came the lead to the GGNOLA site, thence somehow to New Orleans 1st Bike Lane hung below. Hence we wander the wee hours out on this long road home, thusly searching for the lights of the City still scattered about our sleeping nation like broken diamonds split from the fist of a dreaming monkey. Ambular SomNOLAncy.

New Orleans gets 1st bike lane
~Yesterday, motorists and bicyclists found a new feature on St. Claude Avenue: the city’s first striped bike lanes. A ribbon cutting ceremony marked the opening of the St. Claude Avenue bike lanes covering a three-mile stretch, eastbound and westbound, between Elysian Fields Avenue and the St. Bernard Parish line...more Buzz.

Motorola to Rebuild Technology Infrastructure for New Orleans Area School

Recovery Projects Information Website.
You can view current information on recovery projects managed by the City of New Orleans' Office of Recovery and Development Administration.

Historic trust takes aim at Charity~casa de Charlotte della luna offers a survivor's requiem

Katrina survivors struggle years after hurricane~A documentary report from New Orleans presents voices of Katrina survivors still fighting for survival

Transparency lacking in city service contracts~Jaime Guillet

ZANA Network Works to Revive New Orleans Small Businesses

Hell Hath No Fury Like That Of The Uninvolved*
~Liptrap's Lament - The Line

I'll Stop Calling This Crew "Orwellian" When They Stop Using 1984 as an Operations Manual~Your Right Hand Thief

Orwell Lives in Burma Today

Cyclone Recovery Just Propaganda, Say Rangoon Residents

Burma Photography~Lin Let Kyal Sin

All Burma I.T Students' Union
Now where have we seen this before?



Burma and Heroine

Rambo Speaks

China: Earthquake buried 32 sources of radiation
~With death toll rising, unexpected rescues

Disaster Recovery: Five Things You Might Have Overlooked

Cottages make for perfect storm brewing over Gulf's future look

Indian Guest-Workers in
New Orleans on Hunger Strike

Environmental Espionage: Inside a Chemical Company's Louisiana Spy Op~Mother Jones

Feds make toxic brew at Fort Reno Park~When it comes to finding and cleaning up toxic waste in the nation’s capital, I’m not sure the federal government is to be trusted. We need look no further than Spring Valley to see a history of lies and cover-ups perpetrated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, aided and abetted by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Shrimp: Another high-water victim

Big Al's Seafood Restaurant

Grilling: Sweet Potato Salad ~Serious Eats









BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet at Arts in the Museum Park

Democracy and Hip-Hop Compares NOLA and KC

Three new books illuminate and celebrate the history of jazz and one of its masters

From Work At Home Guitar Teacher To Full Music School

Piety Street Recording
~Radio Free Amsterdam

The Beating Heart of Jazz

Mardi

New Orleans Wine and Food Experience 2008~May 20-24th
Royal Street Stroll Sponsored by ROUSES Thursday,May 22, 2008 5:30 p.m. ~ 8:30 p.m. 400 Royal Street $75 in advance, $90 on-site
As always, [what must be the world's most expensive 2nd Line] will be joined by the Krewe of Cork with 2008 Grand Marshall, Kix Brooks of Brooks & Dunn, as they parade down Royal Street. Brooks & Dunn? OK'ville!

NADA donates to New Orleans high school through quarterback's foundation

Charter Schools Remedy Education Woes in New Orleans?

Judge bars lawyers from State Farm case

MS Supreme Court to hear wind vs. water

Architecture and Reality Collide in
New Orleans
~New Orleans architect David Waggoner worries the quest to reinvent the shotgun misses the point. "The type of architecture we were building here in the 19th century was pretty darn good," he said.
Vernessa Rogers is one of the few to opt for Kieran Timberlake's less conventional, asymmetrical concept. But that's because she liked the way the designers fit three bedrooms plus a studio apartment into the drum-tight footprint of a typical New Orleans cottage. "It has a nice high porch and a trellis," Rogers swooned. "And it's going to be a green house, and that will save me a lot of money on electricity. Sometimes, my baby says to me, 'Let's go ride by the house.' And I say, 'It's not there anymore.' But then I drive her over anyway," Rogers said with a chuckle, "We park on our land, and she does her homework in the car. It makes her so happy." ~More pics here!

Burma, China and America: Perspective on How Nations Handle Natural Disasters

Burma begins three days of mourning, neglects to notify own citizens

Cruel Burma regime bans mercy

World Bank denies aid to Burma~The World Bank says it is not currently in a position to give aid to Burma, saying the cyclone-hit country has been in arrears since 1998.

It's an Emergency, We're Not Prepared?

One Brick National trip to New Orleans! Help Rebuild
St. Bernard Parish!

New Orleans Journal: The New Yorker~Recording Katrina

Arlo Guthrie fishes for Dylan~"I don't have a lot of songwriting advice," Guthrie said, "but when people ask, I say, 'Do whatever you want, man, just don't be sitting downstream of Bob Dylan. I even wrote to Bob years ago and asked him to throw the small ones back every once in a while. He didn't think it was funny."~Photo: I Rock N Roll

Dubai-based DJ Zahra brings musical gold back from Jazzfest 2008

Drumming up support for music students

Lincoln Teams with Harry Connick, Jr. on New Orleans Musician’s Village Home

To the bone Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue to Perform at Marilyn’s on K

Phister sisters bring jazz stylings to Natchez festival

Susan Cowsill 2008 Summer Tour And Benefit Schedule Kicks Off

Six Things To Do This Weekend