Lundi

Floods: Army Corps Says PR Turns Babblers into Spokes- persons~Georgianne Nienaber

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 rode the bike out to this 17th Street Leak
May 26th, 4-7pm. This largest Leak (pictured left) was approximately 15 yards long by 5 yards wide then. This same "wet spot" has expanded into the leak in the picture of June 22nd above. It is now at least 30 yards long by 30 yards wide and growing. It has spread more than thrice its previous size in just under 30 days. Furthermore, there is now a channel of water nearly 4 inches deep flowing down the middle, which along with the leaks new growth suggests that the Corps has done nothing with this Leak since saying they would contract a third party to sort out levee seepage. But there it is looking for all the world just like the River, the flooding one, headed for New Orleans right now, heading right into the front yards of everyone living near a Corps of Engineers levee.

Editilla behooves and bemoans our brave and inquisitive NOLA'RILLAS to go, follow my copious directions (linked above), to this Leak and perhaps bring a shovel. By all means stick your finger into the water to see if it tastes brackish. I smelled canal water upon sticking my own arm into the leak up to the elbow.
It didn't occur to me to taste the water for lake salt. D'OH!
Y'all need to do this before the Corps just covers the Leak with fresh dirt. Despite having already rolled this issue of Corps' Public Relations Machinery (see decree link above), any vindication I could have felt here by this article today carries the weight of a heart soaked in crocodile tears.
The journalist allowed them to slide in the UpDate of the article by allowing them to do their public safety spiel (emphasis all Editilla):

"The Corps places public safety above all we do and is concerned for the well-being of our local citizens. The Corps has continually monitored potential seepage in the 17th Street Canal area. Seepage is a common occurrence when building in any coastal area. The Corps considers seepage assessment as part of any geotechnical evaluation for any feature of the system. We are currently coordinating with the Southeast Levee Protection Authority-East, which is assembling an external engineering review team to further examine the seepage along the 17th Street Canal."

~without calling them on this
glaring contradiction:

Question: When was the last time it was tested?
Answer: Water across the street was tested approximately three weeks ago. Wet spots closer to the canal and floodwall were tested approximately six weeks ago and were determined to be brackish.

Question: What is causing the flowing water and algae behind the gate?
Answer: We have not observed that, but will visit the site and investigate this afternoon.

~~I thought that they said that they have continually monitored this "seepage"? If so then why the fuck have they not noticed this this nearly 1200 sq foot
LEAK of FLOWING WATER?
~~Also: "wet spot(s)" closer to the canal??? Now the Corps contradicts earlier statements, and cops to this journalist that in fact that there might be, as Editilla already reported, more that one LEAK...
and gets away with it? No follow-up question?
Perhaps these were merely written questions, but sorry the Corps is not allowed a take-home exam. If these questions were live with the Corps, then...WTF?
Either way the Corps got the last word on a very well distributed article on their obvious real time engineering failures. Hmmm.
We all should learn such magic with which the Corps dusted this seasoned progressive journalist--so that we the people can see it coming after the next time that LEAKING 17th Street Canal sinks and falls apart...and they blame it on Mother Nature, Iowa Farmers, Katrina the Clown...my gullible ass.

The Corps has not touched this leak. They lied right there in the last words of that article--and bet on it that they will not let this slide so easily now that they have been given such a pass and warning.
They have too much riding on this Rising River to give us a chance, So Get On It New Orleans.
The Quixotic Corps of Engineers may not be only our city's problem, but that is for damn sure our city's future LEAKING beneath the "Repaired" 17th Street Canal Levee. More than ever now we remain Sinn Féin --but we will remain!

~Dr. Raymond Seed, a world famous civil engineer who heads a team of investigators for the University of California at Berkeley, wrote that the corps' work at the 17th Street Canal breach "did not appear to have improved the situation, indeed," he said, "it had likely made it more dangerous."

As Sand Bubbles Up Along an Illinois Levee, So Do New Questions~Even as many found cheer that floodwaters along the Mississippi River here would fall well short of what had been predicted, residents and the authorities in this town discovered a stark reminder of what might lie ahead: a sand boil on the aged levee that protects the town, a telltale sign that the swollen river had begun eroding the structure from beneath.

A portion of the Mississippi River, showing its many present and past meanderings, oxbows and channels, from the work of Harold Fisk, Geographical Investigations of the Alluvial Valley of the Lower Mississippi, 1944. Courtesy of The Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University.

Food stamp assistance expanded to more flood victims

Donations Needed for Flood Victims
~Coordinator Michael Warner says they were headed to New Orleans but the recent flooding in the Midwest changed all that.

Flooding takes its toll
~Carl Kologie, Indiana Gazette

Scientists fear flooding will swell gulf dead zone

Conservative Government Destroys Atlanta Like Gen. Sherman Never Could
~Rick Perlstein

The Ugly Side of Disaster
~Tim Wise~Hat T'n'T-Voices of New Orleans

Hallelujah We’ve Finally Finished the Insurance Page ~slabbed

Disaster tourism ~Disaster landscape attractions after Hurricane Katrina:
An auto-ethnographic journey

The Land Of Misguided Soldiers
~Cliff's Crib~Hat T'n'T~WBG

Curiouser and curiouser
~BADGERFEMS

WIA Predicts Rise in Blogger Arrests

Films I saw in the first two days of the 3rd Annual Tokyo Refugee Film Festival~Great Swifty

Spike Lee considers Hurricane Katrina follow-up

Warren Haynes cuts new album with New Orleans musicians
~John Swenson