Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Mardi

Flood Maps Available in the Ball State University Libraries
~In the wake of recent historic flooding throughout the Midwest, home owners are reevaluating their decisions regarding the purchase of flood insurance. The Geospatial Resources & Map Collection in Bracken Library offers a large collection of floodway and flood boundary maps for research.
Click to enlarge


Double standard exists between Katrina, Midwest flooding

New Orleans is not a libertarian experiment, part II
~John McQuaid
~Part one here.

Levees UpDate:
Dear all.

I am pleased to inform you that we will add two more entities to our growing list of supporters calling for the 8/29 Investigation
Senate Bill 2826 filed by Senator Mary Landrieu D-LA.

On Tuesday June 17, I received word from Woody Martin, Chair of the Sierra Club Delta Chapter that it "strongly supports Levees,org's campaign to get Congress to appoint an 8/29 commission to investigate the failures of the levees and to do a third party review of the Corps of Engineers actions before and after Katrina."

Two days later, I received word that the Southeast Flood Protection Authority East had unanimously passed a resolution calling for the 8/29 Commission and also calling for looking at how public works all along the Mississippi River contribute to southeast Louisiana's vulnerability to hurricanes.

The resolution was proposed by authority secretary John Barry, the author of "Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America."

Barry added in an interview with the
Associated Press
that an investigation beginning three years after the hurricane would have the benefit of fresh looks at the evidence collected for similar studies in the immediate aftermath of the flooding.

Stories about the levee authority's support have also been featured on
WWL Eyewitness News Channel 4
, the Times Picayune and The Advocate.

The Board of Levees.Org is proud and pleased to add these two organizations to our list of supporters!

Sincerely,
Sandy Rosenthal / Director-levees.org

Corps of Engineers says midwest flooding overwhelmed federal levees

Floods: Army Corps Says PR Turns Babblers into Spokes- persons~Georgianne Nienaber
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."
Corps' levee report isn't final
~Although the Army Corps of Engineers has proposed beefing up East Jefferson's storm surge defenses by building levees a little wider and higher, and adding more rock along the shoreline, it's too soon to know whether such relatively modest changes will be enough for all 9.5 miles of earthen levees.
Geotechnical analyses -- the calculations that spell out what it takes to provide a particular level of safety in a particular place -- haven't been finished for four of East Jefferson's five lakefront levee reaches. It will be at least two more months before that work is complete. Until it is, corps representatives said the recommendations included in last week's release of a report on the East Jeff lakefront levees are only tentative.
~Editilla spaculatas~That 2 month delay in releasing a less tentative levee plan should put the Corps finally getting around doing their job at AUGUST...say, AUGUST 29th??? Aaaand they said they will get around to contracting a think tank study of the Water flowing underneath the 17th Street Canal Levee LEAK...when? They'll get back to us, eh, around the end of Hurricane season. Apparently the Corps thinks they are really great at flood control--until it floods!
Then...they'll get back to us...
drop us a line.

~More Exquixotic Corps~
Titan meeting with Army Corps to go on as scheduled~Yes, the very same company referenced in the OpEd News piece above.
~Florida's 60-day Notice of Intent to Sue U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
~Apalachicola Wants Less Talk and More Action for Apalachicola River
~White House denies Army's pitch for more brass

Thanks Again,
Mr. Reagan

~Midwest flooding is nothing new.
Mark Twain wrote about it in Life on the Mississippi; just over 80 years ago, the great flood of 1927 inundated 16.6 million acres of land and caused $40 million in damage and claimed 426 lives. This flood, which cost a huge amount in its day, spurred good flood-control practices. Levees built in its wake are still in service today. In fact, the levees built in the years after 1927 around New Orleans withstood Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

Mississippi Breaches Levee, Cities Battle Floodwaters (Update1)

Recovery Perspective
~Laureen Lentz


What Rob Couhig really thinks about New Orleans
~Matt McBride


Landrieu touts flood control work

N.O. lawyers head to Iowa to help with flood recovery

Midwesterners work to rise above flood damage

Recovery from floods will take 'long time,' billions of dollars

Flood victims say FEMA is doing a heckuva job

Insurer Ace sees "negligible" flood earnings impact

Flood needs delay rollout of welfare changes

Midwest flood water is a West Nile concern

WAVICS~Wave, Current, Surge Information System for Coastal Louisiana
Note
~ Gentle'rillas can use these interactive sites together to study the flooding in any state: zoom WAVICS sat'view out and "curser" the Map up the Mississippi River to St. Louis, Indiana and Illinois and then zoom'click back down to follow the smaller rivers like the Mossouri, Ohio and the Iowa.

Wikimapia~Monster
Mash'up
~Cairo, Il.
~Congroovience
of MS and OH Rivers

Please click to enlarge-->
USGS~Flood Stage Levels current 'real-time' guage readings. I use the USGS maps to get oriented to the states and their flood gauges. This is active data. Due to the lack of boundaries of WAVICS, I also look up State Maps.

Disaster Recovery: Re-Thinking Your Strategy~Virtualization

Rocket Matter Helps Provide Disaster Recovery for Law Firms

About the Gift of Being Slabbed

Mapping It All Out: FEMA's GIS Program Has Positive Impact On Moss Point Recovery

Entergy New Orleans Pitches Renewable Energy Credits, Not Sources

Guest Post: Kit Reed on Twitter, Google, Facebook et al
~Critical Mass


Thank you New Orleans Daily Photo

The best of New Orleans
~Celeste's Scramblings


Contrary to rumor, Jolie and Pitt have not sold French Quarter mansion

I'm Voting Republican
~Militant Moderate


The End Of A Perfect Day
~Citizen K


Welcome to New Orleans!
Your new neighbor already doesn't like you
~The Head Pelican


Cha Lectures 71
- New Orleans Reflections


New Orleans:
The Flood Last Time -- and Still
~RickHorowitz


Gris Gris to Co-Produce Theatrical Show about Hurricane Katrina Survivors

Molly’s At 50. Molly’s At 50?
~The Chicory


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