Samedi

Click photo to enlarge. A view of from space of the flooding and results of levee breaches along the Mississippi River in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. The large blue "lakes" in the "after" image are areas behind levees that were over topped or breached. The water was then trapped behind the levee and could not reenter the river. NASA image from Earth Observatory. Geology.com

Corps issues false/positive levee map complete with Fairy Tale of Levee Builders and Farmers
<--Click to enlarge
Rebuttal from Levees.org
The New York Times has re-produced a map of the Midwest Flooding supplied to them by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Since the Corps is responsible for the performance of most of the important levees in the country, one should not rely on maps and statements by the Corps. This is a clear conflict of interest. An independent agency should make and distribute such a map. That said, I wish to point out that the color coding, certainly on the internet makes it difficult to differentiate between flooding caused by federal vs. non-federal levees. And third, I take issue with this statement: "Many of the breaches occurred on levees that were privately built." That is a vague statement! Exactly how many and out of how many total were private? And I note that the map does not say, ""Many of the breaches occurred on levees that were designed and built by the federal government" which is also perfectly true. Sandy Rosenthal Founder and Executive Director, Levees.Org www.levees.org

Editilla would also like to note that the levees on this map that the Corps designates as locally built are listed as Federal on the Corps other levee map: "Flood Fighting Potential Levee Breach" map, release earlier in the week, before these Big River Levees began failing. It must be noted also that the levee failures in Lincoln County, MO that the Corps says were 90% locally built were flooded after the 10% of Big River Levees (stuck small in-between the "alleged" locally built structures) breached. It is the Big River Levees which have failed and they were built by the Corps of Engineers. Of course smaller structures will breach after the Big River Levees fail flooding everything behind them.
This notion, this allusion that the flooding was cause by the failure of smaller locally built levees is a Red Herring at best, Criminal Obfuscation at worst. The Big River Levees are what counts and they were built by the Corps and they are the ones that have caused the major flooding. Surely everyone can now see the story that the Corps is trying to spin: "We didn't build these little levees. It was farmers. Yeah! That's the ticket! Farmers...and local "contractors". Yeah, we will just confuse the American Public with a yarn about "Patchwork Levees"...Yeah"
{Kudos, Kevin. We'll make a journalist outta'ya yet!:}

Corps spokes'ho, retired Brig Gen. and former Corps of Engineers employee Gerald E. Galloway Jr., sited in this shameful NYT article/folklore, is the very same one I mentioned below as speaking on NPR yesterday. They get around to all the best restaurants, eh? He's probably already on Fox. With each public relations presentation, NPR and NYT, there was no opposing view presented. None. There is opposing view on these failing levees. It just wasn't offered by these news outlets. They only offered the Corps of Engineers spokes'hos spin on who built these levees. We call this: "NOTMEMOMMA". The Corps is issuing slang press releases to distract us from hanging their asses out to dry whenever this water finally goes down after another of their catastrophic engineering failures. They built every Levee on that Mississippi River. NOT some farmer in Iowa. So is the Corps of Engineers basically telling us that they did not do what we told them to do way back in 1928? Or are they telling us they have not been doing what we told them to do back in 1993? What they are trying to do is deny that their overall flood control system is wrong. You don't sink a garden spade in a Mississippi River Levee without the Corps knowing about it--in triplicate. It is not done. Those have been Federal since the year they were built. Furthermore, this Times article does indeed leave one with the impression that these failed levees were on the scale of, say, irrigation levees in a rice field. No. Bullshit. Hooey. Lies. PR Spin. The people saying these things should be arrested for endangering public safety, not given venue in the NYT.
The Corps may actually not know where all their levees are, or which ones are at risk, but Levees.org has a list of them here.

River rises again, renewing worries in Mo. towns

Government tries to determine condition of U.S. levees

Photo courtesy of CA Dept. of Water Resources A levee along the Middle River in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta breaks in June 2004.

Editilla gozintas~100 Year Flood Protection?
500 Year Flood Protection?
Why doesn't the Quixotic Corps of Engineers start calculation at 15 year (1993) or even 4 Year Flood Protection (photo above) ?
I mean are they cypherin' with Dog Years?
Or worse, is the Corps thinkin in Soap Opera Time:
like, they way children on those television shows
age so quickly and the matriarchs age in reverse
and the men just seem to stay the same?
Sort of a Kafka Quantum Dios?
Are we on Soap Opera Time with the US Army Corps of Engineers? If you look at the reality of their engineering failures, then appx 33 years of our lives is equal to only 3 on a Corps Watch of 100 year flood planning?
And given that yesterday a Corps Spokesperson told NPR that they still do not even know where all the levees are located, who ya'gonna believe? Them? Or your own Lyin'Eyes? Jeez Louie! Mother Nature My Ass!
The Corps of Engineers uses these former employees and public relations firms to try to convince us that it is only natural that our levees are failing. They try to spin the idea that we are in error for continuing to trust in their engineering. They would have us get used to the idea that Engineering, as a building profession, operates with failure in mind rather than the other way around.
So, you will see more of these spokes'hos on major media like NPR, rarely the same one twice, so that the public will have the impression that a lot of technical types agree with the Corps view of inherent failure or global warming or congressional indifference or Katrina the Clown or whateva their "not-me" dujour.
Nothing could be farther from the truth, as many engineers across the country beg to differ whilst they watch aghast as the Corps and ASCE ruin America's trust in their fine profession. American Engineers used to build things that worked, not things that failed.
Americans should ask the Corps how much money they spend on Public Relations.

So after the administration used this latest National Disaster to push through their War Funding, and today would use the Saudi Oil Embargo of our country to open up our coasts to off shore drilling, I feel it incumbent upon Editeurilla everywhere to remind folks that we do not have to take this Doctrine of Disaster Capitalism.


Iowa Gov Culver asked McCain to stay away during floods
~Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain disregarded a request from Iowa Gov. Chet Culver to suspend campaigning in the state until Iowans can get a better handle on the flooding crisis.

I-10 Twin Spans are closed due to a hydrocloric acid spill.
An 18 wheeler is reportedly overturned just off the northshore end of the Span, spilling part of its load.
-All lanes of traffic in both directions are closed.
-Westbound I-10 is closed at Old Spanish Trail,
-and eastbound I-10 is closed at Irish Bayou.
-The alternate route is Highway 11.
-Troop L Spokesman Louis Calato says there are no evacuations at this time, and says that so far, none of the acid has gotten into the lake.

Fake FEMA officials reported in flood-ravaged Vernon County

Flood fallout still rippling across state~Wisconsin’s interstate system is back. But even as the Department of Transportation opened the southbound lanes of I-39 near Portage on Friday — the last of the closed interstates — people are still dealing with the fallout from this month’s floods.

Work begins at Wis. lake drained by flood

Wisconsin Produce farmers scurry to replant

Flood situation improves in West Bengal, India, 27 dead till now

Survivors Try to Come to Terms with Their Loss

Illinois guard members, insurers help out during flood

Donations being sought for Midwest flood relief

Local volunteers help with Iowa flood relief

Logistics woes persist as Midwest flood waters recede

Allergy expert has advice for flood victims

St. Charles, MO-Flood announcements, road closures, flood safety tips and more

Blagojevich halts insurance cancellations for flood victims

Missouri family struggles to stay above water

MS River
MO River today at
St. Louis (lower right)
Please click to enlarge.
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. This is active data.
USGS~Flood Stage Levels current 'real-time' guage readings. I use the USGS maps to get oriented to the states and their flood gauges due to the lack of boundries of the sat'view. I also look up State Maps.

Subsidy offered to get residents out of trailers
~But those residents, at meetings in Slidell and Folsom, were also told that they may have to move out of the area due to a local shortage of rental housing units. "You have to make some real hard decisions," said Carl Jurison, a senior adviser for the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
~Editilla gotta'wonda~
What if one of those Hard Decisions might be to find out where this HUD senior adviser lives and deny him the right to make a home on his own property? Apparently HUD's plans for tax-payer financed relocation-in-favor-of-commercial-development do not stop at New Orleans public housing, but extend even into middle class America's neighborhoods too.

Lafayette appeals flood maps
~The city-parish government has submitted an extensive appeal of proposed flood maps that identify large areas of parish as flood-ways, a designation that could frustrate future development.

Good Job Brownie! KBR Katrina Work Blasted by the Pentagon. Millions Squandered~slabbed

U.S. lawmakers try to stop Katrina funds from going to port

Taylor, Thompson at odds over port

New Orleans port braces for storm season

Education Reform in Post- Katrina New Orleans
~The Bill Reader

House honors fleur de lis

St. Charles streetcars will go the distance

David Vitter Has a New Fetish ~Chris Kelly

ICE Found on Mars!
SB 51, The Guns to Work Bill, Passes La. House Vote
~Central La. POLITICS
Noooowwww, Editilla ain't sayin' these two events are connected or any'ting. But...ya'never know?

Brad and Angelina sell New Orleans house
~Your Right Hand Thief

Larry Sinclair Arrested
~CenLamar

New Orleans Rising

ANTIGRAVITY’s 4-Year anniversary party TONIGHT!

Black Gospel Music Blog
~Legislation Pending to Make September 2008 "Gospel Music Heritage Month"
~Liz McComb - The Spirit of New Orleans (review)

Local Berklee professor travels to New Orleans to help Katrina victims, build curriculum

Music Rising's Icons of Music Auction II
~Reach Out For New Orleans

NOLA Diary Xll:
A Staunch Jazz Traditionalist
~The Independent Ear

Music Of My Mind:
Les Poissons Rouges
~noah bonaparte pais~blogofneworleans.com

Voodoo Announces Full Festival Lineup~Festival Website