Samedi

Atchafalaya

N.O. levees squeezed by Congress' demand for cash
~The goal to raise levees and build large-scale flood defenses around this flood-torn city could be delayed indefinitely because of congressional demands that Louisiana chip in $1.8 billion to the effort over three years.

As floodwaters recede in the Midwest, anger rises
~As an early tally of damage reaches billions of dollars, some towns say the federal government in years past turned its back on their pleas for help building or bolstering flood protection barriers.

After the great floods of 1993 swamped this tiny town in eastern Iowa, Mike Luck begged the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to help protect it from future disasters. Corps officials responded that this community of fewer than 700 residents probably would have to chip in more than $1 million to help build the federally engineered levee system it sought, the former mayor recalled. Unable to raise the funds, New Hartford built an earthen berm, which breached recently when Beaver Creek flooded, part of the widespread flooding in six Midwestern states. "There was no way we could get that kind of money pulled together for a levee," Luck said. "It took this town more than three years of bake sales and barbecues to raise enough money for new playground equipment."
"It felt like the government was telling us,
'You're not big enough or important enough for us to spend our money to save,' " Luck said.

Army Corps of Engineers should have to pay for its failures

Corps of Engineers rewriting history on flooding and levee breaches~S. Rosenthal

More on seepage - and what the Corps is holding back
~Matt McBride

Corps blames muskrats for levee breach on Mississippi

"It's so disappointing," said Linda Wilmesherr as she peered through binoculars at water pouring through a gap that appeared to be 30 feet wide. "With all the guns in this county,
couldn't we kill a muskrat?"

Editilla would like to know
how the Corps knows that muskrats are the cause of this levee failure--while they continue to maintain that they did not build these smaller levees, that these levees are hence substandard by definition and so have not warranted Corps scrutiny or maintenance?
This is what the Corps continues to tell the nation, to wit: they are not responsible for the failures of these levees as they did not build them and have not maintained inspections of them.
It was bubbas on bull dozers.
It was small town city councils.
It was Katrina the Clown.
It was Congress. It was muskrats.
So it must have been a muskrat, eh?
But , how does the Corps know this?

Another sandbag barrier fails at Winfield, Mo.

FEMA to send mobile homes to Iowa

Post Disaster Planning
- Iowa Lawyers Under Water Seek Assistance

Wisconsin Health Officials Say Severely Ill Boy Played in Flood Water~State officials say more than 160 communities have discharged untreated sewage into streams and lakes because flooding shut down their treatment systems. The releases totaled more than 800 million gallons of sewage.

When Disaster Strikes
~Flood victims don't have to go it alone. One catastrophe specialist explains how his business is helping the University of Iowa clean up the muck.

Some have drawn comparisons between this flood and Hurricane Katrina. Do you think that's valid?
"It doesn't matter if even one home is flooded: If it's your home, it is your Katrina. I sympathize with these folks. From my observations of the areas that were hit down here, they were hit equally bad. The biggest difference is that you have services right outside of the affected areas. I can go into a hotel and have a hot shower and a meal at night.
During Katrina, I couldn't. We lived in tents and hoped for a shower every few days. That event was so widespread. Certainly, this is bad, but at least there are hotels and family and friends nearby that were not affected that can help. I've been in this business for 20 years, and I hope I'll never see anything like Katrina again in my lifetime."
~Dennis McKinley, project manager for BMS Catastrophe, a privately held company with 731 employees in Fort Worth, Texas, that specializes in cleaning up after fires, floods and other disasters.

Best Friends deploys rescue team to Iowa

Legal Restraints Abound in Farmers' Flood Aid

EcoSteel incentive plan moves quickly in Miss.

Feds Help Hospitals Handle Higher Labor Costs

Congress' (and the President's) Priorities: ABNO~Harry Shearer

Barbour: 'Pigs in the python'

Larry Craig and David Vitter: Guardians of Marriage ~Loki-Humid City

New market a gathering spot in recovering N.O.

NOAHs,”New Orleans Architectural History survey” ~jlp/New Orleans

New Garden District 'Borders' Will Be Concept Store

~Editilla Whoas~
<--Dig'da Nola Rising ad'propriatin lifted off the station's site! Cool, huh? Wonder if WRNO has taken pause fo'da cause before da'ghost gets there first?

Music Review: Walter "Wolfman" Washington
- Doin' The Funky Thing

NolaFunk Lagniappe

Al Green lays down his
Al Green-est album ever

New Orleans Guitar Legend Jimmy Robinson Solo CD
~all about Jazz

Closing Shop—And A Life
~Sal Nunziato

Vendredi~10,000 hits today! 228 Daily posts, Merci!

The Duck Stops Here!

New Orleans Keeping an Eye on 17th Street Levee
~Georgianne Nienaber
~The Corps subsequently sent an investigative team out to the site and determined that the flowing water from the three points were brackish, meaning they have a salt-water component and were definitely coming from the drainage canal.
Smack'down Cartoonist~Editillero Michael Dibari

~Sandy Rosenthal of levees.org and Randall Cephus, Press Officer for the N.O. USACE (PONOUSACE). PO Cephus came out to the levee at our request to take some more photos of the bubbling water, which appeared to have increased in flow since Sun/22nd.

AP Photo/Bill Haber
~The same leak under the 17th Street Canal levee,
May 20th.
~Doubled by May 26th~
~Outside engineering experts studying the project told AP that the type of seepage spotted at this levee afflicts the city's other levees too, and could cause some of them to collapse during a storm.

~Editilla paz Editillero:
~Georianne Nienaber~for jumping on this story and carrying it so far so fast: exactly 30 days since I stuck my hands in this leak on May 26th, Memorial Day. HA! She Rocked it and Socked it and took it to the Bank as you can see. So, Gentle'rillas, please give this woman a hand. Follow herstories of da'rare mon'chere.

Editilla wanna Breach Blanket Party!
~complete with little Plastic Buckets and Shovels, inflatable pool chairs and da'chillrens making mudpies...and oh yeah--BINGO!


Call me crazy...but, seems our dynamic duo Supaheros,
Ace Trench Reporter Nienaber
and Levees Commandette Rosenthal,
may well have come along just in'da nick 0f time, eh?
Emergency sirens went off a little after 5:30 a.m. this morning signaling that the Pin Oak levee that sand baggers had fought so long to save had breached.
Pin Oak levee breached

~appx: 1100 Miles from Leak
at the 17th Street Canal Levee.


New 'slides' and sandboils confound floo'fighters

Flooding Continues in MO

Midwestern downpours keep residents out of homes

Magazine says 10 pieces of U.S. infrastructure need fixing right now

Corps of Engineers halts work on Wolf Creek dam

What to do with all the sandbags?
~In this June 17, AP file photo, Mike Brewer works on securing the levee along the Mississippi River in Clarksville, Mo.
As the waters finally begin to recede across the Midwest, dozens of flooded-out towns must now decide what to do with the millions of soggy, smelly sandbags that were painstakingly filled and stacked against nature.
The short answer for most towns:
The sandbags will remain in place for now, just in case.

Fundraiser for Katrina now fundraising for Iowa city
~"A lot of the time when people want to help in a situation like this, they are really reliving their own experiences," Scheetz said. "In [Barthe's] case, he knew because he had been through something very devastating himself."

Pawprints of Katrina:
Pets Saved and Lessons Learned

Woman, dog rescue each other
~Hurricane Katrina canine finds Cortez home, trains to work as psychiatric service dog

Donations for Midwest Floods Reach $16.3-Million

Jeffersons are movin' on down ~The New Orleans Levee

Vitter, you gotta be shitting us

Breaking: Scruggs Gets 5 Years and a $250K Fine (Updated) ~slabbed

Sale of disaster bonds seen slowing, for now

Helping rebuild New Orleans
~Volunteers coming for a week and staying for a lifetime.

Making Old Bikes New for Post-Katrina New Orleans

Political-Science Association Sticks to Plan for New Orleans Convention in 2012

West Bank Weekend Events

A picture's worth a thousand words~Did We Survive Katrina or Not?

Creole Beat~Toulouse Street

Warren Haynes Presents
~A-Caryling

Jeudi

Floodwater from the Mississippi River flows past the St. Louis skyline. Photo-Jeff Roberson / AP

The Floods: A Manmade Disaster?~Michael Grunwald
~On March 4, three Midwestern University professors wrote to warn the Army Corps of Engineers that its concrete navigation structures in the Mississippi River were intensifying floods, and that its plans to build more wingdikes and weirs would "exacerbate a severe and growing problem."
They called some of the structures — designed to scour out the river's bottom so that barges could pass — "loaded cannons pointing at St. Louis and East St. Louis, waiting to go off in the next flood." Citing "clear and unequivocal data" from a dozen peer-reviewed articles, they declared that "the time to ask these questions is now, and not in the aftermath of the next great flood."
~The Army Corps, the troubled, gung-ho public works agency that bears much of the blame for leaving New Orleans underwater, blew off the academics' concerns.
"I refuse to argue one side or the other, and instead prefer to take the road which best ensures and protects public safety, no matter the course of action," Colonel Lewis F. Setliff, commander of the agency's St. Louis District, replied on March 31. "I am completely confident that the Corps of Engineers has done this with regard to the river structures to which you refer."
~Editilla hangs a nail~Jeez Louie!
Ya'put "Colonel" in front of the guy's name and he thinks it spells "Capo" and this is a congressional investigation: "I may know a guy...who has a cousin that hoi'd -in passing- as to the im'perpetrated impregnation to'wit regards coit'n infrastructure to which you infoy...I t'ink it was a guy named, Eddie." <--[not related:]

Army Corps: 'Trust us'
~The New Orleans Levee
~Official insists levees - like his rhetoric - 'more strong'
Army Corps of Engineers Col. Jeffrey Bedey sees nothing wrong with portions of the New Orleans levee system held together with New Orleans Levee newspapers.
The Corps should have a report from the American Society of Civil Engineers in support of newspaper levees as soon as the Corps' check to the ASCE clears the bank.
(LEVEE PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/RUDY M. VORKAPIC)
~Editilla Creepillas Ass'wella!~
NOTE-the man's hands, the grip so tight, as if to restrain the right hand from telling us what the left hand
is really thinking! It wants its prrreeeccciiouuusssssss leveeeeee -a'fighting with himself, spectacles a'fog, teeth a'grit, heart a'ngioplacated...is that a blood-pressure wrap around his arm? Is that the 12 inch stare of a man who does not believe a forking word he's saying? Hmmm, Gentle'rillas want to know. And never let it be said that The New Orleans Levee can't hold water!

New Orleans, Lakeview, Gentilly
to Corps of Engineers:

DON'T FLOOD ME COE!

And BTW, has anyone checked that 17th Street Canal Levee Leak today?
Editilla'jus tolin'ya, Nola,
The Duck Stops Here!

Army Corps won't honor Pa.-NJ dredging agreement
~"And the Army Corps of Engineers is NOT the Engineers Corps, of which I was a member. The Engineers Corps built bridges and fought."

Pa/Del...Don't dredge me, BRO!

To prevent hurricane damage, build more land~Hat T'n'T-geology.com

Floods and droughts make mild diseases deadly

Clear Instance Of The Patriot Act Fraud Making Us Less Safe ~piglipstick

Andrea Mitchell did not challenge Republican Burr
~upon Asinine false assertion: "there wasn't a drop of oil that was spilled in the Gulf" due to Category 5 hurricanes.
~Editilla consuellas~Do reporters no longer call for comeuppance--but instead beg for comefacence? ...what?

Sodden, crumbling levee protects Missouri town
~James Burt sits on an embankment near a neighborhood inundated with floodwaters in Winfield, Missouri.

Midwestern downpours keep Missouri, Illinois residents out of homes

Iowa, Wisconsin Libraries Bear Brunt of Floods

Permits required to make repairs in wake of flood
~Clinton County officials are reminding residents living in the flood plain that a Flood Plain Development permit is required before repairs are made to properties located in the flood plain. A State of Iowa flood plain permit may also be required.

Nationwide asks to sell flood coverage

Special Report: After the flood
~Industrial distributors have been busy responding to the flooding in the Midwest in the last two weeks. Though the situation has changed from emergency to cleanup, distributors large and small alike continue to respond to the need for safety supplies, tools, generators and maintenance products as businesses and residents recover from the damage.

Flood, Sweat, and a Good Trout Mousse~Grist
~Iowa's chefs and their farmer-suppliers get busy recovering from disaster

New Orleanians Help Flood Victims

New Orleans Repairing Its Levee System~Milota Sidorova

Weather has been always the wild, black horse, too smart to get caught. Its sinister volatility and unpredictability, typical for past few years calls on the red alert. First it was Myanmar tragedy, then the Olympic antilogy victim China, now the world’s press is overpowered by the flood cause in the U.S. It seems, that somehow we have got used to hear the death tolls from there and over there. But an interesting reading for one means life strike for another. However it is, it’s always good to hear some news about technology progress, method, political movements, or even a system of measuring enabling to protect people in advance.
Last news from New Orleans, Louisiana refers that the city Congress fell into rescue aid system, giving the local research center, Corps of Engineers almost $5,7 billion. Indeed, it was New Orleans wasted terrific hurricane Katrina in 2005. People haven’t forgot about it.

Louise and June, Magazine and Seventh~Slimbolala

THE ETHICS BOARD IS IN SHAMBLES~HOW WILL JINDAL'S GOLD STANDARD OPERATE NOW?
~Central La. POLITICS

Train in Vain

Rio Grande Valley Families to Fight the Border Wall in New Orleans

Chief Executive Officer New Orleans Eco Design & Industry Park

New Orleans to use biodiesel in buses

Dispatch from New Orleans: From the ground up~LA Times

Recovery and Looking Forward
~Peter Wallace

The Elektrik Zoo Moves to New Orleans

Siblings lead Israeli jazz vanguard

Dr. Michael White
~John Swenson, offbeat

West Bank Weekend Events

Mercredi

AP Photo/Bill Haber
~In this area, water seeps under the levee of the 17th Street Canal levee, May 20, in New Orleans.
Outside engineering experts studying the project told AP that the type of seepage spotted at this levee afflicts the city's other levees too, and could cause some of them to collapse during a storm.

Sandy Rosenthal of levees.org at "little wet spot"-Sun. June 22
~Your arrant Editilla rode da'bike out to this 17th Street Leak May 26th, 4-7pm, Nolatime.
The 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 50 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 decreeing that 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, the one headed for New Orleans right now, right into the front yards of anyone living near ExQuixotic Corps levees, it has also even become a wetland hit with migrating waterflowl! HA! What Editilla been tolin'yaz?
The Duck Stops Here!
Stilla'Editilla points and axs...
America, who ya'gonna believe?
The Corps of Engineers who built these failing levees?
Faux'journalists clothed in sheep's bleating,
who continue to give the Corps the Last Word?
~~OR YOUR OWN LYIN'EYES???
Can we the people survive this team media onslaught?

Cyber'Ops Engineers~to the left of us.
Ed'Ops Privateers ~to the right.
~Here we am...
~~STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WIT'YOU!
Yeah we...
~~STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WIT'YOU!

US Corps of Engineers says
Levees Acutally Have Not Failed!
~Midwest Levees Reportedly Working as Planned

3 Ways to Re-Engineer the Gulf and Stop Katrina 2.0: Expert Op-Ed~Robert Bea

13 Ass'Buff Questions for the Army Corps of Engineers' Flood Reconstruction Chief from Popular Mechanics
~Thus continues the Team Media spin on our nation's Failing Engineering Infrastructure.

But our own Levees beg to differ:

~~I, national spokesperson for Levees.Org, which arose after Katrina, do challenge the answer to this question:
So this isn't about levee failure,
like in New Orleans?

In New Orleans, those 46 levee breaches due to overtopping happened because the the Corps of Engineers built the levees two feet two low and didn't armor them, so water quickly eroded them. To say they were not failures is baloney.

Second, the four "true" failures he alludes to were catastrophic and caused two thirds of the flooding in New Orleans.

The Corps of Engineers work in New Orleans was substandard and grossly negligent.

Sandy Rosenthal
Founder and Executive Director,
Levees.Org

Corps of Engineers says midwest flooding overwhelmed federal levees
The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things
and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.
In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true.
In ruling, be just.
In business, be competent.
In action, watch the timing.
No fight: No blame.
Lao Tzu

Dam Inspection Data Withheld From Press Under Patriot Act

Beware Section 702c
~The obscure clause protects the government from suits by flood victims.

DHS files suit against cooperating landowners in "Friendly Land Condemnation"?
~The lawsuit, one of more than 100 land condem- nation cases pending in Cameron County,
--is likely an attempt to clear the title on his land.
Our good friends at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, calls the type of case a "friendly land condemnation."
~Editilla Stigmalatas~
What next, Friendly Hell Fire? 2+2=5?

Governor Jindal:
IT'S ABOUT RECOVERY
~Krewe of Truth

Senate passes spending bill without money for N.O. aid

New Orleans inspector general: up and running

Reinsurers could absorb another Katrina -Amlin

Louisiana Citizens Raises Rates and Gives Complimentary Tube of Vaseline With Policy Renewals ~slabbed

2008 is the first time Mississippi school integrates prom
~Affrodite's Adventures in Nappy Hair

Katrina death list in works

Waterlogged Missouri levee latest under pressure from Mississippi

New Orleans church official lends Iowans her expertise on disasters

Midwest Governors ask Bush for more flooding money

Indiana city considers purchase of flood-damaged homes

Scuffles break out among flood victims seeking food vouchers
~Hat T'n'T-World News Bulletin (Don't ask:)

A Beautiful Development In A Disaster Area
~Walking the Fault

Special thanks to Amy Denio for the photo.
Blow Winds! Rage, Blow!
~Citizen K

Deluge for a Deluge~Brick

Liprap's Lament - The Line

Jabberwalk: What Lord David Really Thinks of New Orleans
~Hat T'n'T-Thanks Katrina

Port? Jobs? Housing? The Chicken, the Egg, and Scarcity Mentality . . . Again
~A.M. in the Morning

Over 1,300 Students Mobilize to Rebuild New Orleans on July 4th
~Student volunteers from 152 campuses across the U.S. will dedicate their July 4th holiday to rebuilding New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward community for residents and their children. HOPE worldwide, with the help of these young volunteers, plans to clear 50 to 100 building lots making way for future homes, develop a memorial garden for those who lost their lives during the storm and complete other beautification projects.

Atheists to the Rescue in New Orleans~When the going gets weird...

Calling During Disasters

Amtrak hints service to Memphis may be sinking

What to do about New Orleans' trailers?

Elizabeth Brown; New Orleans Muralist

Spooky, wonderful music CD in Neal Stephenson's new novel ~boingboing

Resurgence of music in Big Easy helps residents heal

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

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