~Mark Schleifstein
2A: The Only Option~Gambit
~By now it is abundantly clear that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers intends to stick New Orleans with the fatally flawed floodwalls the Corps designed and built along the city's three outfall canals — at London Avenue, Orleans Avenue and 17th Street. No New Orleanian who lived through Hurricane Katrina will ever forget that the London Avenue and 17th Street canals catastrophically failed during the storm, playing a part in flooding tens of thousands of homes and killing more than 1,000 people. We also know that, in the wake of the storm, the defective floodwalls have not been fully repaired but merely patched where they failed. That is unacceptable.
~Editilla Rotellas~We are growing increasingly uneasy about the Corps shifting Flood Funding around between the parishes, as evidenced in this article Friday in the Times-Picayune. This problem with the Pump funding in Jefferson parish was discussed this Fall in articles about the Corps secret, closed-door meetings in hotel rooms to find ways to slash $300 Million.
Now they are saying they won't have all the funding for some parts of Orleans Parish. The Corps will pit Parish against Parish.
They are setting up a scenario where there simply won't be any way to secure funding for Option 2 or 2A, as we will be scrambling with other parishes for the remaining, quickly dwindling pool of money. Thus, we Will Not get those old Failed Floodwalls replaced or dealt with at all.
Ladder Operative, PWALLY, managed to get this footage of one such Corps Secret Contract Summit, this one in Japan.
On May 26th, 2008, in view of the Huge Leaks flowing then, I inspected the 17th Street Canal floodwall Section 1 all the way to 17th Street and back on foot for about 6 or 7 hours, inch by inch.
You may read the rest of my post on this here.
Here is my description from that time, with a challenge to readers to go back today and survey that Old Bad Floodwall to see how it has remained. This is what the Corps would have us maintain:
The older section seams are what worries me. As far down as a foot in many of the seams (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. I could see day light between the seams within 6 inches of the top on most of the sections, from RE Lee to 17th Street. 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.
Please everyone go and see for yourself. 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 and get yer hands dirty as We can get our hands around this threat and perchance feel out solutions together.
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