Saturday, March 23, 2013

Carpetbaggers Continue Hate-Debate Over 'Make It Right" and How to Rebuild New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward ~Smithsonian
Editilla~New Orleans Ladder says: March 23, 2013 at 11:04 am
At least Thing 1 at The New Republic quoted a resident. Did you interview any residents?
Another thing you didn’t do was mention the Corps of Engineers as the cause of our devastation in New Orleans and particularly the flood wall failures which disappeared your subject. That kinda makes you Thing 2.
Both of you casually imply Katrina devastated New Orleans. This is simply not the Truth of what happened here 8/29/05. It is in fact a PR Lie perpetrated by the Corps of Engineers Public Affairs Dept within the 1st week of their flooding New Orleans.
Down here we call such misapprehension: Katrina Shorthand.
Katrina Shorthand informed your entire article.
I can’t hold it against you that you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. But I will call-out anyone who spreads the Corps lie about the man-made disaster they visited upon New Orleans that horrid, fateful day in August 2005.
Please think on this before you deign to presume upon my city again.
At the very least please educate yourself. You might start at Levees.org http://levees.org/myth-busters-by-levees-org/
Thank you.

Southern Rep's gripping 'Mold' brings playwright's Katrina trilogy to a cathartic close ~Theodore P. Mahne ~Hat Tweet @LeveesOrg
~"Mold” is the final work in a trilogy of plays based on the experiences of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flood brought on by the failure of the federal levees. (-; Emphasis all Editilla ;-)

If everyone wins, as Jindal claims, his tax plan math is bogus ~Tyler Bridges, The Lens




Thursday, March 21, 2013

Corps of Engineers is still blaming Environmentalists for Katrina Flooding, new video from Levees.org!
"Reading the Leaves in the White Teapot" ~Christine Horn, Nolafugees
Modernization of flood insurance risk assessments, ending of mandatory policies behind levees recommended ~Mark Schleifstein
~Commenter johnbgood~ "The modern methods would be similar to those the Army Corps of Engineers used in determining the risk of hurricane storm surge and rainfall flooding as part of its design of levee improvements in the new Orleans area after Hurricane Katrina." 

Please do not use that flawed methodology as the standard. There were too many things done wrong by the Corps on that study. The Corps and all of its PR-engineers will state at every public meeting that 152 storms were modeled for the system in New Orleans. But in reality very few have even looked at the modeling and even fewer of the Corps' PR-engineers even understand the modeling they are referencing. The Corps model of 152 storms had many many short-comings. Of the 152 storms, only about half of the storms come within 60 miles of New Orleans. The model does not account for slow moving storms and weak storms. The model under estimates the relative sea level rise. The model under estimates the rate of overtopping. Modeling for a deltaic coast is very complex. The Corps has never stated what was the coastline they assumed in their model. When all of these factors are combined, we have a model that does not relfect the actual flood threat, but is nothing more than a academic exercise in statistics and mathematics. And in some cases even a bad academic exercise. For example, the Corps used the methodolgy to use a small sampl size of storms to model the so-called 100-year flood. Then used the same data to identify the 500-year flood level. The only problem, is the data cannot be manipulated like the Corps did and have any validity. If the 500-year level needs to be determined, then the data used needs to be for the 500-year event not extracted from the data set for the 100-year event and projected to create a so-called 500-year event. That's just bad science.

And to show just how slow things move to correct the flaws. To date the Corps has yet to run and release the version of their model that includes all of the levee improvements made since Katrina. I wonder why.

And don't count on oversight by state agencies. Many of the seats on the boards tasked with oversight, are filled by individuals with no technical background to either understand or review the information they are tasked with over seeing.

The real truth will not come out any time soon because if it did flood insurance rates across the metroploitian area (including the areas behind the levees) would sky rocket. And the business leaders that pull the strings of the elected officials will not let that happen. Because if it did, they would probably lose employees and customers who would relocate to less flood prone areas and their businesses would suffer.


Steve Gleason Helps Kickoff New Orleans Entrepreneur Week


FOIA-Matic: A One-Click Interface for Gulf Pollution Response
 
Gulf lease bids exceed $1.2 billion 
 
Oil revenue sharing bill introduced
 
Troy Dugas: The Shape of Relics
 
Dat Dog adds to the pack

Edible School Yard New Orleans, Garden Party Under The Stars Tonight!

Tujaques is in danger of closing
 
AXS beams New Orleans Jazzfest live

Music is the voyage at Congo Square festival 
 
Local bands go Hog Wild for Brain Cancer

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Bitter Rivalry: How the Saints / Falcons Hatred Really Began ~Saints Tailgate
Climate change could mean seven times as many Katrinas ~Tim McDonald, Grist
~Batten down the hatches, East Coasters: A new study argues that for every 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F) of global warming, the U.S. Atlantic seaboard could see up to seven times as many Katrina-sized hurricanes.
That’s the conclusion of Aslak Grinsted, a climatologist at Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute, who led an effort to match East Coast storm surge records from the last 90 years with global temperatures. His results, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that the strongest hurricanes are likely to become more commonplace with only half the level of warming currently projected by scientists.

Deadlines approaching for disaster recovery assistance ~Mississippi Business Journal
‘Wave Robber’ wins Entrepreneur Week’s water challenge

Film industry expresses concerns about Jindal tax proposal

La. black bears active early

Pols on parade ~Library Chronicles

Archbishop gives brief history behind St. Joseph's altar tradition

2013 Tennessee Williams Festival March 20-24

Monday, March 18, 2013

Other People's Property: A Blighted New Orleans ~Geoff Gauchet
Why The Saints Need Better Offense ~ The Ad Infinitum Philosophy ~Saints Tailgate
Guest Column: LSU deserves accountability from its administration~Since settling with Dr. Ivor van Heerden for a near-half million dollars in his wrongful dismissal suit, LSU’s line, straight from LSU Interim System President and Chancellor William “Bill” Jenkins, is that further discussion is “no longer relevant, warranted or appropriate.” Indeed? For an institution of higher learning, should not truth matter? We require accountability of students, staff and faculty, why not of upper administration and our Board of Supervisors? Especially when these same individuals have been involved time and again in practices that bring enormous costs in lawyers and settlements. Besides staining LSU’s image, should they now also speak for LSU?

Follow‐Up Report Finds City Did Not Implement Promised Actions ~Ed Quatreveau

Public meetings set for NOPD court monitor selection

Inside Forbes: Amid the Finger Pointing, Journalists Need to Explore New Payment Models ~Lewis DVorkin

Councilman questions state funding of N.O. Miss. River bridge lights

It turns out Gov. Jindal was just kidding about Texas Brine buying out victims of their sinkhole

St. Charles West Bank Levee Gets Final Approval

Louisiana industrial boom could create labor shortage

Super Sunday (PHOTOS) ~NOLA DEFENDER

100th Louisiana Derby & Infield Festival!