Katrina's winds too weak to destroy Biloxi houses, State Farm claims manager says  ~Anita Lee, SunHerald.com

Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/2013/03/27/4555678/katrinas-winds-too-weak-to-destroy.html#storylink=cpy

Corps of Engineers Excels at Wasting Money ~Ryan Alexander

~Editilla Co'tellas~Setting aside the Exquisite Corps' current extortion of New Orleans with their never-finished Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System in Name Only  (HSDRRSNO), take for example: The M/V Mississippi is (according to Corps PR) a "working" towboat for the USACE Memphis District. Ninety percent of the time it is moving barges, equipment and supplies in support of mat sinking operations. (Not only is this a bald-faced lie, but look at that titanic mother-of-all-fuckers in the pic above! I did a simple Google search, do youses see this bad boy anywhere? Also, even the Exquisite Corps doesn't lay concrete shore mats with 3 Caterpillar 3408 diesels. The Corps is whistling bullshit.)
It also serves as an inspection boat for the Mississippi River Commission (MRC) during a high- and low-water inspection trip each year. (Except for the fact it can't navigate on the MS River above Memphis during low-flow conditions --too fucking big) Commissioners hold meetings (fluff sessions) at river towns in the boat's hearing room, which can seat 115 people. Its dining room (with executive chef) has a capacity of 85 people. The boat has 22 staterooms and can handle 150 passengers (of all, ahem, occupations).
The Corps also uses it as a "giant floating ambassador".(BWAHAHAHAHA)
During the Hurricane Katrina crisis, the Mississippi was moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi and used as a floating command center. (That would be when the Corps cut and ran from their criminally negligent engineering that flooded their own New Orleans District 8-29-05)

Big Oil lobby backs tax plan, La. business leaning against ~Jeremy Alford

Lee Zurik Investigation: Police chief says Body of Evidence makes him sick ~WVUE

Out of the Way Eats in the F.Q ~Where Y'at

2013 French Quarter Festival Schedule!

Good Fryday at the Musician's Village ~NOLA DEFENDER

Decorative lights to shine on Crescent City Connection again ~The N.O. Advocate

Corps of Engineers prepares for Uptown canal construction

St. Charles residents would see huge rate hikes in new FEMA flood maps

New Orleans Officials Helping Locals Get Work At Two New Big Box Stores ~WWNO

Better coastal flooding warnings in works, officials say ~Amy Wold

Cargo question clouded by logistics, rules ~Daily Comet

Vicksburg officials watching river walls during rainy weather ~Mississippi Business Journal

Lessons From New Orleans: Creating A Sustainable Business Culture ~Forbes

New in NOLA!

~Travel the World -and never leave Julia St.- all in one afternoon at the Louisiana Children’s Museum’s Children’s World’s Fair!

Review: Mold ~Dalt Wonk, Gambit

John Besh expresses interest in buying Tujague's restaurant ~Susan Langenhennig
~Eiditilla Ho'tellas~ Dear @Tugagues, Jus'sayin...

*

Katrina whistle-blower case starts in federal court in Mississippi ~Anita Lee, Sun Herald

Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/2013/03/25/4551768/katrina-whistle-blower-case-starts.html#storylink=cpy

Future of historic New Orleans restaurant Tujagues unclear after death ~The Advocate

Digital subscriptions coming to Houma Courier
~Hat Tweet @UptownMessenger

Bollinger delivers fifth cutter to Coast Guard ~N.O. City Business

~Each fast response cutter is named for an enlisted Coast Guard hero who distinguished him or herself in the line of duty. This vessel is named after Margret Norvell, who served 41 years with the U.S. Lighthouse Service in Louisiana from 1891 to 1932. She served as keeper of both the Port Pontchartrain Light and the West End Light.

CBS seeks tax credit for going live from French Quarter during recent Super Bowl ~The Lens

Songs For Junior Rangers
~The 20-song CD includes a poster map with a special Junior Ranger game, and a booklet with the lyrics to each song, so kids can sing along. Proceeds from the sales of Songs for Junior Rangers support educational and interpretive programs in national parks. Along with Ranger Jeff Wolin, Rangers Matt Hampsey and Bruce Barnes from New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park appear on the album, as well as many talented New Orleans musicians. The songs cover a variety of subjects, including elk in “Wapiti Hoppity,” caving in “Spelunka Funka,” glaciers in “Frozen Bulldozin’,” and Mount Rushmore in “Four Presidents.” Musical elements include hip hop, reggae, blues, jazz, rock, zydeco, funk, and even polka. The CD was made possible through a grant from the National Park Foundation and is distributed and marketed by Eastern National.


Video: A Day in the Life of a WWNO Producer

Fair Grounds Getting Ready For Derby Festival and Jazz Fest

Barge Gate issues loom, engineering system failures worry La. flood official ~Bob Marshall

~“It’s an incredibly complicated design that will take nine hours to close effectively — and that the corps still can’t operate successfully after repeated tries. I keep seeing us trying to close that hole in the wall with a storm coming — and having nothing but problems.’’ -Bob Turner, Civil Engineer, regional director of the South Louisiana Flood Protection Authority - East.
The story of the barge gate goes back to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Admitting that its own catastrophic engineering failures caused more than 50 ruptures in its levees and floodwalls, killing more than 1500 people and drowning 80 percent of the city in up to 15 feet of water, the corps promised amends. The answer was the $14 billion Hurricane Storm and Damage Risk Reduction System, which was to have been finished ahead of the hurricane season two years ago. The “barge gate” gets its name from its main element: a mammoth, concrete barge 190 feet long, 70 feet wide and 44 feet deep. It is not so much a gate as an emergency dam to be used on a temporary basis during storms. On paper, the design calls for the huge barge to be swung into a 190-foot gap in the Lake Borgne Surge Barrier at its junction with the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. Once in place, the barge is filled with water and sunk to prevent storm surge from pouring through the city’s eastern defenses. Even as a temporary fix during Hurricane Isaac helped that barge gate plug the hole, members of the flood authority spent anxious days worrying that it might fail.
~Illustration at right curtsey of Da'Masqued E'vinga: Corps officials say there is nothing to worry about; all gates have bugs, and they’re working them out. Hehehehe...

Emergency management officials gather in New Orleans Monday for the 13th annual National Hurricane Conference

Hurricanes offer lessons for builders

Ben Franklin leaders worry about future reserves, discuss possible enrollment caps ~Chenault Taylor, The Lens

Richard Florida Concedes the Limits of the Creative Class ~Joel Kotkin, The Daily Beast
~Creatives may espouse politically correct views, but the effect of Florida’s policy approach, notes Tulane sociologist Richard Campanella, often undermine ethnic communities. As they enter the city, creatives push up rents, displacing local stores and residents. In his own neighborhood of Bywater, in New Orleans, the black population declined by 64 percent between 2000 and 2010, while the white population increased by 22 percent. In the process, Campanella notes, much of what made the neighborhood unique has been lost as the creatives replace the local culture with the increasingly predictable, and portable, “hip cool” trendy restaurants, offering beet-filled ravioli instead of fried okra, and organic markets. The “unique” amenities you find now, even in New Orleans, he reports, are much what you’d expect in any other hipster paradise, be it Portland, Seattle, Burlington, Vermont or Williamsburg.

These birds don’t need to fly South — help keep New Orleans “duck boat tour” free! ~Lunanola, NOLAFemmes

Exotic Romancing ~Odd Bits of Life in New Orleans

La. National Guard practices storm response

Letter to the Editor: ABO Hearing on St. Roch Tavern ~NOLA DEFENDER

Local landowners can get help restoring private wetlands 

Film industry workers nervous about proposed changes to tax credits

 

Wardell Quezergue Mass 4 pm Today ~WWOZ

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

Seawall project begins on New Orleans’ Lakeshore Drive 

Vitter/Boxer bill to reign in Corps of Engineers drawing differing views ~Andy Sullivan
~Editilla Cotellas~ I gotta admit to some deal of Trepidation and Foreboding at the idea of giving the Exquisite Corps even more money to misappropriate to "studies".

Jindal plan $650 million short of 'revenue neutral,' watchdog group says

Nation’s Restaurant News: Origin Labeling Key to Restaurant Seafood Sales

Heart of Louisiana: Battle of Port Hudson

BOOK REVIEW: Unfinished Blues and Ernie K-Doe ~Oxford American

Hog Wild Weekend ~Blackened Out

Sunday: Revolution SA&PC second line parade ~Big Red Cotton, Gambit

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

Senators Vitter and Boxer join forces on bill to speed Corps of Engineers work

Jindal tax plan draft released

On State Government Websites, Jindal Administration Promotes and Publishes Editorial Attacking Critics and Opponents of Tax Plan As “Unintelligent” “Demagogues” ~CenLamar

Hiring in metro projected to be the second weakest in the nation

Steve Gleason speaks on powers of technology in helping disabled

Sequester rally today in New Orleans

New Orleans taxi company launches backseat vending

More St. Joseph's Day Altar photos

La. alligator market on upward trend

Col. Bruce Hampton and Andrew Duhon Ready for Wednesday at the Square

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

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!