Their Levees -- Our Levees

Outdone by the Europeans again. At least we're still number one in unfounded jingoistic bliss.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0112-15.htm

~Ulrika~

I'm hoping that's a picture of one of the weakest part of the levee? :-/

<sigh> and here I always thought we were on the leading edge of technology [/sarcasm]

Why oh why does this not surprise me in the least?

How long ago were those built? I think the New Orleans ones were built back in the 60s.

As far as I know, the dikes in the Netherlands were made from the 1920's-70's.


It was fun to mention this when know-it-alls were saying we shouldn't rebuild New Orleans.

"What moron builds a city beneath sea level?"

"Umm .. at least twenty-five percent of the Netherlands is below sea level ... and they've been pushing back the water since the 1200's."

I watched a show on the science channel or somesuch recently about the construction and design of the Netherlands levees. It was really impressive. Amazing engineering. Thanks for that link, Ulrika. That's the first close look I've had at one of the broken New Orleans levees and it's pretty shocking... shocking that they didn't break years ago!

Interesting picture. Can you provide evidence that confirms that is an actual New Orleans levy?

Because in all the news reports and websites I've seen on that matter, none of the actual breeched levies looked anything like that.

Not saying its NOT, it's just... well it's just one of those shock websites that anybody could put up, without any real evidence to validate it. It goes viral, everyone passing it around, yada yada yada, and it becomes fact, when it may not be. (Not the levies in disarray - they were, but that pic just doesn't match up with previous pictures of the ACTUAL breeches.)

Looks legit to me. Here's a shot I just pulled up from Google...

And here's another...

What a lot of folks don't realize is that the levees in New Orleans are made from the compressed beer cans, bottles, and vomit from Mardi Gras revelers.

~Ulrika~

Yeah, that's what I mean... those wall designs are completely different. The real ones have layers, a core of something within the outer concrete. The website has plain concrete walls. You can clearly see the design difference. Until someone shows me otherwise, I don't think the website shows a true New Orleans levy.

The point is still valid, for being the "most technologically advanced" society, the fact that it even happened is bad. Something to consider -- those countries that have the GREAT levies and flood protection systems -- they're people aren't known to be all that greedy worldwide. Americans don't want to spend the cash on fixing things, let alone doing things right to begin with.

I had a link to an article on my old hard drive, but alas I forgot to move my bookmarks yet again, that was from an article in some science magazine back in like 1990-1991, that said this was going to happen, and the article gave a theoretical scenario. Well, it played out EXACTLY as the article predicted. Dammit, I wish I had it.

Anyway, the author of said article continued about how New Orleans, the State and the Federal government just wasn't interested in his work, his finding or his predictions. The city wouldn't even listen to him, he was eventually told to go away.

I've ready other accounts where people tried to get ANYONE to listen to their warnings about the N.O. levies, but all warnings would fall on deaf ears, at ALL levels of government.

I watch the History channel a LOT and there's a common thread in just about EVERY single disaster story... someone ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS warned the disaster was going to happen, and they were always told to go away, transferred from department to department or "gotten rid of."

When will we start learning from history. When experts say, "You know, this is going to happen," why don't we err on the side of caution? Why does the almighty dollar have to rule? Seriously, if we KNEW that the levies were going to break someday, why weren't they fixed? To kill the black people? No way, but thanks for the entertainment, Nation of Islam dude. They were fixed because no one was going to foot the bill to fix them.

And that sucks, really bad. I just wish the U.S. would start using the trillions of dollars it has to do meaningful stuff, you know, like save lives, and not spend it on a new god damn condo development.

How funny. You misspelled levee like your last name.

~Ulrika~

LOL, and I know the correct spelling too!! Late-night mental shortcut, I guess.

For what it's worth - a good deal of evil US Dollars were spent on European infrastructure, when it was most needed.

I've heard the Germans have especially well-managed one of the (slightly unrelated) business loan funds started in the post-WWII years, and it survives to this day.

Something like 12 billion USD left, and provided 150 billions in loans since the late 1940's or so.

This fund is usually mentioned by the right wing in the US when Europe starts looking holier-than-thou, but there is a point to it.

Western societies really don't act all that differently. As much as we might want to place blame on this figurehead or that - it really comes down to the myriad little decisions that everyone makes every day.

One cannot decry the oil wars without a bit of hypocrisy, while pumping gasoline and watching one's food trucked in from afar.

But, the US levees have more abundant landscaping!

For a really detailed look at the social, political, and economics of how the lower Mississippi control project came to be and why it was doomed to fail since the moment it was conceived, John McPhee devotes a quarter of "The Control of Nature" to the matter.

Small spoiler: New Orleans was not below river level when they started; the river was expected to grow higher and has been continually since the 1940s attempt to keep the river where it was. The graphic was of an idealized levee, some places, for reasons of economics and domain were not amenable to the ideal.

you can say that again
http://www.nola.com/hurricane/popup/nolalevees_jpg.html

check the story associated with it here
http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf?/washingaway/nolalevees.html

I think with the amount of discrepency between building materials and types of levees from the concrete embankments to a simple pile of dirt points to the proabality that the pic is legit.

I am unable to find the date, but if I remember correctly, then this was published before the flooding of new orleans.

I'm hoping everyone notices the 3rd one (from Italy) looks like CG to me. But I'll give 'em the benefit of the doubt & say it's from the plans and not some "fake".

The Thames Barrier is really rather impressive. I remember when it was built, my parents took me to see it and I got a hat. Normally, big construction projects in this country end up ludicrously overpriced and useless, which makes it even more impressive.

If anyone is visiting London I'd advise a nice tour up and down the river on a boat with a bar in the evening, where you can see all the architecture and different areas, go past the Dome and laugh at it, see the meridian laser at Greenwich, and get a look at the Barrier at the far end.

It's a shame that the Democrats in Louisana are so corrupt, otherwise they would have had better levees around New Orleans.

They look exactly the same to me. The levees in the photo that Ulrika linked are the same, you just don't see the interior stuff because of the angle, but you can see it a little bit. They're the same thickness and constucted the same way.

This might be true if the river was not managed by the Army Corps of Engineers, which - last I checked - was a Federal agency.

Of course nobody wanted to pay for it. They looked around at the state of New Orleans, its people and economy, wondered aloud when the last giant New Orleans killing huricane hit, and made a bureaucrat's decsision.

The History Channel (which I love) doesn't tell you of all the conflicting "expert opinions" that generally crop up over time. They are, after all, telling a story for TV, which though not necessarily inaccurate, will be skewed for the dramatic.

Desmond is correct. It is the culmination of a mass of little decisions built up over time. This type of mismanagement is not limited to the US, a particular political party, or a type of governmental system. It is sad, but circumstance will lead to another preventable large scale disaster.

Even worse. According to McPhee and the Corpsmen he spoke to, it wasn't even a question of if, but of when.

Another chapter in The Control of Nature looks at the "mudslides" that periodically descend on the Los Angeles area and the efforts to divert them. "Mudslide" is a bit of a misnomer for the rivers of mud and car-sized boulders that flow down with them. And this is through some of the highest per-capita income areas in the country, so you can't even toss the class card into the mix.

Any one of these problems is - in principle - soluble, but I mean come on, we've got War on Drugs that needs funding.

There have been cries to improve the levees in New Orleans since the first one was built. The amount spent on improving the levee system was a calculated risk. Making the city 100% safe is simply not practical with any reasonable amount of money, so there had to be a decision of how much was reasonable. Some of what went into the decision was based on real risk analysis, some was economic evaluation and some was pure politics. For the most part, improvements to the levee system were passed over because it was considered pork. There are a lot of good things for the Fed govt to spend their money on and never enough money to do it all. Sadly, it is not the government's job to make everyone 100% safe all the time. Sure it would be nice if they could, but people also want their freedom and an optimal solution for the country as a whole is often not the most desireable solution for all individuals.

The handling of the evacuation and the aftermath are compeltely different matters that i'm not addressing here.