W is so on top of this

[strandinthewind]

I how much of a MF'ING IDIOT is Congress and our current Pres.

Corps: Levees will be rebuilt to same specs for now
10/5/2005, 7:13 p.m. CT
By BRETT MARTEL
The Associated Press


CHALMETTE, La. (AP) — In the shadows of giant rust-covered barges tossed by Hurricane Katrina's storm surge atop the levees meant to protect the New Orleans area, bulldozers were busy Wednesday repairing the barriers that failed to protect the region from flooding.

Although the levee system proved inadequate to deal with the rising waters spawned by the Category 4 hurricane when it made landfall just southeast of here, officials said the barriers won't be rebuilt higher and better right away.

Col. Lewis Setliff, the engineer overseeing the levee repairs for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said the Corps only has the authority to rebuild levees to the strength they were prior to the storms that damage them. The levees that broke were built to withstand Category 3 hurricanes, which have winds up to 130 mph.

Hurricane Katrina's winds were about 145 mph when the storm hit Louisiana.

Without approval from Congress, the Army engineers cannot build the levees higher and stronger. And even if Congress were to give that approval soon, it would come too late to stop work that is supposed to be finished by the time the 2006 hurricane season begins in June.

"We've got eight months and counting," Setliff said. He added that it was fair to say the levee system in its current, broken and heavily eroded state might not do much to stop flooding should the area get hit again before hurricane season ends in about a month.

Setliff said about 10 percent of the New Orleans area levee system was either broken or eroded, mostly because of water running over the tops of the barriers. The levee break that remains a mystery is along the 17th Street Canal, which badly flooded New Orleans' Lake View and Mid City neighborhoods. The Corps has had eyewitness reports of water topping the levee there, said Walter Baumy, chief of engineering for the New Orleans District. But he said he would not dismiss the theory that the major break occurred from water pushing through the bottom of the levee, rendering unstable the flood wall above it.

Just north of Chalmette, which borders New Orleans, it was clear that the levee protecting the northern part of St. Bernard Parish had been eroded by water running over it. For a stretch spanning hundreds of yards, the levee was at least 8 feet lower than it had been, with the soil on top washed away.

One barge sat Wednesday on top of what was left of an earthen portion of the levee. Another barge appeared to be teetering on top of a concrete wall that encases a flood gate.

On the far side of the gate from where the barge came to rest, floodwaters had ripped open a gap in the levee, peeling back a metal reinforcement wall. To get the levee back to where it was in August, crews will first pack down what is left of the damaged levees, filling in holes scoured out by water. Dirt will then be added to get it back to its original height.

Across the region, workers will add enough dirt to the levees to bury a football field 1,200 feet deep, Setliff said.

If the Corps gets approval to build higher levees, engineers could in some cases build on top of what is already there. In other cases, the Corps might choose to dig up some of the current work and rebuild using fabric reinforcements that would allow levees to climb higher without taking up more room. Some of that depends on how close the levees are to existing neighborhoods.

"We would look at it from an economic and engineering standpoint — does it make sense to degrade the levee in some places?" Baumy said. "There may be areas you would take that route, but that's for another day. In eight to nine months you cannot build Category 5 protection. You're talking years."


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