Posted on 09/08/2005 12:02:38 AM PDT by conservative in nyc
Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans with a double blow when it made landfall Aug. 29. First, storm surge waters from the east rapidly swamped St. Bernard Parish and eastern New Orleans before the eye of the storm had passed the city around 9 a.m. Within hours, surge waters collapsed city canal floodwalls and began to “fill the bowl,” while top officials continued to operate for a full day under the mistaken belief that the danger had passed.
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Sometime Monday morning, the 17th Street canal levee burst when storm surge waters pressed against it and possibly topped it, Corps officials said. Col. Richard P. Wagenaar, the corps’s site commander at 17th Street, told The Washington Post that a police officer called him Monday morning to tell him about it. He told the Post he couldn’t get to the site.
Naomi said he believes the breach occurred in the mid- or late-morning after the hurricane’s eye had passed east of the city. By that time, north winds would have pushed storm surge water in Lake Pontchartrain south against the hurricane levees and into the canals. Then the wind shifted to the west.
“As I remember it the worst of the storm had passed when we got word the floodwall had collapsed,” he said. “It could have been when we were experiencing westerly winds in the aftermath of the storm, which would have been pushing water against it.”
Naomi and other Corps officials say they believe that the water in the canal topped the levee on the Orleans Parish side, weakening its structure on the interior side and causing its collapse. However, Van Heerden said he does not believe the water was high enough in the lake to top the 14-foot wall and that the pressure caused a “catastrophic structural failure.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
1) On the Industrial Canal near the Mississippi River, which flooded eastern New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish early Monday;
2) The infamous breach of the 17th Street Canal floodwall; and
3) A lesser-known breach of a floodwall on the London Avenue Canal. The article says that it may have been around the same time as the 17th Street Canal.
The NO Times-Picayune article claims the breaches of the 17th Street Canal occurred mid-day Monday, during the storm. Waters started rising soon after that.
More theories about how the levees and floodwalls broke if you click on the link. For example, the reported barge crash into a floodwall happened in the Industrial Canal, not 17th Street.
Good post.
People don't take this in to account when they are talking about the federal response time. You don't just charge in there willy nilly spreading out your manpower and supplies without a plan. There has to be an assessment, a plan and then you go in. The original assessment was thrown out the window when the levee broke.
I should qualify that. The LOCAL authorities are supposed to assess the situation and then coordinate with the state and then FEMA. So, IF the local authorities had already made an assessment it was thrown out the windows.
Based on the account by the NO Times-Picayune, breaches in the canals caused the flooding. Therefore, if the canals could have been closed to the Lake, there would have been maybe a foot of water in the City as the canals emptied, if that even happened. But no catastrophic damage.
Hasn't anyone in New Orleans been to the Netherlands? Read about it in a book? Looked it up on the Internet? Maybe the concept of flood control by the Dutch is too new for bureaucrats/politicians to know about it. It's only been in place and working for fifty years.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column: "The Constitution is Finished: Not the US One, the Atlanta One"
What is amazing the images that people are revolting about were caused by a barge breaking loose.
The industrial canal breach was caused by the barge, a lot of the people at the convention center came from the very poor african american 9th ward.
Take that barge away and this story would have been scaled down big time.
No Hillary Clinton on the Today Show without that barge.
This is just absolutely amazing. The New Orleans bowl had been filling for hours before anyone became aware of the danger. How the levee's leaked, broke open or were over topped is insignificant compared to the fact that New Orleans officials did not even realize their city was already flooding. During the hours between the eye passing near New Orleans and the first flooding danger reports, I was amazed by the fact that we never got real time reports detailing the water level of Lake Pontchartrain. You would think they would at least have sensors that were monitoring water levels. Are we to believe that there was not even a flood warning system in place ? No loud horns similar to the warnings many areas have that live within Tornado country ?
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