Ground Shifted Beneath Levees

[brunota2003]

For All You People Who Have Said The NHC Blew The Storm Surge Forecast For New Orleans During Katrina Need To Read This Article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/20051 ... eathlevees

[Recurve]

It's looking more and more like the levees weren't overwhelmed by a much stronger storm than forecast. On the 17th street and London canals, those concrete barrier walls failed. Even though I've driven past the levees many times, I didn't realize how much the protection depended on the concrete panels and not true engineered levees.

Those walls needed external bracing or something to hold the two sides together. It's like a line of single playing cards with their edges stuck into the dirt.

Levees typically fail from underneath -- these walls popped open at the seams.

[MiamiensisWx]

This may spark conversation about what Katrina's TRUE intensity at landfall may have been. It does not matter though... it was and is destructive.

[Innotech]

my two friends in buras and Port Sulphur dont really care what it was, theyre homeless now.

[curtadams]

I was shocked to discover they didn't have gates at the outlets of the canals, especially given the length and (as mentioned above) comparative flimsiness of the floodwalls. The ACE set them up in a few days, IIRC - they can't be particularly expensive but are a great backup defense, as demonstrated by saving the sandbag patches during Rita.

[tornadochaser86]

I agree Katrina was extremely catastrophic and it was cat4 when it hit not cat3

[Swimdude]

my two friends in buras and Port Sulphur dont really care what it was, theyre homeless now.

Exactly. Intensity doesn't need to be argued now.

[f5]

well to the folks on the gulf coast the intensity was high enough to destroy a major port city

[djtil]

emotion says 4, science says 3.


ill go with 3.

[timNms]

emotion says 4, science says 3.


ill go with 3.

I'm curious to know how many of the people on this board who claim/believe that Katrina was a 3 or less have paid a visit to the areas destroyed by her? The same question can be asked of the skeptics of Camille and the Labor Day 'cane.

[jasons2k]

emotion says 4, science says 3.


ill go with 3.

I'm curious to know how many of the people on this board who claim/believe that Katrina was a 3 or less have paid a visit to the areas destroyed by her? The same question can be asked of the skeptics of Camille and the Labor Day 'cane.

JMO, Katrina a low 4 in LA, 3 in MS and Labor Day every bit the sandblasting Cat. 5 it was.

[tornadochaser86]

im just curious how many people are aware that the top winds sometimes never make it to the ground? that could explain why there were only cat 3 winds

[bombarderoazul]

Somebody said in another post that Katrina was a 5 at landfall, the poster said that after the hurricane season ends new data will be used to upgrade the storm to category 5, very similar to the way Andrew was upgraded from 4 to 5.

However I believe Katrina was a 4 at landfall when it hit louisiana and then a 3 when it landed in Missisipi.

[arkess7]

MAN!!! Do any of you know what your talking about?.......Those levees were built to with stand a cat 3........and they were built a really long time ago......watch the history channel.....there was a show on it recently of course.....the pumps and all that were not ready for KATRINA....and that is that in my book........geez.....they showed the levees were overpowered by the surge of water that came at them........and it rised over so much that it started to eat away at the bottom ......sand sediment and concrete that was down there.........it just wasnt fit to withstand a storm surge of KATRINAS FORCE.....and thats all i have to say about that........ive always wanted to visit the BIG EASY and never had a chance......i guess maybe in 20 years i will.... Oh and Mississippi.....they got the worst of it..........katrina was a defintaley a cat 4 at landfall.............oh my god.......they got the worst of it..........way worse than NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my thoughts and prayers are with all the victims of katrina and rita....

[TSmith274]

There are some great observations in this thread. This will all be hashed out in time. Some say levees were topped prior to them failing... however not all levees that failed were topped. Crazy, I know. At the same time, there's a barge sitting in the 9th ward, beyond the floodwall... just sitting there among the houses. So, did a barge strike it? Did they got topped? Did they break? We'll all find out sooner or later.

edit: For her strength, I'm no scientist, but just wait till you see the destruction in lower Plaquemines Parish, where Katrina made her first landfall. Everything is gone, including my fishing camp I had only had for 10 months. They haven't let anyone in yet, including media to the hardest hit areas. The distruction will not be known from that area for quite some time. It will be eye-opening.

[Recurve]

For her strength, I'm no scientist, but just wait till you see the destruction in lower Plaquemines Parish, where Katrina made her first landfall. Everything is gone, including my fishing camp I had only had for 10 months. They haven't let anyone in yet, including media to the hardest hit areas. The distruction will not be known from that area for quite some time. It will be eye-opening.

Man, sorry to hear about your camp. I know it was horrible in Plaquemines, what we've seen is bad enough and I know we haven't seen much. So glad I took a long drive down there a year or two ago, it will never be the same.

BTW, I believe the flood by the Ninth Ward was reported as being caused by a barge breaking loose in the Industrial canal and striking the floodwall (nobody saw that coming in the design?); that may have been the one where the concrete wall popped open basically.

I'm hearing from people in NO that no levees were breached in the sense of the earthen levee failing. It was mostly these floodwalls on top of the levees that failed.

Just tonight I heard an LSU entymologist talking about how he saw massive amounts of formosa termites eating the stuffing between the floodwall panels (long before the storms). When he showed this to a ACE guy, he said, oh, that doesn't matter (!!). I can't for the life of me figure out why floodwall panels were caulked with bagasse, but that's what an LSU professor was saying. Did the freakin termites contribute to all this?

The good news is the floodwaters probably drowned billions of termites in NO.

[Cookiely]

My question is the building of new levees for a cat 5. They may keep the surge from coming over the top but what's to stop it from undermining or breaching the new levee. Will this really solve the problem? Will a hurricane never again cause this same devastation?

[bevgo]

emotion says 4, science says 3.


ill go with 3.

I'm curious to know how many of the people on this board who claim/believe that Katrina was a 3 or less have paid a visit to the areas destroyed by her? The same question can be asked of the skeptics of Camille and the Labor Day 'cane.

Don't have to visit I have lived it. I am stunned by the damage on the MS Gulf Coast. It really does not matter what catageory. I saw the devastation after Camille as a kid and this is much worse than what I remember.

[Stormcenter]

emotion says 4, science says 3.


ill go with 3.

Oh please NOT this again.

She WAS a VERY LARGE and LEAST a cat.4 hurricane.

End of story, PLEASE!!!!

[mtm4319]

emotion says 4, science says 3.


ill go with 3.

Oh please NOT this again.

She WAS a VERY LARGE and LEAST a cat.4 hurricane.

End of story, PLEASE!!!!

I've learned a general rule of thumb - to take his estimates and adjust them one SS category upward (or from TD to TS, TS to Cat 1, etc.).