BOOM!
Why did New Orleans flood the way it did? It's not like it was unexpected if it was slammed by a major hurricane. The worst-case scenarios all had New Orleans drowning when the storm surge overtopped the levees, but I don't recall reading one that mentioned them being breached.
Yet it happened at one massive area in particular: Industrial Canal.
How? Why did a breech occur there?
It didn't take long for the kooks to come out of the woodwork. The ones who see black helicopters overhead, everywhere, claiming knowledge (of some sort) that it was a deliberate act aimed at (fill in the blank) because of the BOOM reported before the flood waters started coming in.
When the first reports of flooding in New Orleans began coming in, Hubby asked me if I'd heard one he had only once and not since. I hadn't and couldn't find anything online about it.
Hubby said the report he'd heard was the retelling of an account told to someone about an man who lived (his house was now under water) with his family (or what was left of it) within eyesight of the levee, who'd seen an wind-driven empty grain barge smash into it.
BOOM!
That's when the levee started giving way.
It's not that I didn't believe Hubby but he's not always an especially reliable narrator. Too often he "hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." And with the thin "someone heard someone had told somebody" sourcing, although it made sense I didn't put a whole lot of stock in it.
Except a few days later I did find a headline via Google News, but when I clicked on it the headline and the article it linked to was a generic one about the flooding. Which didn't make a lot of sense to me.
Later, I found a blip at the The Times-Picayune weblog. Unfortunately, the link I had to it has expired as did much (all?) of what had been reported there now that they're up and running normally again. (I still have the link if anyone wants to try it or knows how to find it in the paper's archives.)
Basicicaly, from memory, it said that the Army Corps of Engineers was investigating the possibility that a barge, one that had been found on the wrong side of the levee, was the reason for its breach.
There have been few news reports about it. Exceptions include:
As a final, fatal insult, a barge had ripped loose from its mooring, breaking the levee wall on the Industrial Canal to the west. It chose a point near the key Florida Avenue pumping station, knocking it out. -- The Kansas City StarBoom.
That canal levee was breached by Katrina, but corps officials said Friday that they were investigating whether an unmoored barge caused the damage. -- The Dallas Morning News
The surge poured into the Industrial Canal running through New Orleans before dawn and quickly overflowed it on both sides, the canal lockmaster reported to the corps. At some point not long afterward, corps officials believe a barge broke loose and crashed through the floodwall, opening a breach that accelerated flooding into New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward and St. Bernard Parish. -- Newhouse News Service
posted by doyle at 5:35 PM
7 Comments:
Maybe pumping destroyed the levees in the first place. Why did water overtop the canal levees, not the those of Lake Pontchartrain itself?
Good info, Solomon. One of the articles I didn't include mentioned major pumping problems, but it was more that the station with prime responsibility for the area where the breach occurred was taken out either by the barge OR the water coming in when it came through. Like I said, thanks for the good info.
Paula. Paula.Paula.Paula.
If the barge had been emptied of grain for bagels, Jews aren't the culprits. New Yawkers are.[1]
[1]If it ain't from New Yawk, it ain't a bagel.
Who the hell do you think is making all those bagels in New York, Doyle? Christians??? LOL
Mark, get real.
Do you really think it's only Jews that eat 'em?
(WARNING: Extreme withdrawal symptoms returning. Two years plus since my last fix.
Plain. Lightly toasted, each half smothered . . . drowning in cream cheese.)
Do you really think that Thomas' makes a bagel?
Get real back - it's a piece of circular bread in a plastic bag sitting in the freezer. That, my dear, is most definitely NOT a bagel.
Besides, didn't you get the memo about the Jewish cabal that owns New York??? You should see my cut.
Don't try to get cute with me, Mark. As a former New Yawker, California Boy, I'm well aware of the fact that Thomas makes English muffins.
Now, go back and read what I writ about New Yawk bagels and think about it.
Do you really think it's only Jews that eat 'em?
Youse Jouze may be baking 'em, but youse gotta get the grain from someone. It's not only the Jouze that would have a stake in emptying that barge, but every New Yawker (current or former) that's ever had one.
(A New Yawk bagel, not a barge.)
And since you've admitted to being part of the Jewish cabal of New Yawk, you should be able to get someone to overnight a coupla fresh New Yawk bagels to me, right?
But Thomas' DOES in fact make what they claim is a bagel, dear. And FYI, my family is from New Yawk originally and I still visit there frequently, so while I may happen to be a Calidfornian by circumstance of birth and choice on where to live, a small piece of me is still a new Yorker by proxy!
"It's not only the Jouze that would have a stake in emptying that barge, but every New Yawker (current or former) that's ever had one."
I have to admit that this is, in fact, true!
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