As a Civil Engineer, I can understand why the levees where only built for a Cat 3 Hurricane. It all boils down to the amount of money the fed, state, and local goverments want to spend on projects. As part owner of a Civil Engineering firm, I have to deal with this crap everyday. The consultants want to do the job right but we are told to cut back to the minimum in order to save money. As long as it can be designed cheaper and still have enough safety factor for the public than do it that way. Also, you should see how they cut the damn fees for the consultants. Being selected for several estimated 20 Million plus construction cost jobs, our fees some time have been cut lower than 5%. That is pretty much giving work away for free which is unethical in the consultant world. I will also go on and say that the New Orleans Army Corps of Engineering district is one of the slowest districts to deal with in the Southeastern Area. I have worked on many projects in LA, MS, and AL and this is true. The Vicksburg district is usually quite fast. I have submitted wet land permits to the NO district in the past and it would take about 6 months to a year to hear back from them. You have to know someone within the system to get things moving. On the other hand, I have sent the same type of permits to Vicksburg district and it would only take several weeks. I am not trying to put blame anybody but those are some reasons why the levees were only built to a CAT 3. The NO COE was told to only build it for a CAT 3. LSUDAN
ABSOLUTELY correct. I haven't understood that when the winds stopped, you build a tent city as close to NO as you can, LaPlace maybe and coordinate all relief efforts to one central location at first. Then once you organize everything there, begin corrdinating the evacuation to BR and Lafayette. You don't spread everyone from hell and back. As you are doing that, you get the military in NO to stop looting and facilitate the removal of people to the fall back point at tent city in LaPlace. Sounds much simpler than getting shrimpers on stolen boats to rescue people and bring them to the nearest water-surrounded overpass. No, we've got Blanco and Landrieu flying over the city with people still trapped under water.........makes no sense.
That's my opinion also. We've sent all our oil to the east coast for 50 years with getting nothing in return for it. Not a dime......Washington and the east coast has sucked off of us for cheap heating oil for their winters in the Hamptons long enough.........I want that city rebuilt, a system to ensure no more flooding and the Interstate's six laned in both directions out of there after this.
