HumidCity

Once more HumidCity is proud to syndicate the emails of engineer Matt McBride, the man who formerly helmed Fix The Pumps.

Dear New Orleanians,

A couple of weeks ago, I sent out an email about a report the Corps is holding back. It is the final report for the London Avenue canal load test, and it has been delayed for months. In fact the test took place last August. After I sent that email, I heard they are planning to release it before June 15th. We’ll see.

While members of the public and their appointed representatives on the East Bank Levee Authority cannot yet see the report, the Corps is all too content to trumpet the success of the test to their contractors and fellow employees.

Last week, at the Midwest Levee Conference in St. Louis, the lead Corps engineer and project manager from a Corps contractor for the load test gave an extensive presentation about the test. The Conference was co-sponsored by the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). SAME is the Corps’ professional organization for their engineers - kind of their private clubhouse.

You can see the June 3rd presentation on the load test here:

All the presentations are available here.

What I find interesting are the following:

1) No mention of the the external peer review of the test is mentioned, nor of the Levee Board’s insistence on including testing for seepage effects (originally, the test was only going to measure whether the wall moved, not whether water would move underneath it). In fact there’s absolutely no information whatsoever on the locals’ key involvement in ensuring the test was properly vetted. The presentation gives the impression that the Corps did everything themselves, and that they should be congratulated (Actual bullet point from the last slide: “Test was a success. No water through the wall!“). The fact is they had to be pushed into the peer review on the test.

2) Page after page of actual test data are displayed. None of this data has been made available to the public in New Orleans.

3) The last line of the presentation is a laugher: “Detailed results are available for additional study to enhance the engineering understanding of I-wall performance.” Available to whom, precisely? Other Corps engineers and their contractors? What about making the results available to the public whom the Corps is supposedly protecting before they present them to their buddies?

This is just more evidence of the tin ear the Corps has when it comes to dealing with the public. There’s no way this presentation should have taken place before the report was released to the greater New Orleans community.

Matt

Regular readers are well aware that I, like each of the other writers on HumidCity, am the sole person responsible for my own words. In no way do they reflect the opinions of any of my employers or clients.

That said I am happy to announce that I will now be blogging for the Open Society Institute’s Katrina: An Unnatural Disaster. While my more *ahem* strident opinions will remain on this forum where they belong I will now be able to continue to document and fight for the rebuild with a Webby Award winning platform. Come on out and play.

-Loki, HumidCity Founder

That is what John McCain called Senator Obama’s campaign staffers pointing out that he has not once, but twice voted against and 8/29 Commission. Now both Senators are politicians, which means I don’t trust either one of them. This is why I love the Annenberg Political Fact Check. A non partisan group that documents the realities behind the political posturing.

Today they addressed this one. Here is the summary, once you’re done click the link at the bottom for full documentation with sources.:

McCain was asked by a New Orleans reporter why he voted twice against an independent commission to investigate the government’s failings before and after Hurricane Katrina, and he incorrectly stated that he had “voted for every investigation.”

McCain actually voted twice, in 2005 and 2006, to defeat a Democratic amendment that would have set up an independent commission along the lines of the 9/11 Commission. At the time of the second vote, members of both parties were complaining that the White House was refusing requests by Senate investigators for information.

The McCain campaign accused the Obama campaign of “tired negative attacks” for pointing out and documenting McCain’s gaffe.

Read all the details at Katrina Kerffufle.

The video shows why we all need the 8/29 Investigation - a truly independent and complete analysis of the Katrina levee failures on August 29, 2005. Best if done by NOON THURSDAY JUNE 5.

Help launch Levees.Org to the top of the YouTube charts!

Want to do more? You can also:

1. Register at YouTube and rate the video.

2. View and rate our other videos on YouTube.

Help spread the word. Help show why New Orleans and people nationwide deserve the 8/29 Investigation. We have shown that the levee study done by the government is flawed and controversial. We also know that the review done by the ASCE was shoddy and biased.

-Loki, HumidCity Founder

A bill to find the truth about the levee failures is stalled in Homeland Security and YOU can kick this bill into action!

If you haven’t yet, please make two (2) important phone calls today:

1. Call Senator Landrieu at 202-224-5824 and tell her we need hearings on the 8/29 Investigation Act.

2. Call Senator Vitter at 202-224-4623 and ask for him to co-sponsor Senate Bill 2826 so we have a bipartisan bill.

It’s quick and simple - just start your phone call with this:

“I would like to leave a message for the Senator…. ” And leave your message.

Your Senators represent YOU; make sure your voice is heard!

Best if done by 6pm CST today Tue June 3.

Syndicated from the Levees.org email.

well after 2 years in a fema trailer, give or take a few half lives and a couple of missed doses of depakote, i’m finally back in a house. so armed with a contempt for capitalization and punctuation, let me hit the ground punning… as  my head begins to spin into puddles of creativity, i realize the biggest problem with post-k new orleans or post reagan politics isn’t reality, it’s all perception.  my jazz fest experience as a performer made me think that we weren’t in the small print…. all those people opened up for us,,,,  when i recently donated one of my paintings to the grace house for an auction, i didn’t consider myself a starving artist with only 3 pieces sold in my 44 years, rather score now is fred 3, van gogh 1.  

it’s all in the perception… the spin… the lie even.

as i sat recently blurry eyed and pumped with manic endorphins, a piece of “lie” and perception hit me or kicked me or fondled me… it has to do with the reason i’m only recently in a house and may be back in a trailer or a boat or homeless when hurricane season arrives on my freshly unpainted doorstep august or thereabouts: 7400 Leake Ave, New Orleans, LA 70118???? leake ave?  LEAKE?  LEAK?   oh yes, the physical address of the U.S. CORP OF ENGINEERS… c’est levee!  well, as i investigated further the PUBLIC AFFAIRS dept of the corps (or is that corpse????) no longer uses 7400 Leake Ave, New Orleans, LA 70118 as their addy…. they got a P.O. BOX… go figure… you can’t sue ‘em, you can’t find ‘em, BUT YOU CAN STILL BLAME ‘EM.  I suggest they get a new physical addy on TUPPERWARE ST or WATERPROOF RD or ME CULPA DR or better yet on WE ADMIT IT WE F’D UP ROYALLY AND WE PROMISE WE WON”T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN BLVD.

a p.o. box? you gotta be kiddin’ me!

BLOG THIS!

p.h. fred (phfred@notthat.com)

?

This post is dedicated to all of the soulless cretins who denigrated my neighbors and I for moving back to New Orleans. This ones for you!

Most of America has “Katrina Fatigue.” They’re sick of hearing about the minor issues that have displaced half our city. It almost makes me wish I was sadistic enough to revel in this news article, but I’m not and I can’t.

You see the Army Corps of Engineers is not just the source of an overflowing cornucopia of woes for the Crescent City, oh no! Their pernicious incompetence ranges far further than that, at least if you believe….MSNBC:

ST. LOUIS - Across America, earthen flood levees protect big cities and small towns, wealthy suburbs and rich farmland. But the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency that oversees levees, lacks an inventory of thousands of them and has no idea of their condition, the corps’ chief levee expert told The Associated Press.

The uncertainty, amid an unusually wet spring that has already caused significant flooding across many states, is creating worry even within the corps.

“We have to get our arms around this issue and understand how many levees there are in the country, who’s watching over them, what populations and properties are behind them,” Eric Halpin, the corps’ special assistant for dam and levee safety, said in an interview last month. “What is the risk posed to the public?”

Critics are troubled that the government doesn’t know the answer.

Its disturbing on a level that New Orleanians are all too familiar with. And it makes me come back to an old mantra of mine I have not voiced in awhile: “We must not let this happen to anyone else.”

If there is a lesson to be learned from the Levee Failure that followed Katrina it is one that has been lost to the members of modern American sound-bite culture. Not everyone, but enough of a percentage that I run across them frequently whenever I travel north and visit anyplace else in the country.
Go read. Especially if you are from somewhere else. Trust me, you do not want to experience what we did in August of 2005.

Really, you don’t.

In the midst of the Jazz Fest Daily Deluge the following article snuck through between the raindrops:

A federal court judge cleared the way Friday for the Army Corps of Engineers to face trial on claims that defects in its Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet destroyed wetlands and turned the navigation channel into a funnel for storm surge..

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval’s 40-page ruling “paves the way for the first and only trial that will likely be held on how the Army Corps of Engineers drowned New Orleans” during Hurricane Katrina, said California attorney Pierce O’Donnell, who leads the legal team that filed the case two years ago on behalf of a group of plaintiffs that includes WDSU-TV anchorman Norman Robinson, who lived in eastern New Orleans.

The suit alleges the controversial shipping channel flooded thousands of homes in eastern New Orleans, the Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish.

After the way previous suits against the Corps have gone this is a lovely breath of fresh air. In order to engender respect from the community there needs to be responsibility, accountability and some from of pennance besides. Accountability has been evaded because of decades outdated immunities still on the books. Need I remind the world yet again that the winds that hit New Orleans were Cat 2, we were on the weaker backside of the storm. The levees were certified for Cat 3.

Now the Corps is using newspapers to seal the gaps in the levees? Drag them through the court system and enforce accountability.

Without proper flood protection the world will lose a lot, not just the residents of New Orleans. Newsweek said it very well recently:

This subtropical port, which looks to the Mediterranean, Africa and the Caribbean for inspiration, has always marched to the beat of a multitude of different and very funky drummers. Which city has more beguiling street names - Abundance, Beaujolais, Cupid, Desire? Other places have the Rotary and the Elks. New Orleans has Social and Pleasure clubs and the Mardi Gras Indians - African-Americans masquerading as Native Americans in a tradition dating from when Indians and slaves were natural allies. A Mardi Gras Indian designs and sews a new costume every year: one chief put the cost, in time and materials, at $100,000 each. There are secret rituals, songs and chants; even parade routes are classified. Masking is crucial - disguise, misdirection, all in the service of nutty, impractical, unclassifiable mystery - and it’s one key to understanding the city and its culture. New Orleans elevates the chores of daily life to a high level of culture. Porch railings are wrought into sculpture. In the kitchen, the humblest food becomes piquant. Even the funeral procession is an art form.

In the wake of Katrina, New Orleans is doing what it does best: making something extraordinary out of next to nothing. There’s no Marshall Plan here - just small miracles in individual neighborhoods. “The culture of New Orleans emanates from the bottom up, not from the top down,” says Ellis Marsalis, pianist, composer and patriarch of the musical clan. The resurrection of the neighborhoods is doubly important because thousands of residents are still trying to come back, and because the city’s culture - particularly its music - is anchored in the neighborhoods. Unless they are revived, “the music won’t have a home anymore,” says saxophonist Donald Harrison Jr., who is also the Big Chief of the Congo Nation, a Mardi Gras Indian tribe. “New Orleans needs the neighborhoods, because it’s the only city in America that retains its traditional styles.”

In the increasingly mobile and digital age the world needs places like New Orleans. This is the last true American bohemia in so many ways, a place with a rich and vibrant (and yes, in many case unfortunate) history.

This is one of those rare moments of sanity over the past three years, I hope it goes the distance!

Now back to my foul weather Jazz Fest Blogging…

Loki, Founder and Cat Herder, HumidCity

Click the Image to see more pics from Howieluvsus

Why do all you lefty radical types hate President Bush so much? Follow the links for documentation.

Well, first of all because he spent the day talking immigration with Chertohoff (White House) and eating birthday cake with McCain (White House again)after the National Hurricane Center’s Director told him of the magnitude of the disaster in New Orleans (AP).

Who needs to even bring up the obscenity that is the Iraq situation when we have the devastated remnants of our homes as illustration. Governor Blanco requested aid, Bush didn’t bother (Newsweek). He was too busy talking Medicaire (White House).

It goes on and on. I guess to many people it does not matter becase it did not happen to anyone but those “deadbeats from New Orleans.” To others it has just faded from memory along with all the other soundbites. Well let me tell you, it does not fade out for us. We live with it every day, trying to put lives together in the face of the three worst impediments known to modern man: the local, state, and federal governments. The unholy trinity of Bush, Blanco and Nagin have done their best to finish us off with their dual pronged plan of incompetence and corruption, but we are still here.

Why do I say that he should never be allowed within our city limits again? Go read a nice, well documented timeline of the times around the Federal Flood, some excellent work by ThinkProgress. This isn’t imagination, its Politicians Gone Wild. How dare anyone tell me not be angry at the total abandonment of the social contract by those in power.

Lets just put it simply: the man is a criminal and I do NOT welcome him in my city. I am far from alone in this. Take your stink of corruption (Enron anyone?) and dereliction of duty (Gitmo, perhaps?) and leave us alone. You have done enough. FYYFF!

This content is syndicated from the email by Matt McBride, formerly at the helm of Fix The Pumps. -Loki

Dear New Orleanians,

The Corps has released the preliminary version of their category 5 study:

http://lacpr.usace.army.mil/default.aspx

or the direct link:

http://lacpr.usace.army.mil/default.aspx?p=LACPR_Draft_Technical_Report

They had promised this to the public (after missing their 12/31/07 deadline) on February 8th, as seen here:

http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/pao/Video/WLAE_Col_Lee_080115.wmv

I went and checked on March 7th, and it hadn’t yet appeared on the LaCPR site. But it’s there now.

By the way, the study doesn’t actually make any recommendations. In fact, here’s an excerpt from the end of the report:

“Efforts to date do not point to a single effective risk reduction strategy. No single strategy for comprehensive hurricane damage risk reduction, other than entirely abandoning communities in South Louisiana, will guarantee safety for the population along the coast.”

Basically, what this study has done is just collect all the alternatives, so that more meetings can be held. The Corps has placed a paragraph in the report meant to blunt criticism that the public was expecting recommendations from this report, and there are none (and, yes, I am aware that was reported earlier, but that doesn’t mean that every member of the public in South Louisiana will remember or care about it):

“Congress also directed a technical report rather than a reconnaissance or feasibility report as described by normal USACE policy. The technical report will contain many of the same components as a reconnaissance or feasibility report, such as presenting the results of the formulation and evaluation of alternatives. As outlined by the Congressional direction, the technical report will contain a ‘comprehensive hurricane protection analysis and design…to develop and present a full range of flood control, coastal restoration, and hurricane protection measures…for comprehensive Category 5 protection.’”

Expect to see that argument when people start asking, “why are there no recommendations other than, ‘have more meetings?’”

Matt

(Discosure: It may be due to the orbital mind control lasers, but I have recently taken on the duties of spearheading the COGs new effort to take over the Internet. Just like Filbert I am unpaid and do so simply to avoid the wrath of Pinkerton. -Loki)

A few days ago I promised to share the story of my fateful misadventures at the Consortium of Genius‘ Secret Lab. Well, it has taken that long for me to recover from the experiments of those mad scientists. So now I can tell you of the secret war going on behind the scenes here in New Orleans, the battle of super science that is about to come to a head. The two most dangerous mad scientist in our city’s history are about to go toe to toe! In one corner we have a man who has pushed the boundaries of science for 49 years from his lab in the Old Icehouse. . I am speaking of none other than Momus Alexander Morgus himself! Squaring off against him is none other than Dr. Milo Thaddeus Pinkerton III, founder and leader of the COG!

Anyway, I was minding my own business walking through the Tuoro Bouligny when a flying car set down next to me and two figures leaped out. The next thing I knew I was being dragged into the vehicle by one other than Dr. A. Rachind and Dr. Z. These two enemies of everything took me back to the Secret Lab and forced me to undergo experiments so gruesome that I cannot even now bring myself to describe it. So there I was surrounded by some of the most feared (mostly for their unpredictable malfunctions) items of super-science in the city limits when Pinkerton got distracted.

It was a video call from Morgus himself. I’ve been able to hack a video of it here. While Pinkerton stepped over a line few New Orleanians ever have, I slipped my bonds and escaped. I still cannot believe he had the audacity to shout at Morgus! Sneaking past the others was easy as Dr. A. Rachnid was concentrating on peering through the keyhole of a door that said “The Harem of Dr. Z.” on it.

Volunteers in the HumidCity underground tell me that things will be coming to a head on March the seventh (next Saturday night) at One Eyed Jacks. If our operatives are correct we will see COG vs. not only Morgus the Magnificent, but also vs. Rock City Morgue!

[This is the first time in a long time Sid Noel has put on the Morgus persona, he is almost 80 years old now. I hope this is not his final appearance in character. If it does turn out to be, then it is a truly fitting one. Wait until you see the episode. It not only showcases two of my personal favorite local bands, but it also give a great tour of some classic NOLA locales in the process. 10 point to anyone who can identify which local band the guy in the comic book shop sequence plays for (the one on the stool who doesn't look up)! Good stuff and highly worth it just to see the episode on the big screen. I also gather that it is an EP release for Rock City Morgue. How can you not attend?]

Loki, Founder, HumidCity

Photos courtesy of The Official Morgus the Magnificent Website and ddagradi on Flickr

From those of us familiar with both rising water and levee failure I extend our deep regrets to the people of Fernley, Nevada. According to the AP story carried in the Times-Picayune they suffered a situation all New Orleanians can sympathize with.

A canal levee ruptured early Saturday after heavy rainfall, pouring more than 3 feet of near-freezing water into hundreds of homes and stranding 3,500 people across a square mile in their desert agricultural town, authorities said.

According to the full article the suspected cause was burrowing rodents. I echo dethcherub on LiveJournal (who brought my attention to it):

So that’s what we can call the COE now…burrowing rodents…

Would it be in bad taste to remind people once again about the Corps report from last February about the 122 Levees at risk across the nation? Tough, I AM bringing it up.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Dear New Orleanians:

This past Monday, FEMA announced a new program for those displaced by hurricanes Katrina & Rita. It is meant to provide reimbursement for relocation expenses incurred by any disaster victims. But there is a serious problem.

First, here’s the press release on the program.

and here’s the Times-Picayune’s article about it.

Right after Katrina, FEMA had a program called the Facilitated Relocation Program. From what little I can find about it now, it’s the program that paid for one-way airplane, bus, and train tickets for evacuees to come back to the disaster zone. It didn’t pay for moving expenses or rental cars, so it’s not an exact analogue. In fact, it’s very different. But (and this is the important part) it apparently officially ended on January 31, 2006. Here’s a FEMA press release on it.

Yes the press release says it was to end December 31st, but I’ve confirmed with FEMA that it actually ended a month later.)

Despite the significant differences in the two programs, FEMA views the new one as simply a continuation of the old one. It is NOT.

You cannot compare paying for a one way bus ticket to the costs incurred in renting a moving van in Houston or Atlanta (where U-Haul and Penske were charging triple and quadruple their normal rates after the storm) and hiring movers to bring back what you salvaged from your flooded home, along with what you had acquired in the first few months after the storm (some of which, such as furniture, was funded by FEMA!).

While this January 7, 2007 article in the Times-Picayune says that even 16 months after the storm, truck rental companies were charging through the nose, I can tell you that from personal experience, it was already expensive just five months after the storm. That article also talks about what finally led to the new policy. There is no discussion of the earlier bus-ticket program, because that program had nothing to do with people renting a moving truck. How FEMA can conflate the two is beyond me.

So this policy has to be changed to move the start date back to something more common sense.

I’ve already alerted the Times-Picayune to this, and they will probably be writing something about it next week. I’ve also spoken to the bureaucrats at FEMA in Washington. At first, they claimed they couldn’t tell me why February 1, 2006 had been chosen (in fact, I had to pry even to get the name of the person to whom I was talking). They claimed it was a matter of internal policy deliberation, and that I had to submit any questions in writing to a generic email box (fema-correspondence-unit@dhs.gov).

When I asked if it was because the Facilitated Relocation Program had ended on January 31, 2006, they said that was indeed the reason. I’m pretty sure I was speaking with - if not the person who crafted the policy - at least someone who knows its history.

So please let anyone you know about this, and how ridiculously unfair it is. Every individual is entitled by law to $26,200 in individual disaster assistance from FEMA. If this latest allowed allotment does not cause you to exceed that amount, I don’t see why FEMA should arbitrarily limit it with a silly date on a calendar. Hopefully we can get this policy changed to something that recognizes the enormous struggles Katrina and Rita victims went through in the immediate aftermath of the storms.

Matt Mc Bride (via email)

The second annual Rising Tide conference will be held August 24-26, 2007, at the New Orleans Yacht Club. This is a NOLA blogger-organized and supported conference featuring speakers, panels, breakout sessions, and other dialogs on the future of the city of New Orleans.

This year’s emphasis is on ground-level, grass-roots efforts. It has become clear to those of us in south Louisiana that we will have to watch the watchmen, as well as take the upper hand is setting the city back on track. To that end, there will be presentations on local politics and how to influence them, making civics sexy, sustainability, levee engineering, and media outreach.

The keynote speaker is Dave Zirin, author of Welcome to the Terrordome, published by Haymarket Press, a columnist for SLAM Magazine, a regular contributor to the Nation Magazine, and a regular op-ed writer for the Los Angeles Times. Timothy Ruppert, president of the Louisiana Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers, will give a comprehensive report on the status of our levee protection two years after the failure of the federal levees brought catastrophe to New Orleans. Matt McBride of Fix the Pumps will present via video conference. Panelists will include community activists Karen Gadbois of Squandered Heritage, Bart Everson of b.rox, and Peter Athas of Adrastos, muckraking blogger Mark Moseley of Your Right Hand Thief, New Orleans political sage Michael Duplantier and author Joshua Clark Heart Like Water

On Friday, August 24, there will be a party at Buffa’s Lounge featuring the work of New Orleans videographers, and Sunday is reserved for a hands-on service project in aid of the NOLA school system. At the Buffa’s party, we are serving cocktail party-type food, but there will be a cash bar.The weekend’s events costs $20 per person. This includes admission to the Friday night party at Buffa’s, Saturday’s events at the New Orleans Yacht Club (including morning coffee and croissants and lunch from Dunbar’s), and participation in the Sunday service project. Please register to attend using the PayPal link on the website. If you don’t use PayPal, feel free to call or e-mail me to reserve your space at the conference and, more importantly, your lunch from Dunbar’s. We have no problem with people paying at the door, we just need to know that you are coming.

There will, f  course, be liveblogging of the event, and materials available online. If you can’t come, there is also a paypal link if you'd care to donate (this is a non-profit endeavor). Feel free to contact us through the website, or ask questions by replying to this e-mail. Rising Tide’s toll-free phone number is: 866-910-2055.

Although I am sending this e-mail to over 200 people, I’m sure I’m missing some. Please forward this to anyone you think might be interested. Unless they have a blog or have expressed interest in the past, they are probably not on my e-mail list. Also, bloggers, please spread the word on your blogs!

Well, I cannot completely drop the vitriol, there is too much that is deserving of it. Instead I will mock the worst of it:

Right now I am busier than MWI trying to cover its behind so this will be short.

The latest dangerous and deceitful actions by the Corps of Engineers continue to put the lives of New Orleans residents at risk. This cannot be tolerated! MWI, the politically connected company who installed these faulty pumps has already begun their attempt at damage control on the issue (See Spoko’s Brain for their lawyer’s response and in depth analysis) Lo and behold, they have associations with Jeb Bush! Sorry Jeb, the only Bush we tolerate here anymore is Reggie. You have your brother George W. to thank for that! As to J. David Eller (MWI’s owner and Jeb’s former business partner), your political cntributions will not shield you from the truth.

We cannot allow the hard facts presented to be spun for the media. Adherance to cold, hard facts is paramount to our continued existence. I strongly encourage all the bloggers out there to jump on this, and also to be prepard for the backlash. According to the original memo 50% have experienced catastrophic failure. That is straight from a memo whose authenticity has been verified by the Corps of Engineers!

Write your congressmen, senators and media. Make some noise, hold them accountable, and do not act like the invertebrates of the Democratic Party (show some backbone)! This is not partisan, it is life or death!

Fix The Pumps, it is requred reading. Facts are what we need and Matt McBride is providing them.

The Infamous memo that Matt Mcbride leaked to the media, the one that caused all the media outlets to jump on the “defective pumps,” bandwagon. Where is it, what does it actually say?

Well, if you go here you will find it. How much “mea culpa,” on paper does it take before we can force the Corps to be held accountable?

This is a great example of why blogging is important, the media has consistently been months behind on most stories nd usually seems to cull their material from the local blogs. Damn fine to see a local blogger once again being the whistle blower. Tell him thanks when you stop by his site, he more than deserves it!!!

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Gee whiz, golly! The Corps installed faulty pumps in New Orleans to make up for their failed levees! Everyone who is surprised please raise your hands…

Yup, thought so.

From Yahoo News via the AP wire:

NEW ORLEANS - The Army Corps of Engineers, rushing to meet

President Bush

’s promise to protect New Orleans by the start of the 2006 hurricane season, installed defective flood-control pumps last year despite warnings from its own expert that the equipment would fail during a storm, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The Churchillian verbiage of the infamous Speech at Jackson Square continues to prove that talk, no matter how lordly, is cheap. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, the US seems to have declared war on the city. Granted we have our own batch of lackwits running the show, but the Federal efforts seem almost deliberately geared towards stamping us out under the guise of assisting us.

We lived here because we were told by the Army Corps of Engineers that it was safe within certain parameters. That was a lie. The Cat 5 part of the storm ht the MS gulf coast and obliterated it. The winds that hit New Orleans were clocked at Cat 2, one level below what the levees were supposed to be rated for. They failed. “Act of God, ” try “Act of Man.”

So our supposed protection, promised before last hurricane season has been provided by these pumps:

The pumps failed less-strenuous testing than the original contract
called for, according to the memo. Originally, each of the 34 pumps was
to be “load tested” — made to pump water — but that requirement for all
the pumps was dropped, the memo said.Of eight pumps that were load tested, one was turned on for a few
minutes and another was run at one-third of operating pressure, the
memo said. Three of the other load-tested pumps “experienced
catastrophic failure,” Garzino wrote.

What is it going to take for pink slips to start being issued? Or even better, we make it law that members of the Corps, politicians, and mebers of the Levee Board have to live in house that back directly up to the levess.

This is not simple dishonesty, these are people’s lives! Something has got to give, we need a serious change in the way these people are paid, contracted, and held accountable for works that directly affect the lives of an entire city.

One of my favorite little details, one I will end on, is about the company that made the pumps (a company that still got 80% of the mony for the job). They have *GASP*connections to the Bush family:

MWI is owned by J. David Eller and his sons. Eller was once a business partner of former Florida Gov.

Jeb Bush
in a venture called Bush-El that marketed MWI pumps. And Eller has
donated about $128,000 to politicians, the vast majority of it to the
Republican Party, since 1996, according to the Center for Responsive
Politics.

MWI has run into trouble before. The U.S. Justice Department sued
the company in 2002, accusing it of fraudulently helping Nigeria obtain
$74 million in taxpayer-backed loans for overpriced and unnecessary
water-pump equipment. The case has yet to be resolved.

Because of the trouble with the New Orleans pumps, the Corps has
withheld 20 percent of the MWI contract, including an incentive of up
to $4 million that the company could have collected if it delivered the
equipment in time for the 2006 hurricane season.

xposted on HumidCity, DefendNOLA, LJ New Orleans, Powers and Morrison

As attempts continue to derail the lawsuits against the Corps I think the following info is extremely important. Please pass this along to anyone and everyone you know in the New Orleans area.

Please let everyone know that the previous forms that were filled out in reference to the Corp of Engineers lawsuit are invalid. The new forms which are (2) pages can be obtained and printed from the wwltv.com website. http://www.wwltv.com/suit1.pdf and http://www.wwltv.com/suit2.pdf These forms must be mailed in by Wednesday, February 28, 2007.

You can also download a copy of Form 95 & necessary instructions at www.leveelaw. com

If anyone is interested in signing on to the class action against the Corps, Murphy Law Firm has people in town today to do the paperwork. The deadline for filing was moved up yesterday, and the new deadline is Wednesday. If you want to find out more, call Nicole at 225 773 4206. All of the law firms involved, and there are many, are scrambling to comply with this latest effort of the corps to derail the suit.