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17 comments on Pictures from the Lower 9th Ward

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Stuart Staniford on January 1, 2006 - 6:19pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
HO:

My understanding from Zoe is that there's three breaches in the levees into the lower 9th.  One is clearly caused by the barge (of which she has amazing pictures of the crushed houses under the other side of it from where it looks like you took your shot), but the reasons for the other two are unclear (at least to her).  Some activists she spoke to expressed conspiracy theories that the levees were deliberately breached with explosives as a preemptive measure to drain water away from the business center of NO.  Did you see any other breaches, or check for them?

More cheerfully, we were in the French quarter this afternoon, which is pretty much business as usual - even more so than the garden district - 90%+ of businesses open.  I'll add some pictures from it as an update to this story after I get home (we're about to leave for the airport).

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Heading Out on January 1, 2006 - 8:24pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The team I was on visited all the breaches in NOLA and a fair number of those down the delta. In most cases it was clear that the walls were first overtopped (as they were by the barge) this softened the ground and the pressure then pushed the pilings over - because of time I was only at the barge failure on the Industrial Canal, and at the 17th Street failure (shown here), before most of the wall was covered with the new temporary levee.

This latter was still leaking a fair amount of water while we were there, and is the one where there was dredging on the canal side before the Hurricane.

You had better luck with food than we did, in the French Quarter they had only enough electricity to either wash the dishes or keep the beer cold - guess what?

Glad to hear that the old place is coming back!

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todreader on January 1, 2006 - 9:55pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
PBS's "Nova" attempted some explanations of how the city was flooded in their recent program "Storm that Drowned a City".

How New Orleans Flooded:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/orleans/how.html

Video of "Chapter 6: Protecting New Orleans:

"Experts examine what went wrong and how New Orleans could be protected in the future."

running time 10:19

Quicktime: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/orleans/media2/3218_q_06.html

RealVideo:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/orleans/media2/3218_r_06.html

Windows Media, HiRes:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/orleans/media2/3218_w_06_220.html

Windows Media, LowRes:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/orleans/media2/3218_w_06_056.html

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17 comments on Pictures from the Lower 9th Ward

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