Talk:2005 levee failures in Greater New Orleans/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Template:Katrina

Needs to be added to Template:Katrina. — jdorje (talk) 07:01, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Lack of sources

Well, there are about 4 sources for the whole article. But many sections do not have a single source. The information is not verifiable. — jdorje (talk) 07:00, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I thought this article had a reasonable level of sources. I count not 4 but 14 external links to news media, academic or government reports! Also some of the introductory /background paragraphs summarise content from other WP articles (linked), which have at least some level of sources within them. I am not saying the article could not be improved - one should probably at least check that all the links still actually work, and they could do with a bit of tidying up, perhaps using a reference section. It would help if someone could point out specific omissions so we can all concentrate on the problem areas. Has any one heard of the outcome of the Senate hearings, or the progress of the NAS investigation? Op. Deo 22:20, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Article cleanup

The article has been cleaned up, and references have been added and formatted. Dr. Cash 20:23, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Name

How about a better title for this article? How about something like "2005 New Orleans area levee failures" or "Levee failures in Greater New Orleans, 2005"? Note: I think wording should not exclude the breaches outside of New Orleans in neighboring St. Bernard etc and events related to Hurricane Rita. -- Infrogmation 19:26, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Since no one has objected, I will move the article to the the second of the two suggestions from the current title of "Levee and flood wall failure in New Orleans (following hurricane Katrina)". -- Infrogmation 17:47, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Like to revive this a bit. Suggest making it Levee failures in Greater New Orleans (2005). This is more consistent with wikistyle. If there is ever another similar event (knock on wood that never happens), it will end up with a similar title, distinguished only by the year of occurrance. For instance, in 1965 Hurricane Betsy caused levee failures in the Greater New Orleans area so an article on Levee failures in Greater New Orleans (1965) could be written. ZueJay (talk) 04:27, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Wikistyle? Could you point where parenthesis are specifically prefered when they aren't needed?  :-) Well I guess that shows I don't think the change is particularly necessary, but thanks for bringing it up. There were certainly other incidences of levee failures in history, though the most significant were on the Mississippi side early in the city's history, in the colonial era and I think as late as 1816, when we have a more complete description of such things. -- Infrogmation 05:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I know, there is no real wikistyle - guess I was thinking more of the style used by the films project when they start getting remakes. I find that the comma bugs me a bit; it seems...inconsistent. ZueJay (talk) 10:50, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Class-action lawsuit

Would information regarding a potential class-action lawsuit by New Orleans-area residents against the Army Corps of Engineers for the failure of the levees fit in this article? Or would it go into another article? The Army Corps are currently collecting the proper forms from those wanting to sue until August 29, 2007. --Bdj95 01:42, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Question: canal levee failures vs river levee failures

Is it true that the serious failures were with the canal (man made! waterways) "levees" and not with the river levees and that if the two canals had had locks, the disaster would not have happened? 69.204.16.197 (talk) 09:35, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Close. Yes, the River levees were appropriately built and held firm. There were more than two canals involved; a proper system of leeves and flood walls could have prevented the catastrophic failures (locks and pumping stations on the canals would have been a good option but not the only possible one). The area was hit by a hurricane and there would have been damage and likely some limited light flooding in any case, but the overwhelming majority of the damage and almost all the loss of life in Greater New Orleans was due to failure of the flood control system. -- Infrogmation (talk) 15:10, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

GA delisted

In order to uphold the quality of Wikipedia:Good articles, all articles listed as Good articles are being reviewed against the GA criteria as part of the GA project quality task force. While all the hard work that has gone into this article is appreciated, unfortunately, as of June 7, 2008, this article fails to satisfy the criteria, as detailed in the review that can be found here. For that reason, the article has been delisted from WP:GA. However, if improvements are made bringing the article up to standards, the article may be nominated at WP:GAN. If you feel this decision has been made in error, you may seek remediation at WP:GAR. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 17:54, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Comparison to Panama Canal

I've removed from the "Background" paragraph the line "By comparison, President Theodore Roosevelt's construction of the Panama Canal, one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, took 10 years." It doesn't seem terribly reasonable to compare two such wildly different projects undertaken in different economic and social conditions over 60 years apart. As i understand it the Panama Canal was bought part complete from the French, and over 20000 French and 5000 American workers died in the construction, a huge number of the achievements of the Victorian era couldn't be repeated now. Provider uk (talk) 18:00, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Attribution

Some material in this article is from a previously created article on alternative theories regarding Hurricane Katrine. Complete edit history can be found at Talk:Hurricane Katrina/Alternative theories page history. Cheers! bd2412 T 14:48, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Graphic

Basin Cross Section -- It appears that this graphic puts point "A" in the wrong place, and the graphics indications of location along the bottom axis...are they in the right place? Perhaps the "A-B" line isn't a straight line? 70.156.107.129 (talk) 15:15, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Zero corporate information

If one believed the article, the levee system was built by ghosts. Not a single word appears about who actually built them, only that it was under the direction of the ACE. Not a single word about the quality control reporting or the entities that performed the actual inspections of work done. Were inspection services contracted out to private firms? What construction companies built them? Was laxity by certain firms known? Or were the unnamed firms blameless? We will never know, apparently.

This article is a vacuum, much like the official reports. Very skillfully done, perps. Wikipedia has failed. Mydogtrouble (talk) 15:48, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I would guess that the reason that there is not much information is not due to nefarious reasons but rather that the Corps of Engineers' processes are pretty much standard. The quality control is done by the contractor with assurance by the Corps of Engineers through daily random sampling inspections by either Corps of Engineers' employees or contracted quality assurance personnel from an Engineer-Architect firm (known as Title II services).
That said, it would be interesting to know the names of the various construction contractor firms involved. I don't think, however, that it would serve any valid intellectual purpose to put individual names of either contractor or COE personnel; it would only serve to allow villification of these individuals after the fact. Don'tKnowItAtAll (talk) 03:11, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Floodwalls

This article needs to reference to a seaparte article on floodwalls. From what I understand the failure of the floodwalls were a main cause of the flooding. The floodwalls need to be diagramed and detailed so the nature of the decisions made by the Army Corp of Engineers can be understood. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Aph1ruderman (talk • contribs) 15:22, 8 April 2007 (UTC).

The floodwalls for the most part are part of the levee systems-- generally a levee with a flood wall on top-- so they are interconnected, and not seperate topics. More and better info on the floodwalls would be good to have however. -- Infrogmation (talk) 11:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
"The floodwalls consist of a concrete cap on a sheet pile base" is the only info on the construction in the article, which is totally different from the levees I know. A drawing or good picture would be very helpful. Reboelje (talk) 21:53, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. Been trying to find some material on upgrades to the levees proposed in 1977. The environmentalists opposed the building of superior levees on the basis that it would be hard on the wetlands. Well, they sure got their wetlands now, only they are filled with sewage and toxic stuff. Hey, that might be a good thing - all that crud might bring the mosquito population down. Sorry eco-nazis, the West Nile virus isn't going to be doing as much of your dirty work for a while. Kalaong (talk) 03:40, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Please use the article talk page for suggestions for improving the article, rather than snark and insults. Especially poorly informed snark (you might wish to look in to which particular plan was opposed and why, rather than the misleading suggestion that all superior levees were opposed). I'm unconnected with that movement of a generation ago (along with the movement by many of the same people opposing MRGO). I wish to point out that calling people unconnected with Nazism "nazis" has a strong tendancy to poison any attempt at useful discussion. Please check out Wikipedia:Civility. Thank you. -- Infrogmation (talk) 11:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
Huh. It's obvious we have to be professional in editing the articles, but we're not allowed to snark and whine while making conversation? You must be one of the guys who'd walk into the hospital and shoot Gregory House if he was real. Thanks for educating me. I won't do it again. Kalaong (talk) 15:39, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Conspiracy Theories

While I don't buy the idea that the government blew up the levees to protect certain real estate at the expense of others, the theories are too widely accepted not to be discussed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.159.75.123 (talk) 10:27, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

A bit late to reply to this subject, but Katrina has taken up a great interest with myself because of the magnititude and sheer awesomeness (or awfulness) it exerted, and the remarkable resiliency the NOLA residents had to come back and rebuild. The conspiracy theories were partly grounded in the fact that the government, in 1927 authorized dynamiting of the levees in the more poorer (read: black) areas to protect the more 'upper class' (white) citizens further away from the breach. Coupled with the fact that the govt also refused aid to minority groups (which constitute a great percentage of NOLA population) and then the dismal FEMA and government aid response to Katrina in 2005, it really put the pieces together in enough people's minds to at least assert the theory. The Katrina Relief Telethon with Mike Myers and Kanye West didn't help anything either. In addition, there was widespread conjecture that the military allowed, or instigated, barges to crash through breaches in the levees (which were also near more predominantly black populations) which caused further destruction and damage. While I want to believe myself that our government has evolved since the 20's and 30's and would put humanitarian efforts over a petty thing like racial and class distinction, everybody should know that at some level, racism and class warfare in the government is still very real, even if it doesn't make the news ticker every day. These things are inherent to every government and society, even if they refuse to acknowledge it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.112.156.69 (talk) 14:55, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Why is this even on Wikipedia? The flooding of our city has been studied to death by dozens of agencies, maybe hundreds, no one blew up the levees, why is it so hard to grasp that? A lot of "white" parts of town flooded, hell most of everything flooded, not just the poor "black" neighborhoods. The entire section should be removed.Sedna1000 (talk) 05:16, 10 April 2011 (UTC)Sedna1000

It's on Wikipedia because it is a rumor or folk story that has been covered repeatedly in the media and has had persistence, and thus is within project scope. Correcting misinformation can often be a useful task in addition to recitation of correct information. Red beans & ricely, Infrogmation (talk) 18:36, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


Well maybe the article should read "although based on no facts, race-baiters like Louis Farrakhan and Spike Lee believe the levees were dynamited to save 'white' New Orleans neighborhoods" Sedna1000 (talk) 07:54, 13 April 2011 (UTC)Sedna1000

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