The head of a team of engineering experts told a US Senate committee on Wednesday that malfeasance during construction might have been one reason for the catastrophic failure of the levees that were supposed to protect New Orleans from hurricanes.
"These levees should have been expected to perform adequately at these levels if they had been designed and constructed properly," said Raymond Seed, a professor of civil engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
"Not just human error was involved," Seed said. "There may have been malfeasance."
Seed, whose team was funded by the National Science Foundation, did not offer hard evidence to back up his accusation. But he said after the hearing that the team had been contacted by levee workers, contractors and, in some cases, widows of contractors who told stories of protective sheet pile being driven less deeply than plans called for and corners cut in choosing soils for construction, among other problems.
His group is trying to confirm the accounts, he said, and he cautioned that even if proved, they might not be a major contributing factor in the disaster, which killed 1,000 people and left 100,000 without homes.
As experts have noted, the levee specifications may not have been adequate in the first place. In particular, pilings may not have been driven deep enough to keep them from collapsing.
But the testimony raises new concerns in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina about the protection that New Orleans received from the 40-year US$458 million flood-control system.
The current state of repair might not protect the city from another serious storm, the engineers warned.
"Short term, without a storm, they are probably adequately safe," said Peter Nicholson, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Hawaii, who led a team of levee investigators for the American Society of Civil Engineers. "Certainly with a large storm, as we are not yet out of hurricane season, and certainly for next hurricane season, there is significant risk," Nicholson said.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
RSS