9 votes

US civil engineers bent the rules to give New Orleans extra protection from hurricanes

Posted by skybrian
Tags: climate change, hurricanes, flooding, usa.la.new orleans, engineering.civil, disasters.natural, preparation.disaster, author.alejandro de la garza, source.time, paywall
https://time.com/6094221/hurricane-ida-engineering-protection/

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Title
Engineers Bent the Rules, and May Have Saved New Orleans
Published
Sep 2 2021

11 comments

  1. [11]
    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: […]

    From the article:

    The engineers didn’t lie; instead, they just were exceedingly “conservative” in all their approximations, says Resio. Certain variables were factored in twice. Those accounting for potential ocean waves, for example, were added in twice, meaning that the resulting levee was built with an extra few feet of clearance. If they had gone with a strictly “rule-based” 100-year flood system, it would not have accounted for the likelihood of climate change, says Resio. But instead, the engineers designed and built a system—which included the $1.1 billion West Closure Complex and the 1.8-mille long Lake Borgne Surge Barrier—that might be considered more like 200-year flood protection, Resio says.

    […]

    Those measures were tested this past week, as Hurricane Ida pummeled the city. The defenses built in the post-Katrina years held, preventing the kind of devastating flooding that killed nearly 2,000 people in New Orleans in 2005. According to Resio, if they had designed the system strictly for a 100-year storm, it would have failed during Ida. The extra layers of protection added by the engineers might well have saved countless lives.

    8 votes
    1. [10]
      AugustusFerdinand
      Link Parent
      Dear Don Resio, Now that you've opened your mouth, there will be further checks in the future to see that taxpayer money isn't "wasted" on overengineering, but instead will be spent on a private...

      Dear Don Resio,

      Now that you've opened your mouth, there will be further checks in the future to see that taxpayer money isn't "wasted" on overengineering, but instead will be spent on a private oversight company (which will just happen to belong to someone that donated to a representative's election fund) to ensure that such fudging of numbers never occurs again.

      Thanks,
      Congress

      6 votes
      1. [8]
        skybrian
        Link Parent
        Yeah, no, I doubt anyone in Congress is going to say one word about this. A corruption scandal might be useful to make an enemy look bad, but this would just blow up in their face.

        Yeah, no, I doubt anyone in Congress is going to say one word about this. A corruption scandal might be useful to make an enemy look bad, but this would just blow up in their face.

        3 votes
        1. [7]
          AugustusFerdinand
          (edited )
          Link Parent
          Say anything? No, of course not. That would be dumb. What they will do though is ensure the next legislation for something like this has oversight added to it. Just as they do with the 10,000+...

          Say anything? No, of course not. That would be dumb.

          What they will do though is ensure the next legislation for something like this has oversight added to it. Just as they do with the 10,000+ pieces of legislation introduced each term, it'll be little more than a paragraph in the 5Million words of new law they pass. Never to be given a second look until the next project is put together and someone finds out they'll be micromanaged by a third party that's buddy-buddy with a politician.

          They're not stupid, they're corrupt.

          3 votes
          1. [6]
            skybrian
            Link Parent
            I don’t see what’s in it for them. You’re assuming that someone in Congress is both corrupt and strangely concerned with preventing taxpayers money from being spent on anything good, just because...

            I don’t see what’s in it for them. You’re assuming that someone in Congress is both corrupt and strangely concerned with preventing taxpayers money from being spent on anything good, just because they’re a mustache-twirling villain. This isn’t how pork usually works.

            Also, this whole line of reasoning is evidence-free speculation.

            5 votes
            1. [5]
              AugustusFerdinand
              Link Parent
              To state to their constituents that they reduced overspending by $X. Gets voters on their side by making it look like they care about the budget. To have a donor give them campaign funds to be the...

              I don’t see what’s in it for them.

              To state to their constituents that they reduced overspending by $X. Gets voters on their side by making it look like they care about the budget.

              To have a donor give them campaign funds to be the contractor of choice to receive a fat check for double checking the numbers on an Corps of Engineers project.

              Also, this whole line of reasoning is evidence-free speculation.

              Government corruption, lies to voters, and collusion with donors is so prevalent it's practically trope.

              2 votes
              1. [4]
                skybrian
                Link Parent
                This theory just raises more questions. First of all if they wanted to claim they reduced overspending, couldn’t they just make it up? It’s not like lying is uncommon. And if they wanted to point...

                This theory just raises more questions. First of all if they wanted to claim they reduced overspending, couldn’t they just make it up? It’s not like lying is uncommon. And if they wanted to point to evidence for it, it’s hard to see how a hidden change to a bill would be convincing? Also, isn’t there more money to funnel to your preferred contractors with a bigger budget to do more work?

                Maybe there are answers to these questions, or maybe your understanding of how government corruption works isn’t quite right. How could we tell? Someone who was curious about how government corruption really works would need to learn about it from actual examples, or at least from experts who study actual examples. Reporting about corruption scandals and accounts from insiders help us learn things.

                Theorizing about what bad things Congress is doing by outsiders like us, without caring enough to check anything, is basically folklore. Yes, it’s very common style. That doesn’t make it good. I wish you wouldn’t indulge in it here.

                2 votes
                1. [3]
                  AugustusFerdinand
                  Link Parent
                  Not theory. Fact. I'm not sure if you're in denial about government corruption or just ignorant of it. Could they lie? Sure, but that runs the risk of being caught in the lie. So they'll carefully...

                  This theory just raises more questions. First of all if they wanted to claim they reduced overspending, couldn’t they just make it up? It’s not like lying is uncommon. And if they wanted to point to evidence for it, it’s hard to see how a hidden change to a bill would be convincing? Also, isn’t there more money to funnel to your preferred contractors with a bigger budget to do more work?

                  Not theory. Fact.
                  I'm not sure if you're in denial about government corruption or just ignorant of it. Could they lie? Sure, but that runs the risk of being caught in the lie. So they'll carefully word it so that they've prevented overspending by X. In this case X being the Corps of Engineers. They won't say they prevented overspending by spending even more on a 3rd party overseers or the project went from $1.1B to $1B with $900M being the project without engineer's saving lives and $100M being the overseers.

                  Maybe there are answers to these questions, or maybe your understanding of how government corruption works isn’t quite right. How could we tell? Someone who was curious about how government corruption really works would need to learn about it from actual examples, or at least from experts who study actual examples. Reporting about corruption scandals and accounts from insiders help us learn things.

                  If only there were entire organizations dedicated (or with dedicated branches) to such, say like Transparency International, Worldbank, IMF, RIACS, or any number of institutes of higher learning that have covered government corruption.

                  Theorizing about what bad things Congress is doing by outsiders like us, without caring enough to check anything, is basically folklore. Yes, it’s very common style. That doesn’t make it good. I wish you wouldn’t indulge in it here.

                  All it takes is a simple google of something along the lines of "donor awarded contract" and you have an answer. Denial because you aren't spoonfed links is a very common style that I wish you wouldn't indulge in here.

                  2 votes
                  1. [2]
                    skybrian
                    Link Parent
                    If all you said is that donor-awarded contracts exist, I wouldn't have a problem with it.

                    If all you said is that donor-awarded contracts exist, I wouldn't have a problem with it.

                    1 vote
                    1. AugustusFerdinand
                      Link Parent
                      The donors are writing the bills as well that get them the contracts or leeway to operate with impunity.

                      The donors are writing the bills as well that get them the contracts or leeway to operate with impunity.

      2. vord
        Link Parent
        How dare they spend a few missile's worth of money to save people's lives! We could have killed a hundred more civilians in other countries for that! -Congress, probably.

        How dare they spend a few missile's worth of money to save people's lives!

        We could have killed a hundred more civilians in other countries for that!
        -Congress, probably.