You don't plug a 200' levee gap. You can't even cofferdam around it. 200' x 10' = a 2000 square foot wall of water pouring in. Until the flow stops, you can't really repair it. It's exactly like trying to stop the tide.

Worse: Backside soaking. That water's heading clear across the city, and ponding up against the Mississippi river levees. That attacks the base and foot of levees and seawalls -- it was a real problem in 1993, we had a strict rule of "pump, now!" at any sign of leakage, to keep the levees and sandbag walls from collapsing as the earth underneath turned to goo.

No power, limited reserves on the pumps to keep the city dry. That water is going to sit for a long time -- and now, every little thunderstorm that comes by is a major threat, until the seal that levee and get the pumps dry.

The Corps of Engineers has gear, but they're fighting to get to the breach. Losing the Twin Span Bridge is a big deal, as well.

The causeway is currently cleared for emergency vehicles, but I don't know if they can risk heavy construction gear yet.

As to the ambuiguity. It's rare for a levee to just pop -- usually, that takes explosives (a tactic, in big floods -- blow the levee protecting farmlands to save the city.) It may well have started leaking, slowly, yesterday, and the water carved it wider. Now, it just isn't a levee anymore.

Posted August 30, 2005 8:37 AM by Erik V. Olson

I just heard the news from Mom, who heard it from Dad, who's still holed up at Touro Hospital.

I have nothing useful to add. Stay safe, everyone.

Posted August 30, 2005 8:39 AM by Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little

That was my thought too this morning. I just saw the whole interview to the NO mayor. Damn.

Posted August 30, 2005 8:58 AM by Anna Feruglio Dal Dan

*insert several minutes of profanity here*

Really. That's all I can think of to say.

Posted August 30, 2005 9:05 AM by Tina

In case anybody wants to watch it in its entirety, here's the Nagin interview. I know I saw portions aired on CNN but not the whole thing. I'm hoping the link isn't going to breaks the comments.

http://www.wwltv.com/perl/common/video/wmPlayer.pl?title=www.wwltv.com/082905mayor.wmv

"They have seen bodies floating in the water."
"Who has seen them?"
"Eveybody."
"Where have they seen them?"
"Everywhere."

Etc. etc.

Posted August 30, 2005 9:06 AM by Anna Feruglio Dal Dan

This is purportedly a photograph of the levee breach, taken from over the lake:

http://www.hunt101.com/img/319526.JPG

Posted August 30, 2005 9:18 AM by David Bilek

Wow, David, that looks much further away from downtown than I'd realized. At about 7am this morning, the Today Show reported about 1-2 ft. of water on the streets closer to toe French Quarter.

Posted August 30, 2005 9:20 AM by Laurie Mann

Blocking that gap is going to be hard.

It isn't impossible. It might take extreme measures, right up to scuttling a barge in the canal.

Ask the Dutch.

Posted August 30, 2005 11:21 AM by Dave Bell

You realize this only happened because some said the words "hurricane proof"

My grandmother took this time to visit relatives in Michigan, (Thank God)

Keep safe all.

Posted August 30, 2005 11:53 AM by Michelle

Latest is that they're going to try to airlift in large sandbags to stem the breach (1350 kg, about one ton). That's a whole lotta sandbags.

Even the media have seen the better part of valor; the most recent post on the Times-Picayune's breaking news blog (datelined) 9:40 AM describes the route their caravan is trying to take out of town. Most of the TV stations were already broadcasting from elsewhere, I think.

I keep thinking it's like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Except that it's more like watching neighborhoods of a major city get washed away in slow motion...

Posted August 30, 2005 12:29 PM by Charles Dodgson

Am I a bad person for finding it amusing that this guy's appeal for help is self-inflictedly less likely to receive an answer (by at least fifty percent)?

Probably so, yeah, so I won't note the brand name of the generator.

Posted August 30, 2005 12:30 PM by adamsj

"Probably so, yeah, so I won't note the brand name of the generator."

I wonder if his Cummings generator runs an Onan pump

Posted August 30, 2005 2:00 PM by Stefan Jones

I already feel a little bad about picking at the guy. He's over his head in a bad situation, and he made (in my opinion) an unwise statement that could make it worse. I could've done that.

Of course, in a Heinlein novel, some competent woman would've shot him, then spent the rest of the disaster having sex in the bunker, so it could've been worse.

Speaking of whiches, is anyone as reminded of Leiber's The Wanderer as I am?

Posted August 30, 2005 2:11 PM by adamsj

Anyone know about Metairie at the Kenner line and the canal there. Flooding?

Posted August 30, 2005 2:35 PM by metairieboy

It must be getting bad. In the last few minutes, I've seen "martial law" misspelled on both the WWL website (broadcast journalists, right) and the NOLA website.

When print journalists are making that mistake, they're rattled.

Posted August 30, 2005 2:35 PM by adamsj

Ah, I misunderstood Charles Dodgson; I thought he meant a total of 1350 kgs of sandbags (which isn't much), when it's really 1350 kgs *per* sandbag. Those are pretty big bags; I suspect each one might be about a cubic meter, or a cubic yard to those used to buying construction materials in the US.

Posted August 30, 2005 2:37 PM by Jeremy Leader

The Kenner W*l-M*rt Supercenter is open, if that tells you anything. (I used to know and work with some of the field engineers that maintained that store.)

Posted August 30, 2005 2:38 PM by adamsj

thx adamsj -- it's not too far west from my family's home on Robeline Street near Power Blvd. (about one block away from the levee)

Posted August 30, 2005 2:41 PM by metairieboy

Oh, good luck to them! Here's the NOLA forum for Kenner--you may find more here. You might post there, too.

Posted August 30, 2005 3:13 PM by adamsj

OK, I admit up front that this is a crackpot idea, based on bits of stuff I remember.

NOLA is the biggest grain port in the world -- while they may have stopped barges upstream they probably aren't too far off. The barges may or may not fit down the canal, but it does not matter. Pull several up to the mouth of the canal on Lake Ponch and just dump them. You will need to line up several barges at once because what you are trying to do is create a block in that canal like cheap toilet paper in a bad toilet. The trick to this (in my fevered dreams) is that most grain, especially rice slowly swells up on contact with water. As soon as you manage to form a leaky plug, then pile the plastic and sandbags on the side toward the lake. Repeat as necessary.

I understand that there are problems with this. Ponch is not generally considered navigable (I think) and getting both tugs and barges around may not be feasible. It may be better to drag smaller ones through the canal from the Mississippi side. (That idea, of course, has its own risk -- bumping the side of an overloaded canal levee with a loaded barge is probably not a good thing.) There are probably dozens of good reasons why this will not work. But it has been sticking in my head since yesterday evening when I heard about the further breaks.

There, now I feel better. Feel free to return to the real world.

Posted August 30, 2005 4:23 PM by Claude Muncey

Hey, I like it Claude!

Just think: You could keep hundreds of trigger-happy potential troublemakers employed shooting birds who attempt to peck away at the grain dike.

Posted August 30, 2005 4:47 PM by Stefan Jones

“It must be legal,” she said. “The police are here taking stuff, too.”

Posted August 30, 2005 7:45 PM by adamsj

Maybe it's time to let the Mississippi have its way. Make a Newer Orleans away from the coast.

Posted August 30, 2005 7:59 PM by Marilee

Less than 48 hours later, and the looters are shooting the police.

New Orleans is already under martial law - it sounds like the police could use some National Guard backup.

So it's just too bad that 1/3 of the Louisiana National Guard is currently in Iraq, protecting us from WMDs.

People are now dying here at home as a direct consequence of Bush's foreign policy disasters.

Posted August 30, 2005 9:16 PM by Bob Oldendorf

Claude: Rice has to get hot to swell much (which is why flinging it at weddings is perfectly harmless.

Posted August 30, 2005 10:02 PM by Terry Karney

I think people are remembering one of Horatio Hornblower's little adventures with a cargo of rice.

As far as I can see, only the Industrial Canal connects to the Mississippee. Why the dead-end canals are there, I don't know.

Posted August 31, 2005 2:52 AM by Dave Bell

I think people are remembering one of Horatio Hornblower's little adventures with a cargo of rice.

Always the same excuse; "they didn't know it was loaded."

Posted August 31, 2005 5:30 AM by John M. Ford

The dead end canals are for drainage of the streets.

Posted August 31, 2005 11:20 AM by Bry Anne

Can anyone explain to me how/why there's a city in that particular location in the first place? Presumably the Watery Sword of Damocles wasn't so blatantly dangling from the rafters when settlement started, and then the next generations lived there because "we've always lived here". But if that's it, what changed?

Posted August 31, 2005 7:31 PM by Kate Yule

Kate, the Army Corps of Engineers built levees up & down the Mississippi, which meant there wasn't as much dirt carried by the river to replenish the delta and wetlands. Essentially, we've spent a lot of money trying to keep New Orleans and other cities dry.

Posted August 31, 2005 7:40 PM by Marilee