Army Corps of Eng. wanted to breach St. Bernard levee to relieve

[bushisanidiot]

water behind it that was higher than the lake.

St. Bernard nursing home is where Aaron Broussard said the emergency center's manager's mother drowned on friday.

The wanted to breach the levee as early as wednesday.. do you suppose this is why FEMA cut communications to St. Bernard?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9145473/

Aug. 31, 2005

"Ironically, as they were plotting to repair the 17th Street levee and more breaches to the east, Corp officials were saying that they’d need to intentionally rupture levees elsewhere in the New Orleans area to drain water behind them that is standing higher than lake level.

“Three obvious areas need to be breached in my opinion,” Baumy said, in Orleans, St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes. He said heavy equipment would be used to create 100- to 200-foot wide gaps in levees in those areas, let the water out and then restore them.

[Howardx]

1. on bbc

they showed 9th ward residents who were sure the levee had been dynamited to keep the french quarter dry.

[tx_dem41]

4. If you know anything about the topography of New Orleans...

that makes no sense (not attacking you...just attacking the statement you reference).

[hlthe2b]

2. Oh, Lord... Does this explain FEMA cutting their phone lines?

[bushisanidiot]

3. That's what I'm wondering.. and if this was the reason

the water kept rising in st. bernard and caused the people stuck in that nursing home to drown on friday.

if the corps was in st. bernard then they should have evacuated everyone first before breeching the levee..

[tx_dem41]

5. This was actually done in the Great 1927 flood....

...but the scenario this time doesn't make a lot of sense if they were talking about the breach on the 17th Street Canal.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. Not at all

If you do the engineering right a breach can let the water out rather then in.

In this case they need to send the water to the river, which will take it out to sea and not let anymore water in from the lake.

A breach done properly will drain the city even quicker and I believe they purposely breached the St. Bernard levee on Sat successfully.

[bushisanidiot]

7. Wrong. It was breached much earlier than saturday..

http://www.ernietheattorney.net/ernie_the_attorney/2005/09/news_from_st_be.html

September 02, 2005
News from St. Bernard
A friend of mine sent me this account of her boyfriend's experience in St. Bernard Parish. I post it here for what it's worth:

"If you've noticed, there has been no or very little mension of St. Bernard. That's because it was really bad there and there was no help. They were not helping anyone get out. It was just people helping people. Helicopters actually flew over and just took pictures didn't try to help anyone. He has six rolls of film. got a boat and actually rescued people. He broke into a two story house and stayed there. There were bodies everywhere of people and animals. He also mentioned that right before the mass flood there was a loud sound like an explosion. We think they may have blew up the levee and trying to keep it quiet. That's why they are not mentioning anything about us. Yesterday they made their way to Paris Road when they realized they were not being rescued there, got into a dump truck that brought them to a barge then they got on a bus towoard lake charles which then denied them shelter. He caught a cab from the Lafayette airport this morning and arrived here this afternoon."

[sattahipdeep]

8. On one place I read that they were

going to stop giving water to the people that refuse to leave.

[Tatiana]

9. If anyone watched the 60 min. report

There was an expert on there who asserted that not one levee had been breached. He said that the floodwalls had failed.

That sounded kinda fishy to me because anyone watching the television could see that clearly one or more levees HAD been breached.

I wonder... did the levees withstand the initial onslaught of water and were they later intentionally ruptured to drain water behind them?

[Zynx]

10. You're misunderstanding this. NO water is higher than the lake ATM.

That's because the lake isn't at storm surge levels anymore.

This is a commonly understood problem of New Orleans flooding. Levees work both ways.