New Orleans Flooding: 'The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is for Good People to Do Nothing'

I've taken some liberties with one of my favorite quotes. Why I chose this particular aphorism for this post's title will soon be apparent.

One thing to remember: this post deals with something written almost three years ago and reflects conditions at that time.   

 

Five years ago today, New Orleans experienced disastrous flooding that killed approximately 1,500 of its residents; left countless others injured, psychologically damaged, and homeless; caused billons of dollars in damages; and left the world wondering why the USA government responded in a manner totally unbecoming to the world’s most powerful nation. At the time, the flooding was believed to be a natural disaster, and some no doubt still believe that.

I no longer believe that fiction, especially after reading a letter written on 30 October 2007 by one of the USA’s foremost geotechnical engineers, a member of one of the independent teams investigating the flooding. Given the age of the letter, I suspect many of you have read it. I just discovered it, thanks to Lloyd G. Carter. The letter's title is profound: New Orleans, Hurricane,Katrina, and the Soul of the Profession.

I’ve never read such a remarkable, thorough, and troubling report. I use the word ‘report’ because a 42-page, single-spaced letter strikes me as more a report than a letter although it has the format of the latter. Professor Raymond B. Seed’s 30 October 2007 letter to William F. Marcuson III, then president of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), painstakingly documents the post-flood investigations, and had particularly harsh words for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (primarily the New Orleans office) and the ASCE headquarters staff. He also had a few choice words for the President of Louisiana State University. But most of his scorn is directed toward the USACE and ASCE, to which he belongs.

Seed did not mince words; consider some he used: unethical, collusion, murder, cover-up, incompetent, retribution, hardball, unpardonable, dysfunction, shame, flawed, set-up, punishment, watered-down, indefensible. trustworthiness, pointless. You get the picture.

Seed is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC-Berkeley, the nation’s top-rated department. He is obviously proud of his profession and concerned that its reputation and position of public trust were irreparably damaged by certain USACE and ASCE actions. His letter to Marcuson is a plea to right the ship and get ASCE on track again.

A lot of things struck me about Seed's letter. Two things stand out:

 

1) Levees failures during Hurricane Katrina were similar and in some cases, identical in location, to the ones that occurred during Hurricane Betsy. If the post-Betsy investigation had been done properly, the 2005 flooding might have been avoided or mitigated. This corresponds to the New Orleans office's long (c. 50 years) history of avoiding meaningful outisde technical review of its work.

2) Federal pressure was brought to bear on Louisiana State University, UC-Berkeley, and the National Science Foundation (who funded some of the investigative work). The latter two rebuffed the pressure, but LSU's president caved and ultimately fired Dr. Ivor Van Heerden of LSU's Hurricane Research Center (now called the Hurricane Center), who was one of the leaders of the State of Louisiana's investigative team. LSU later received $12M from the USACE to "help the Corps prioritize its projects."

It is importnat to note that Seed gave kudos to some who performed admirably in the face of great pressure. He also does not impugn the entire Corps or all of ASCE.

I would love to see Harry Shearer's documentary, The Big Uneasy, which will be shown tomorrow at selected locations. His film will undoubtedly address some of the same issues broached by Seed. Here is a recent NPR interview of Shearer:

 

 

Here is ASCE's current take on the disaster.

 

The situation has obciously changed since Seed wrote his letter. The USACE leadership in New Orleans has changed. I can't comment on the steps ASCE has taken simply because I have not folowed that situation (I am not a member, nor I am an engineer). I hope it has, because I am a great admirer of the civil engineering profession and count civil engineers among my most valued colleagues and friends.

Many organizations are remembering the 2005 disaster with all sorts of retrospectives. Please make a reading of Professor Seed's letter part of your remembrance.

Comments on his letter are especially welcomed.

Download Katrina_and_Soul_of_the_Profession

 

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of eveil is for good men to nothing." -- Edmund Burke, quoted in the letter (p. 41)

Comments

[PAUL F MILLER]

POSTING ... New Orleans Flooding: 'The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is for Good People to Do Nothing' ...

As I read this posting I found myself (a) in agreement while at the same time (b) being discombobulated...?

Do “we” so-called good people do nothing as a function of intention or might this be reflective of how successful the last 40 year campaign to infuse FEAR into our society has been...?

A manipulated divide, partition, segregate, separate, isolate, detach society has emerged in America over the last 40 years driven, quite successfully by the emergence of still larger corporate giant$, now virtually controlling every phase of our once vaunted “check & balance” form of representative democracy.

Today’s education punctuates this notion of divide and conquer for which American free-enterprise has supremely mastered.

The tragedy which unfolded some five years ago in New Orleans was not, in my evaluation, the result of good people doing nothing ... it was that good people did precisely what they had been educated to do ... FEAR ... and as a nation we continue to succumb to it

Respectfully submitted,

[Kathy Wolfe]

Thanks for making this "letter" available. It's a shame that doing the right thing is so often met with resistence.

[Tim]

I read Seed's letter via Aguanomics, and subsequent followups with rebuttals from various parties, with great interest as I am personally acquainted with one of the people he castigates most severely. A colleague who knows most of the major players quite well says there are personality issues involved and the technical issues are not so clear-cut as Dr. Seed implies. Nevertheless it does not appear the engineering profession in general or ASCE in particular have distinguished themselves in this matter. The demand for "consensus" as a prequisiste for publication seems disingenuous at best, given there were four separate teams working simultaneously; and why did the allegation of possible malfeasance cause so much consternation? This was Lousiana, after all...

Bottom line: It's hard to believe an engineering failure of this magnitude could be nobody's fault, and even harder to understand why an ostensibly disinterested third-party agency should be so obsessed with message control.

[Ken]

Possible way of flooding New Orleans and south Louisiana again.

Wetlands restoration will produce an unstable or stable Mississippi River?
http://www.freewebs.com/wetlandsmiss/

A Yes or No needs to be the answer but I have not received an answer and the question was posed a few years ago to my elected officials.
Ken

...The present Master Plan for wetlands restoration only covers one side of the fence. The plan discusses 20% to 30% of the river being diverted along the Mississippi River between Donaldsonville and the mouth of the river and, I believe, this will make the river unstable. The other side of the fence is diverting with keeping the river stable and I want to share some ideas of how, I believe, to keep the river stable.

General explanations about both sides of the fence:

LA Speaks Draft Master Plan will not work because a river environmental disaster will occur with the plan as proposed
Louisiana's Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast

http://www.lacpra.org/

I worked at a chemical plant next door to the plant where the following incident happened. A shipping terminal fell in the river in the 1973 flood near Plaquemine, La. and I believe from high velocity water but I am sure the terminal was designed to meet government regulations with respect to piling depth...etc. After this event several diversions were added to the river and this has added piling undercutting capability to the river due to added velocity. Adding more diversions in the future may be the straw that breaks the back and, I believe, more shipping terminals will fall into the river. There should not be any added diversions that increases river velocities except for diversions close to the mouth of the river. Diversions close to the mouth of the river essentially do not increase river velocities and do not decrease the resistance of the river. But any diversions above the mouth of the river decrease the resistance of the river by creating a parallel run with the river. This parallel run starts at the point of the river diversion and continues downstream to the Gulf. These added diversions will decrease the downstream resistance and river velocity north of the diversion will be higher than before the diversions are added.

"A combination for shipping terminals to fall into the river"

I believe there is nothing that can be done to stop the added erosion power of the river from undermining shipping pilings. Also I believe, grading, armoring the river bank with stone, and installing concrete matt on the river bank will not stop the erosive power of the river, from higher velocities, undermining the levee at peak meander points. And this undermining of the levee will send a destructive tidal wave into Southeast Louisiana.

The Mississippi River Master Plan diversions will only work if:

All future diversions are close to the mouth of the Mississippi River.
Or the total flow of the bird foot delta area is decreased by the added upstream diversion flows.
A magnitude example of possible diversions

Third Delta Conveyance Channel General Pathway

http://www.restoreorretreat.org/solution_third_delta_conveyance.php

The Third Delta Conveyance Channel diverts about 1/3 of the Mississippi river and will be located below Donaldsonville La. and may well destroy Southeast Louisiana because the levee above Donaldsonville, Louisiana will be undermined. Higher river velocities above Donaldsonville will be generated by the Conveyance Channel flow because the flow will decrease the river resistance below Donaldsonville. These higher velocities will undermine peak meander points of the river above Donaldsonville and in turn the levee will be undermined and collapse sending a tidal wave south.

Please see below article that shows stream channelization increase flow velocity.

I believe one can safely conclude:
• Stream channelization reduces the resistance of a stream and this is why the stream has faster velocities.
• For the Mississippi River, approximate 1/3 of the river diverted by the Third Delta Conveyance channel will reduce the resistance of the river and as a result the velocity and the erosive power of the river upstream of the diversion will increase.

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…Because overall stream behavior is maintained in dynamic equilibrium, changes in one of several variables such as flow, velocity, or streambed substrate will result in compensating changes in the other variables. Channelization and armoring (rip-rapping) of a stream section will cause permanent changes, removing the dynamic nature of not only the altered section, but also affecting the adjoining stream sections further downstream than might initially be anticipated. Stream channelization often increases stream velocity, thereby increasing the erosive power of the stream. Durable protection or armoring is then required to ensure the stability of the engineered modification through all flow events….

http://www.fws.gov/midwest/KalamazooNRDA/documents/IChap_8.pdf

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