On Dec.2 Knucklehead linked this seemingly dispositive piece which convincingly asserted Corps of Engineers design flaws (or contractor chicanery) as the cause for the failure of the flood walls in NO. There was even a clever bit about the LSU investigative team: The corps has long claimed the sheet piling was driven to 17.5 feet deep, but Team Louisiana recently used sophisticated ground sonar to prove it was only 10 feet deep.
Today another piece appears (HT Skookumchuk) which refutes through actual physical evidence the core of the previous piece. Maybe.
Sadder (but in all probability no wiser) I believe that I will withold further speculative comment until a definitive report is published. There are too many axes being ground by both sides at the moment to have much confidence in the reporting.
3 comments:
Welcome to the world of construction defect litigation. Competing "scientific" evidence is often presented by all sides of a dispute.
And there are generally many sides: Owner, designer, general contractor, subcontractor, material suppliers, manufacturers, and the list can go on and on.
This is why many disputes are decided by arbitration, and why the selection of the arbitrator(s) is often the hardest part of the exercise.
The dueling expert reports Rick and Knuck have brought to our attention are just the beginning in my opinion.
Stay tuned.
The two articles are not entirely in contradiction. The Pensacola one says that the measurements showed that the wall was in fact constructed to spec, i.e., according to the design. The NO article claims that a computer model shows that the design itself was flawed, given the circumstances of this particular location. The Pensacola article in fact mentions the same study:
Louisiana State University computer models showed that even if the pilings had gone to 17.5 feet below sea level as design documents said they should have, they still would have failed because the canal ran deeper and seepage into the ground still could have undermined the flood wall.
Now, the study could be wrong, but the indisputable fact is that the wall failed, and now it appears that it is a fact that the wall was built to spec, so these two facts do tend to indicate that the design was indeed flawed.
Rick,
Don't miss this sob story for a
32BILLION dollar axe sharpening job.
Boycott the Pink Flamingo!
(Just kidding, Pierre!)
. Pajamas: New York Times gets it right.. .
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