Not a political post so forgive me for going off topic for a sec.
I think the experts in sinners quote are spot on.
Quote:
Suhayda said that's possible. But another possibility is that, during the half-day floodwaters built up in Lake Pontchartrain and the canal, water may have percolated through the earthen part of the berm, undermining it.
That effect, combined with the cumulative pressure over time, may have caused a breakthrough.
"There's no question that those kind of conditions might have just reached the limit of what that particular levee could handle," said James "Bob" Bailey, a flood and wind hazard risk expert with ABS consulting in Houston.
It's also possible the levee was older and had degraded as all earthen and concrete structures do, he said.
|
In Dutch it is called a Kwel there is no English word for it but it is best translated as spring, well, or fountain if you will. It happens here every other fall/autumn and spring or so.
The water pressure on the river, lake or sea side of the levee will force water straight through it and the weight of the water on the “wet” side will push ground water up on the dry side, effectively weaken the levee. Not only the levee itself but also the ground it is build on.
Considering that New Orleans is below sea level ground water levels will be near to the surface so it doesn’t take all that much pressure (relatively speaking) before it will show up behind the levee.
Even if you build levees that are three miles high it will not protect you. Pumps are only effective over x distance and x height, even if you are able to build pumps large enough to handle such an amount of water where are you going to pump all that excess water too? Back into the lake, river or sea won’t do you any good for it won’t reduce the pressure for very obvious reasons. And pumping it all the way to Nevada where it might do some good is next to impossible.
We Dutchies know by now that if water wants to come in, it will, no matter how hard you try to keep it out. The only thing I can think of that might come close to a solution is that the state designate certain areas of (farm) land that can be flooded on purpose by breaking the levees in certain places to reduce the stress on them down stream and in densely populated areas. When it happens the farmers have to be compensated for the loss of his crops but I guess it will be a hell of a lot cheaper than rebuilding half a city.
attached image: small Kwel, the levee looks intact but water is clearly shown on the “dry” side of it. It is a prelude to a breakthrough