Eruption of Tainted Water Could Innundate Leadville, Colorado
Failures
Floods undermine pile foundations of building in Newcastle, UK
Significant flooding in the the UK towards the end of September caused the collapse of a culvert on private property that sent a torrent of water towards the residential structure pictured here. The flood caused […]
Project Related
The Historic Role of Geotextiles in the Dutch Delta Works and the Geosynthetics Field
TenCate geosynthetics was a textile technology company in 1953 when disastrous flooding struck the Netherlands. The company came up with some of the first applications of geosynthetics that allowed the creation of the Oostershelde Flood […]
Geologic Hazards
New Orleans Repeats Deadly Levee Blunders
That is the title of a Seattle Post-Intelligencer article on post-Katrina levee issues in New Orleans (by way of ASCE Smart Brief). I think the article is somewhat sensationalized, but they do cite some interesting parallels between the levee reconstruction efforts made after Katrina and the levee construction/reconstruction that occurred after Hurricane Betsy in 1965.
The article also discusses a recent US Army audit with some disturbing although not unexpected findings:
An initial September 2010 target to complete the $14.8 billion in post-Katrina work has slipped to mid-2011. Then last September, an Army audit found 84 percent of work behind schedule because of engineering complexities, environmental provisos and real estate transactions. The report added that costs would likely soar.
A more recent analysis shows the start of 84 of 156 projects was delayed – 15 of them by six months or more. Meanwhile, a critical analysis of what it would take to build even stronger protection – 500-year-type levees – was supposed to be done last December but remains unfinished.