The headline reads – “Corps to change its explanation for East Jeff flooding” but it’s just more lies from the Corps.
An Army Corps of Engineers document this week offered a stunning new explanation, at odds with the conventional wisdom, for the widespread flooding on the east bank of Jefferson Parish during Hurricane Katrina.
A single sentence in the 158-page draft of Individual Environmental Report No. 2 says: “Heavy rains and overtopping of the Lake Pontchartrain levees resulted in flooding in the northernmost sections of the parish, and sections of ‘Old Metairie’ remained flooded for weeks.”
No mention is made of the catastrophic breaches of two New Orleans outfall canals, which independent forensic investigators largely blame for flooding not only the east bank of New Orleans but Old Metairie and Old Jefferson.Nor is there any reference to Lake Pontchartrain surging through East Jefferson’s drainage pumping stations, which were empty because Parish President Aaron Broussard’s administration had evacuated the pump operators.
The Corps, as usual when they are caught, said, “Oops!” and blamed a contractor. I guess they have no responsibility to, you know, oversee they people whom they hire. Oh, wait – they DID review the contractors’ work yet missed the “problem.” Perhaps because the report said what they wanted it to say. Anybody really buying the concept that they’d have fixed this “error” if not forced to fix it?
Corps representatives said Friday that including the statement, written by a contractor and reviewed by one or more corps employees, was an oversight. They said it will be corrected in the final report, which focuses on the environmental effects of improving hurricane protection along the West Return Canal floodwall in Kenner.
They said the revised statement will say that “wave runover at a few points along the lakefront” was “inconsequential compared to other sources.”
So, pretty much the exact opposite of what it originally said. Some “oversight”! But they still say outright that they won’t be taking full responsibility:
It will say flooding in Old Metairie and Old Jefferson “was an extension of the flooding that occurred in Orleans Parish,” although it won’t otherwise specify the source of that water.
The source of that water, I would like to remind you, was the catastrophic engineering failure of the Corps of Engineers. Which they admitted, when forced to because they were well and truly caught, and have been trying to backpedal on ever since.
I am so sick of these people. How hard is it to do your job, do it well, and if you screw up, tell the truth about it? How hard is it to not take bribes, engage in coverups, and not stuff floodwalls with newspaper? For the Corps, seemingly impossible.
