Why Not Trust The Corps? They're "Scrambling"

This July was good to New Orleans. No major storms nearby, and a wealth of visitors packing the streets, clubs, restaurants. The Essence Music Festival, the big cocktail convention (seriously), then an international classical piano competition (ditto), and the SCLC's national convention--compared to last July, when the streets were empty, the resettled part of the city was thriving and virbrant.

August brings a different mood. In Friday's Times-Picayune, we learn that the Army Corps of Engineers is now scrambling--the paper's word--to reinforce a crucial floodwall abutting a neighborhood that suffered disastrous flooding three years ago. Apparently, the Corps--which "concluded" on its own that Congress hadn't authorized it to build a new, stronger, more deeply anchored floodwall before completing so-called 100-year flood protection in 2011--has realized the floodwall is far more vulnerable than it had thought.

More disturbing is the fact that the problem is the elevation figures the Corps used, right after Katrina, in calculating what was needed to strengthen the existing wall. They were "culled" from the original floodwall design plans. It's been well established by the independent forensic investigations into the Katrina disaster that the Corps had a bad habit of using old, outdated elevation figures in the original design of the failed structures. So why "cull" those after the disaster proved them so disastrously wrong?

Combined with the continued reports of water leaking and puddling in backyards on the supposedly protected side of the 17th St. Canal--reports the Corps is still scrambling (my word) to explain--New Orleans is once again forced to ask: is this the best America can do?

Comments

[JAUG]

The levees have been around longer than the present administration. The Army Corps(e) of Engineers have been working over 60 years on the levees. There is plenty of BLAME to go around. The REAL question and what we should really focus on instead of beating the past with a stick, is what do we do to CORRECT the problem.
Do we move every town, person, that lives within a flood plain now before the floods happen again?
Do we say f-off to the government, fire the Corps(e) and institute a new policy of bidding out projects NOT to the lowest dollar value?
There's very little positive thought here, just the blame game over and over...

[luziannagirl]

To those across the country who feel no federal taxpayer money and resources should be used to "bail out" this doomed city other than to help residents relocated to higher ground:

1) Many former NO residents have relocated, but most have not exactly been financially "made whole" by either insurance and/or the federal government in the process. Word gets out about that, you know?

So, a lot of people figure if a move ain't all that, they might as well go back to NO, fix up their places themselves "out their pockets" and with the help of generous charitable groups.

2) Those who advocate no "federal bailout" won't mind if Louisiana uses every resource she possesses to pick herself up by her own bootstraps.

South Louisiana by very conservative estimates, hosts ONE THIRD of the nation's oil and gas flow, probably about half her grain tonnage, and a considerable chunk of bulk chemical tonnage. For decades, we've taken the brunt of costs associated with providing the rest of the nation those essential goods and services----not the least of which is erosion of our protective marshes and wetlands via shipping and pipeline canals.

Y'all up North, up East, and up out West made it crystal clear we need to do this ourselves and quit whinin' for gubment help. We got that message.

So, fellow Americans, say "hello" to even higher prices for fuel, heat, electricity, food, coffee, and goods.

Welcome to Louisiana's Bootstrap Recovery.

[j.gold]

South Louisiana Separatist Join us at . . .

http://www.myspace.com/southlouisianaseparatist

[Bienville]

Don't forget the fishery. A very large fraction of the nation's seafood is pulled from the Gulf of Mexico in the very rare and productive conditions off the River's mouth.

The costs we bear also include air and water pollution, and elevated rates of respiritory and gastro-intestinal cancers.

[LJI]

Hi Mr. Shearer,
I'm writing on behalf of the Louisiana Justice Institute. We are a civil rights legal advocacy organization devoted to fostering social justice campaigns across the state of Louisiana (www.louisianajusticeinstitute.org). We would like to invite you to post on our blog www.justiceroars.org. If you are interested in contributing, please email me at jeff@louis­ianajustic­einstitute­.org. Thank you for your time!
Sincerely,
Jeff Mendelman

[CSE]

I am glad you post these articles, particularly with links to the Times-Picayune, to keep as much of the remainder of America that cares informed.

From your observations, is there significant grass roots interest in oversight from the residents that translates into an influential political force - and - have you any singular notions over and above Naomi Klein's assertions that the rebuilding of NO is disaster capitalism at work?

If I missed an article where you addressed any of the above - apologies.

[Harry Shearer - Huffpost Blogger]

I don't know if Naomi Klein has been in New Orleans over the last three years. If so, she would know the recovery has been/is a profoundly grassroots, ground-up phenomenon. New Orleans citizens are unlike those of most other American cities, connected to their community by a deep and intricate web of relationships. It was, prior to the flooding, the American city with the largest percentage of residents born in the city. Whether there are large-scale plans or not (there aren't), New Orleanians are bonded to their home. The tragedy is the thousands of renters in exile who can't come back (there is evidence they want to) because there has been no program to rebuild/restore rental housing units, and rents have therefore skyrocketed.
As to grassroots invovement in oversight, there has been a major growth in community organizations which so far have succeeded in: reforming the levee-board structure, reforming the tax-assessment structure, ousting the District Attorney. Local goals achieved locally. But overseeing the Corps is a federal matter. The Corps doesn't answer to the people of New Orleans, it answers only to Congress.

[MeanGreenMachine]

Let's cancel their contract.

Poor performance must NOT be rewarded.

[CSE]

It appears that the local "web" of interests is then ready for an all out assault on Congress - armed with the myriad examples of incompetence experienced by that local web at the hands of the ACOE.

The ACOE appears to perform most recommendations, prioritizes improvements and oversees these improvements by private contractors. What if the local level petitioned Congress for more local control and bypassing the inept ACOE with privately hired engineers - a more local free market approach? Not such an ugly phrase anymore is it? That is the alternative.

In this time where many believe more government solutions to our nation's infrastructure is required, New Orleans is a prime example of how government agencies and oversight are not up to the task. This is seemingly an enormous segue into more local control by local people who are certainly much more interested in the timeliness and quality of the outcome. By pointing out that local leadership for improvements would utilize more free market strategies than presently exist - how could a free market GOP oppose such a solution?

NO could guide the tenor of the future of American domestic funding by example and thereby gain more support. I am confident that many admire the tenacity and endurance of NO now - imagine the support you might receive when you point out that the Feds need to get out of the way so the locals can solve their most pressing problems on their own? It may be the key

[PhantomAviator]

..

I think they want that neighborhood to flood again and then "buy out" the homeowners...THEN really re-build the levee wall and sell the land to "good" (business) people.

They gots to get those poor folks outta there SOMEHOW. Apparently they think they have "rights" and stuff.

So it goes

.

[HoppinHill]

Dear Chistyyy

You are perpetuating a myth created by the US Army Corps of Engineers. To protect New Orleans is not rocket science, it's called civil engineering. The Corps of Engineers botched the flood protection and instead of admitting they screwed up, they're calling New Orleans too vulnerable to protect.

The flooding of New Orleans was not a natural disaster, it was a civil engineering failure, the worst in the world since Chernobyl.

[milo9]

Truth.

[nezumi]

I was always baffeled to see so many flood walls instead of dams. And I wondered how that can hold up statically against a body of water buiding up pressure by gravity and by being wind driven in a gale.
I think the flooding of New Orleans was a failure of coastal planning rather than a failure of civil engineering. Even if the civil engineer did their job well, they cannot do anything beyond repairs.

[Bienville]

You're partly correct.
The eastern protected areas, St Bernard and NO East, were flooded by events led by wave action. The levees eroded. But the Corps expected that. They just didn't design for it. With or without coastal planning, the Corps should expect the worst: that coastal planning outside their cotnrol would not mitigate the storm. The built the levees of lightweight, highly erodable materials and didnt' armor them against wasve action.
The other protected area, Lakeview, was not subjected to wave action. Levees are always called on to statically hold a body of water. The floodwalls could have performed better. But the Corps ignored the results of their own test. Thirty years ago, they built a full-scale model of a floodwall exactly like the ones that failed in New Orleans - and it failed just like the ones they built in New Orleans. Lesson learned, you might say, except it wasn't. The floodwalls that failed were built after the test and included none of the results of the test.

[andvoodoo2]

You need to research the system put in place by the Dutch. If they can do it, the U.S. certainly can.

[nbuc7]

You're kidding yourself if you think the failure of the levees is due to anything other than lack of funding. This was not a civil engineering failure - in all likelihood, the levees would have held under the design conditions (a Category 3 storm). When a system is stressed beyond its design capacity, failure is imminent. Thus, exposing a flood protection system that was designed to protect against a Category 3 hurricane to forces from a Category 5 storm leads to multiple points of failure.

The USACE designed a system to protect New Orleans from a Category 5 hurricane. It included more robust flood protection and erosion control to maintain the coastal buffer zone. Why wasn’t this design implemented? No one wanted to pay for it. Neither the city, the state, or the federal government would foot the bill for the complete design. Instead, officials opted for the low budget plant to protect against nothing more than a middle of the road storm. Blame the politicians who decided the city wasn’t worth protecting against a catastrophic storm.

[Harry Shearer - Huffpost Blogger]

If you read the ILIT report or the Team Louisiana report or even the Corps' own limited mea culpa report, you'd know that your assertion is incorrect. Yes, this "system"--the Corps report calls it "a system in name only"--was advertised to protect against a Cat 3, but according to the final report of the National Hurricane Center, Katrina at New Orleans was only a strong Cat 1 or a weak Cat 2. Thus te system failed at stresses below its advertised tolerance. The design and construction mistakes catalogued in those reports occurred years, sometimes decades, before locals declined to build the flood gates the Corps wanted on the outfall canals. But, as for the rest of the system, it was what the Corps wanted, and, in more than 50 locations, it failed.

[Bienville]

I have rarely seen such ignorance. Where do you get your ideas? ...certainly not from making any attempt at being informed. Follow Mr. Shearer's advice: find the ILIT report and read at least the Executive Summary.

There is no Corps plan to protect the City from a Cat 5 storm, and there never has been.
The design criteria they used is generally equivalent to a Cat 3.
The storm that made landfall at Buras, La on August 29, 2005 was a Cat 3.
The forensic analysis reveals that many segments of the New Orleans flood protection "system" failed under conditions approximating Cat 1 or weak Cat 2.
The evidence is irrefutable: the system was underdesigned and underconstructed for the conditions mandated by Congress and for the conditions advertised by the Corps.

I don't know how many hurricanes you've experienced. I've experienced many. A Cat 3 is a powerful storm. There is nothing "middle of the road" about it.

[milo9]

An honest soils report holds the key. The soil engineers cover their ass to the extent that they will advocate only the most reliable fixes.

[Christyyyyy]

I don't know the exact situation with funding levels of USACE-New Orleans, but (thanks to the Iraq occupation) the rest of the Corps Districts in the SE are underfunded.

But I have to question the wisdom of living below sea-level. I understand this is home to many people, but at some point you have to realize it's dangerous. Particularly post-Katrina. I'm not saying it's right or fair, but the Corps, for many reasons, obviously isn't able to protect those residents.

Same goes for the people living on barrier islands, who somehow seem to get their beach renourishment projects to go through a little faster.

[showme54]

Not all of NOLA is below sea-level. A lot of communities damaged/destroyed by Katrina in La/Ms/Al were at or above sea-level. NOLA was primarily damaged by the failure of portions of the federal levee system (by the Corps own report). A census press release states that 'there are 673 coastal counties in the 50 states & DC/grouped into 5 regions: N. Atlantic/S­.Atlantic/­Gulf of Mexico/Great Lakes/Pacific. The number of people who live within 50 miles of coastlines (as of Census 2000) - 137.5 MILLION people or 48.9% of the US total. There are 55.4 MILLION housing units or 47.8% of US total. There are 1.7 MILLION seasonal housing units or 48.1% of US total.' By those numbers alone, one should be able to understand that moving ALL citizens from the threat of storms is impossible.

As to the importance of rebuilding NOLA/SE/SW LA and the coastal wetlands you need to see how vital those areas are to the whole of the nation. Completely ignoring the fact that to aid fellow American citizens and their communities should be the 'right thing to do' in a civilized society. You only need to remember the interruption in energy/tra­de/industr­y when NOLA and the surrounding areas were completely shut down from Katrina and 3 weeks later when Rita hit the sw La/Tx coast.

[HoppinHill]

Remember the flooding of the Midwest last month? It was all due to civil engineering (levee) failure and those towns were all between 400 and 1100 feet above sea leve.

Also, a whopping 43% of the American people live in areas protected by levees.
http://www.hazardscaucus.org/briefings/levees_briefing0608.html

[GeorgeKaplan]

Who will pay for people to relocate? How will the relocated find jobs and homes? Name one city in America that has been depopulated? This would cost more than it would to fix a very fixable problem! We know what the problem is we know how to fix it -- not hard. Much cheaper than relocating people and jobs to other regions of the country. If we (The UNITED States of America) can spend 648 billion to kill people in foreign lands we can spend some money to protect the people of a an AMERICAN city by funding costal restoration and a levee SYSTEM that will work. To lose New Orleans because of a few billion dollars is the crime of the century.

We will leave New Orleans when California is depopulated because of earthquakes, mudslides and wildfires.

[rich3324]

"Name one city in America that has been depopulated?"

Detroit.

[luziannagirl]

Christyyyy

Actually, you raise an important point. People who populate places vulnerable to flooding, for whatever reasons, do so in defiance of natural forces, whether they know it on a day to day basis or not.

Therefore, it behooves the GOVERNMENTS that make structures allowing them to live in these areas, and make POLICY actually encouraging them to live in these areas, and allowing/enabling investors and corporations to make money off people living in these areas, to then protect citizens who, understandably , then choose to live in these areas!

You know, the same can be said for people who choose to live and work hundreds of feet in the sky. After some spectacularly horrible fires and particularly after 9-11, I personally question the wisdom of continuing to build (and enable the building via federal policy) tall buildings.

I think all big cities should look at relocating to much safer underground structures and caves.

[Bienville]

This is ridiculous. The Corps built and maintains the Mississippi River levees that protect New Orleans. You heard about the flooding in the Midwest earlier this year, but did you hear about a threat to New Orleans? No. That's because those levees work. They are armored, they are made of the right materials, and they are supplemented by spillways. As a civil engineering achievement, surely, the river control system of South Louisiana is among the man-made wonders of the modern world.
The Lake and Gulf levees are an entirely different story. They are poorly designed and poorly made. Read the ILIT report. The sheetpiles weren't deep enough, the levees were unarmored despite expectation of wave action, they were made of sand and organic materials and they weren't high enough. Even the repairs show little of the "lessons learned" that should follow every failure. I could write thousands of words about this. 250 is not nearly enough. Google "ILIT." Read the report.

[Chbronze]

I can't believe the government would do less than a stellar job with anything. But wait lets give them more to do,lets give them our heathcare to take care of. They couldn't mess that up could they. Or do they jut perform better under a Democratic administation. God knows the Corps of Engineers didn't.

[RightWingMarine]

Hey, the same people who deliver my mail can do just as good a job running my health care. I don't believe I care for your tone.

[andvoodoo2]

I was staying on the North Shore of Lake Ponchatrain when Katrina hit. We didn't have mail service or an operating Post Office for more than a month. And, we had no flooding.
The South Shore waited even longer for mail service.

So much for your Postal Service.

[Bienville]

The Postal Service delivers most mail to virtually every street address in the United States in only 3 or 4 days time (usually less) for only 41 cents per letter. That is really quite an acheivement.
It takes a private, for-profit enterprise more than 20 times as much money. They also offer a next-day guarantee for the price, but only offer to refund the delivery fee if they fail to perform.
I have little criticism for the Postal Service.

[jimdog1954]

It's NOT the best America can do. But it's all the Repugs are willing to do because they don't believe in government. They purposely prove their point that government is corrupt and incompetent. But we can do something about that in November. Hang in there, New Orleans.

[adzeman]

Good Post Harry. Growing up in south Florida I had more than my fill of Army Corps "help". In their effort to improve on waterways that were fine they straightened them, organized them, and fixed them until the eco-system was destroyed.. They broke through the bedrock and let the aquifer disappear, and was replaced with saltwater. Flora and fauna both objected to the "new taste" by dying.
Good luck with those fellas, they'll want to help poor New Orleans into oblivion

[backhandpath]

Damn! I Hear You!
They did the Exact same thing where I grew up in Mississippi: straightening and dredging even our bayous until the flooding was so bad they then proposed to build the largest pump ever built at Vickburg, to pump it all back into the MS River. Fortunately that one 35 year lobbying ass'fork effort finally died this year. They almost did it though!
Are we helpless against these bastads?

I watched the water table drop over 100 feet in under 20 years because of their malfeasances. Now all the creeks are brown and erosion rampant. Of course this has opened up a lot more farmland for ADM Corn for Ethanol. Go figure.

Editilla~New Orleans Ladder

[andvoodoo2]

The ACOE, like every other government agency, has to make sure they remain "relevant". They screw up our waterways to ensure that years down the road, they have new work to do fixing the problems they created.

[sowhatdemos]

I think you DID figure it out!
Gos forbid anything positive for the environment get in the way of Corporate GREED!!!

[PoliticalCrucible]

Last week I was near a giant bust of FDR. The sculpture overlooks the Grand Coulee Dam. I saw a marvelous laser light show at dusk beamed on the majestic Grand Coulee. What a sight! Giant spawning salmon, hundreds of feet high, danced across its expanse. I, for the life of me, don't get it. Several years have passed, and we can't build a secure and reinforced a floodwall abutting a neighborhood in New Orleans. We the hell happened to this country for crissakes?

[adzeman]

Iraq, George Bush, Tom DeLay, Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist.

[heal57]

You forgot Dick Cheney.

[Stuart]

Political Crucible raises an important point.

Around the world, dams are trusted to hold back water many times the height of a storm surge, and to do it continuously for decades. An eighteen foot head of water creates a pressure of about 8 psi at the levee's base. A dam with a 500 foot high lake behind it must withstand pressures over 200 psi, at the base.

Levees cover longer linear distances, but most of the levees in New Orleans worked as designed during the storm surge that lasted a matter of hours. The failures happened along a few thousand feet of flood barrier in a system 350 miles long.

Had the Corps done their legally mandated job and secured those weak spots, the storm surge would have left nothing more than a few wet ankles around town.

[buggedabouttheus]

Soon to be three years into being forced to flee not because of the hurricane (that had passed and yes we had some HURRICANE damage) but the worst thing was the soaking of the city. Now that most of my family members are back into their houses once again the arrogant US Army Corps of Engineers have failed to simply do their d*mn jobs. How hard is it to raise the level of the levees and strengthen them until a new better system is in place? And for those heartless enough to say get over it, you think gas is expensive now? Let another light hurricane hit the area where major oil refineries, natural gas, and shipping port exist and then call folks whiners.

My heart is still broken over the forced move for families like mine that have been in Louisiana and Mississippi since 1790. What is needed is for the US Army Corps of Engineers to be removed and another successful group of engineers put incharge of a temporary and permanent levee system in New Orleans...the Dutch!

[backhandpath]

YES!!!

[markie1111]

get a grip. the parts of new orleans that were devasted were destined to be. with rising sea levels, indiscriminate pipeline placement and corps' channelization, what can one expect???. oh, that right!! the mississippi delta didn't sink and there are peeps that believe you can save a sinking ship.

[MeanGreenMachine]

Talk to the Dutch. One third of their ENTIRE COUNTRY is below sea level, yet they have NONE of the problems New Orleans does.

Why do we as a nation continue to reward mediocrity and failure?

[heal57]

Isn't it funny after Katrina that the casinos on the water were up and running quicker than you can say 'the fed's scr**ed New Orleans'

[JimboSlice]

Out of curiosity why did the city flood? Was it because of the hurricane or did the water just magically drop from the sky?

I'm not heartless enough to say get over it, I am however heartless enough to say don't look a gift horse in the mouth. If you don't want the Crops help fine, pay for it yourself.

[GeorgeKaplan]

The city of New Orleans flooded because the levees where not designed and built properly by the US corp of engineers. There is no way around that fact... none at all. This is a Federal agency and they were negligent in there duties. No one is saying they are BAD people, but their errors are why New Orleans flooded... no one else... at all.... not the Mayor not the Governor. Just the good old US Army Corp of Engineers.

[Casanavelaw]

Did you read the post that you replied to? Hurricane Katrina had passed. The Corps built canals and levees. Those bits of construction failed.

In dredging for shipping (before Katrina, New Orleans was the highest tonnage port in the U.S.) and petroleum exploration we killed the wetlands below New Orleans. These were the best defense from the storm surge that fractured the levees.

In the 1950s & 60s we built the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) so the big shipping companies would have less reason to pay river pilots. The locals opposed this bit of "progress" and were ridiculed by those who "knew better". MRGO became a hurricane superhighway in 2005.

It wasn't the hurricane, it was the levees.

[showme54]

A hurricane has 74+mph winds/storm surge/torrential rain for about 2-6 hrs as the storm moves ashore/a short period of calm as the center passes over/then another several hours of the same as the back half of the storm passes. Katrina a storm with Cat 3-4 (depending on which expert you read) hurricane winds stretching 70+ miles out from the center with lesser hurricane strength windspeeds spreading out for 100+ miles further out-the most severe wind strength & water surge on the east side of the storm near the center-lesser on the west side & the outermost reaches of the storm circle. The center of this storm made landfall in southeast Louisiana first -curved east (placing NOLA just barely west of the strongest part of the storm) traveled through the La/Ms state line before making the second 'eye' landfall on the coast of Ms-outerwinds affecting the Al/Fl coastline-Katrina was reportedly over 300 miles wide.

According to reports, the AOCE federal built/ maintained levee system for NOLA area was SUPPOSED to withstand a Cat 3 Hurricane DIRECT hit-which didn't happen. According to all I have read the Corps have admitted that the causes that led to the failures in the portions of the federal levee floodwall protection walls were due to the improper constructi­on/imprope­r maintenance of these portions of these structures. Had the structures not failed-obviously NOLA & surrounding communities would not have had catastrophic flooding.

[HoppinHill]

It's the law. The people of New Orleans were ordered to receive their flood protection from the federal government after Hurricane Betsy.

In 1965, Congress, by federal mandate, removed responsibility for building levees from the local levee boards and GAVE IT to the US Army Corps of Engineers.

[Bienville]

The City flooded because the levees failed. They failed at a level of stress that was far below what Congress mandated and below what the Corps' own design called for.
Every engineering work has a design event, or, the event that will cause the work to fail. The Corps designed levees around New Orleans for an event that roughly correspnds to a Category 3 hurricane; Congress mandated protection from storms that were typical of the region, which probably exceeds Cat 3. Most of the forensic data suggests that many critical failures occurred in conditions that never exceeded a strong Cat 1 or weak Cat 2.
I would certainly look a gift horse in the mouth; before I expected that horse to save my life one day, I'd like to know in what shape that horse is. Anyone would be foolish to do otherwise. Shame on us.
The locals do pay: 30%. You pay the other 70%. I would expect you'd be more interested in how well your 70% is spent.

[homesteader]

Does it go without saying that we need a port somewhere near the end of the Mississippi?

[backhandpath]

Without that port at the end of the river Iowa would have no reason to be the 2nd largest recipient of Agriculture Subsidies in the Nation.
Illinois, Ohio, Kansas, Wisconsin, Indiana, none of these states, would have developed to this point of flooding themselves with Corps Bad Engineerin­g--without that port at the end of the River.

Without the Louisiana petrol-chemical industry we would have lost WW2.
That Port's importance is why we initially built the MRGO: Mississippi Gulf River Outlet,--to protect US shipping from German U-Boats.
However over the decades the Corps kept dredging and enlarging this MRGO and thus definitively causing the flooding of New Orleans. They were told over and over and over not to widen it and they did for Commercial Interests--not Flood Control.
This is why Judge Duvall, who had to, very reluctantly, throw out their Flood Protection Liability Suit, gleefully allowed the current Suit to proceed. The Corps will hang over MRGO and the Industrial Canal--Navigation Structures.

EVERTHING THAT MATTERS passes out of or through the State of Louisiana and that Port at the end of the River.
And We Know It!
Sinn Féin
Editilla~New Orleans Ladder
noladder dot blogspot dot com

[backhandpath]

Hey Harry, thanks again for staying on top of the Levees! I stuck my arms into the Leak at that 17th Street Canal Levee Breech "Repair" Leak---up to my elbows in flowing water. Smelled the brackish lake water, felt it flowing over my forearms towards the Lakeview neighborhood Again. Scares me To Death!
This entire Lack of Funding Narrative is an absolute Red Herring. Congress just handed the Corps $300M on top of all the money they get for Iraq.
But what happened to the $30,250,000 we have already paid ASCE/Corps for their still-unborn, unreleased, undead, IPET report? I'll tell you. ASCE plans to form a PAC so as to Lobby Congress on behalf of their biggest employer: The Exquixotic Corps! Get outta heah! Yeah, it is true:
http://www.lasce.org/home.aspx#asce501

Editilla~New Orleans Ladder
noladder dot blogspot dot com