[StBernard] engineers

Westley Annis westley at da-parish.com
Fri Apr 13 21:57:50 EDT 2007


I think it is unfair to judge the Corps of Engineers that way. The
engineers at the Corps are almost exclusively civilians. A good number of
those engineers and Corps employees lived in St. Bernard (including me five
years ago). I've worked with them. I've worked with the military ones too.
They are not evil engineers willing to sacrifice you, your property, or your
dog's life. They are good men and women, engineers, doing their best with
what they get. For the most part, they are at the mercy of Congress.
Congress tells them they have to build levees, flood walls and hurricane
protection and tells them they only get 50 cents to do it, when it actually
costs $2 to do an adequate job. What would have been a 25' levee becomes a
13' levee. I worked at the Corps when they were receiving a lot of money to
beef up the New Orleans area's flood protection under the SELA projects,
only to have the budgets drastically cut. Honestly, with the funds they
get, they do a pretty good job.

The MRGO was a congressionally mandated project---NOT one that the New
Orleans Corps of Engineers picked to do and/or lobbied for. You can thank
some politically connected Port of Orleans officials for that. I remember
one senior engineer complaining about having to spend the 10 million or so
on dredging MRGO, BUT it was a mandate. What happened in New Orleans and
St. Bernard had nothing to do with a military war mindset. It was a
combination of a fierce natural occurance and political
influence/corruption. The hurricane was one of the biggest in history.
Pre-Katrina, everyone knew that New Orleans would eventually be hit, and
most likely decimated, by a hurricane of Katrina's magnitude, but in the
end, the corruption is Louisiana's biggest downfall.

Currently, the Corps, civilians and the few military leaders, are trying to
protect the whole New Orleans area, and I guarantee, they have been given 50
cents for a $2 job. They are good men and women who have lost their homes
and property also. They worked 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week for months
after Katrina to repair New Orleans while trying to rebuild their lives too.
They deserve a break from criticism that should be pointed elsewhere.

Michelle Stephenson, Structural Engineer





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