Hey

This is from a post from a forum my brother goes too that we both made as a collaboration, although I'd say he put a little more work into it.

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I just got off the phone with my aunt and uncle who live in Burlington, Iowa. They live(d) on second street and my uncle operates a storage-type warehouse on third where they have pumps currently pumping water out of the basement just as fast as it's coming in.

As you may be aware, there was a levee breech, almost literally across the river from where he is. I was talking to him and I brought that up.

He said it was the strangest and in his words, "randomest, coincidental" levee break to occur. It's one thing when you have a levee break in New Orleans because the waters flooding all over it, it's in a state of disrepair, etc., but this levee...

This levee was only 15 years old (put in after the '93 flooding) and totally above the waterline, including the extra "sandbags" they put there.

I use the quotes, however, for a reason. There is an airport just south of burlington (not sure if it's still in the city itself, but its near enough) that had sorta become a major command post and supply drop off area for everything that's needed to help keep water out, and if it breaks, seeing how Burlington is a small but urban settlement right next to the river. My uncle was down at the airport to get supplies back his way for himself and others (they already had a lack of preparedness because most of the town was at the carnival on friday/saturday rather then preparing like he was) and he noticed a lot of strange things.

First he, he mentioned how for the first time in his life, he was told to stay away from sand bags (but not the "same" sandbags 20 feet away) and heard someone say to "handle those bags with care"...

Secondly, he mentioned how two helicopters over the past day seemed to have been running a route between their and just across the river (within 5 miles of the airport), especially last night...there is farm land across the river and a highway.

Lastly, he mentioned how there was a distinct rumbling, then 5 minutes later, the water started to recede...which he thought was strange as hell given the fact it was supposed to crest tonight. Then an hour later he heard that a levee broke.

I can tell you one thing, that levee breach saved my Uncle's business (at least for the time being, as well as giving him time to where he can set more pumps up and more supplies), as well as countless others...but given that the National Guard was on full alert in the area (full alert during a #ing flood?) and both the helicopters have NOT been seen since the levee break...


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The thing I have to ask though, is why blow it? Maybe someone powerful had something at stake on the Mississippi, or very possibly this was benign in nature in order for Burlington to not flood...but if it was benign, why not say it?

In my opinion, it's because they don't want to give any credance to the theories you guys have formulated about New Orleans Levees (most obvious connection), World Trade Center Seven...or the World Trade Centers. In my opinion, the WTC were not demolished by 'our' hands, but Seven is very possible, and hell, if they can do that, it certainly means we could have done the World Trade Centers (which is why the government wouldn't want to give any ammo to this belief)

Or... it could be that a 15y/o levee broke under an extreme pressure.... old/bad infrastructure.. tons of water... towns built on a flood plain..

I don't see much of a conspiracy there to tell ya the truth.

your uncle got lucky while someone else got crapped on...

it's life.

Lets go ahead and get it started.

George Bush had it blown up, the same as in New Orleans. He was flying in today as a photo op, might as blow up some more levees, as if there isn't enough flooding.

Originally posted by hinky
Lets go ahead and get it started.

George Bush had it blown up, the same as in New Orleans. He was flying in today as a photo op, might as blow up some more levees, as if there isn't enough flooding

Blow em up George Jesus will save the worthy ones

Originally posted by pynner
Or... it could be that a 15y/o levee broke under an extreme pressure.... old/bad infrastructure.. tons of water... towns built on a flood plain..

I don't see much of a conspiracy there to tell ya the truth.

your uncle got lucky while someone else got crapped on...

it's life.

Right, and rational people won't see one most of the time. But then, if you can turn it into a conspiracy by a limited number of evil-doers, you can turn it into something you have a snowball's chance in hell of "finding out" and fighting.

Random physical occurences that humanity will always be at the mercy of - no, that's not acceptable...so the twisting pipe-dream conspiracy is born to replace it.

Allow me to tear down the fifth wall of engineering, if I may. I could be hunted down and ordered killed by our secret Civil Engineer Society just for hinting at this, let alone revealing it in full to the public, but I'm willing to take the risk because it is information that I consider vital to humanity. Ready for this? OK, here goes...

We engineers cannot design something that is 100% failproof when faced with a true disaster scenario in any economically feasible manner.

Whew! It feels good to share that information. It can't be done. Basically you pick a factor of safety of your design based on probabillity and with economics in mind. We could design a levee that could withstand anything short of a nuclear or asteroid hit. Unfortunately that one levee would use so much materials and be so prohibitively expensive it wouldn't be in any way justifiable to design it that way. And, in fact, you reach a point where an overdesign of a safety structure can actually make it more likely to fail in a lesser event. Seriously, if you've got a dirt berm levee that is too thick, the clay core can either suck up too much water from the footing, liquify, and leave you with a hollow mound of dirt or it can do the opposite, dry out, loose it's elastic strength, and crumble apart like a dirt clod when it is faced with an event.

Modern man has an undying need to believe that there must have been something someone could have done to prevent any disaster. Someone must be blamed, some corner must have been cut, some event must have been shortsightedly ignored. Immediately following Katrina the media demonstrated this by basically saying the levees failed thanks to faulty engineering. The same will probably happen in the midwest. The simple truth is water is a destructive force that is at all times attempting to equalize its surroundings. You don't just "stop" flood water, you design something to hopefully handle a 50, 100, or 500 year event and then you keep your fingers crossed that you don't get an event of greater magnitude than the event you design for. I've seen this flood called much, much worse than a 500 year event. I've never seen any design standard ever call for a design more conservative than a 500 year event, however.