Redstate

They did keep the West Virginia coal miners alive (as far we knew) for an extra few hours.

between a breach and an overtopping-I know I didn't until just now.

But they certainly could have been quicker to clarify the story-or better yet maybe they should have actually asked somebody in the know what the difference was.

Not only is the media biased it is also lazy-not sure which is worse, but having both doesn't help much.

Thank God for the blogsphere.

It's still amazing to me how that city spent 300 years or so below sea level knowing that one day the "big one" would hit, and yet the only politician to blame is the one who had less than a week's warning.

This administration had better hope that the big LA earthquake everyone knows is coming doesn't happen before the next election.  Otherwise they'll be renaming the St. Andreas fault "Bush's Fault".

However, it should be noted that Brown did make specific references to massive flooding, especially regarding the superdome, which was below sea level.

Yes the word breach was never used, but it could be inferred, and no one ever asked the question, if the levees could top, could they also breach.

This is not to attack the president, but it just seems that his advisors werent doing their jobs.

of the people on the ground in LA-and we haven't seen any video from them as of yet, and I hardly expect Bush or WH advisors to be experts on flooding and flood walls.

Because of these "highly-trained professional" reporters, I went to bed happy that night--happy that all but one of the miners lived. In the morning, I heard the "slight correction."

to say, after the post-disaster analysis, that overtopping should have inferred the potential breaching in the minds of the people in these meetings. Just because the levees could overtop does not mean they can breech.

The area of the breaching was in the flood walls, along the canals for example. The Pontchartrain levees probably did overtop but they did not breech. The flood walls were exposed to potential breaching due to scouring from the water flow over the top, and even then only under a limited set of circumstances.

I'd venture that no one in those meetings understood all the dynamics involved in the flood walls. These are extremely complex, esoteric subjects. The issue of scouring was exposed in the extensive LSU post-disaster analysis so saying they should have known in the pre-storm briefings is pure unadulterated Monday morning quarterbacking.

Anybody that's right on the US Atlantic or US Pacific Coast can suffer from a large ocean earthquake, as we all found out recently.

between a breach and overtopping.

So what, all they had to do was use the same words that were used in the videos/transcripts. The word breach did not appear in the videos/transcripts so they had to chose to use that word in place of the word that was used.

The are supposed to be journalists, reporters, just report the d*mn story the way it happened. What's wrong with that?

As I recall, there was a lot of talk about whether the surge was going to be 12.5 ft, or 10 ft, or 8.5 ft. That was important because, the levees are built to a certain height. When the levees breach, and fall over, the difference between a 10 ft. and a 12.5 ft. surge is not a big deal. Is it? If they thought a breach was going to happen, they wouldn't have wasted their time talking about the incremental differences in water levels.

because the storm surge is not necessarily going to breach the levees --- and it didn't. If the surge is high enough it will overtop the levee and flood the area behind the levee but that is not in and of itself enough to wash out the levee and create an opening.

Part of the problem is that everyone is talking about these generic "levees" when in fact there are two significantly different structures involved. I'm confident that in the briefings and video conferences everyone was talking about levees as a generic term without differentiating between the two types.

The AP in the clarification Powerline just posted is also serious misleading, just less misleading than before.  They are replacing the verb "breach" with the verb "overrun", which means:

1 a (1) : to defeat utterly and occupy the positions of : OVERWHELM, OVERPOWER, CRUSH <one company of the 25th Division was overrun -- Time> (2) : to invade and occupy or ravage <among the barbarous nations who overran the western provinces of the Roman Empire -- Adam Smith> <had their own way in overrunning the seaboard -- Paul Blanshard> b obsolete : to run over destructively or harmfully : run down c : to spread or swarm over

The word used in all of the briefings was "overtop" or "top" as a diminutive form thereof.  Overtop means.

1 : to rise above the top of : exceed in height : tower above <the unusual height of the surge ... overtopped the wall -- J.A.Steers>

Definitions are Merriam Webster Unabridged.  

They are still using misleading language and really should be renamed, Agitprop Pravda.

The slimebucket MSM attacks first and loudly, retracting in quiet only later.

I am about done with all MSM outlets, from local kitty litter box liner to national 'paper of record' kitty box liner.

I'm surprised and disappointed that this minor editing error has occurred. The words are so easy to confuse. </sarc<p&gt
Of course they could have used the actual words from the actual videos/transcripts in the original story, which would have avoided the need for an erroneous correction to begin with.

But what do I know? Obviously if I knew anything, and had no scruples, I'd be a "reporter" or an editor for AP. silly me.

I semi-consider going back into journalism, where I spent my first decade out of school as a copy and editorial page editor.

I don't know why.

If your newspaper carried the original AP story, and you didn't see the correction, call -- don't write, don't email -- your newspaper's executive editor or ombudsman and ask why not. More than that, demand that the "error" be addressed where the original story ran: on Page 1A.

I'm furious. You've got to be an idiot not to know the difference between a breach and overtopping. You've also got to be an idiot to keep repeating that the levees weren't meant to "withstand" anything greater than a Cat 3 hurricane. The just aren't tall enough for a Cat 4 or 5 surge not to come over the top.

You've got to be an idiot -- or you've got to be a journalist. And in the end, what's the difference?

why you think about going back, or you don't know why you spent 10 years at it :-)

in the immortal words of Mark Twain "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But I repeat myself."

My own mother-in-law anticipated both topping and breaching of the levees.  Regardless of which definition you use, it was a stupid thing for him to say.  

Hmm, category 5 hurricane pointed at N.O - does anyone anticipate that the levees built for only cat. 3 storms could get destroyed and/or topped with a surge?  This is a no-brainer.  

Nice. So when the lie that "Bush Knew!" is exposed, you shift quickly to "Bush Should Have Known." Because why heck, everyone who is anyone should have known.

But if you refer to the actual records of the event, you find that flood control is a rather difficult subject to condense into a single talking point. We have levees and floodwalls, and we have a river, a lake, and several canals, and all of them are a little different.

The possibility of massive flooding of New Orleans took absolutely nobody by surprise. This is why the briefings were held, and why the Corps of Engineers has been working for a hundred years on the problem, and why New Orleans reputedly stocks body bags by the tens of thousands.

The breaches in the floodwalls caused delayed and persistent flooding that was very difficult to correct. This was not anticipated, which was a mistake, but an honest one, as nearly as I can tell.

On the other hand, the utter lack of organized state and local response to the hurricane, starting with hopelessly late evacuation warnings and continuing through the complete abdication of the responsibility for maintaining order in a crisis, really does come as no particular surprise  to anyone who knows very much about the history of New Orleans.

Every year there are Cat 4 or 5 storms "pointed" at New Orleans. Given that Katrina made landfall as a Category 3 storm and the levees were designed for Category 3 storms the "no brainer" is apparently yours.

But I tire of this mindless buffoonery of BlameBush for everything from crop failure to boils on your butt. Go entertain someone else with it.

I just heard the Democratic Party response to the weekly WH radio address, presented by some CA dingaling running for Congress.  They're still running with the Bush Knew About Katrina theme.

Writing unsigned editorials every day, a couple of signed columns a week, for the entire duration of the Carter and Reagan presidencies. At the time, for a right-winger, it just didn't get any better than that.

knowing that you live 14 feet below mean sea level and that your levees are designed to deal with a cat 3 storm and that a cat 5 storm is headed your way, what do you suppose is the correct response? Cross your fingers? Because thats about what the local authorities did.

Why is it that people are having such a hard time understanding that the Mayor was elected by the people to manage services for them and ensure that everything possible is done to keep them safe? It is the Mayor's job to manage the situation, not the President.

I know you guys were watching the news the day before.  Nagin wasn't so eloquent as to use the word "breach", He used the word "topple".  

They should have been watching CNN...

"Nagin warned that Katrina's expected storm surge -- which could top 28 feet -- would likely topple those levies."  August 28, 2005 --- (The Day Before)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/28/katrina.neworleans/

"So, we're looking at a bowl full of highly contaminated water with contaminated air flowing around and, literally, very few places for anybody to go where they'll be safe." August 29, 2005 11:54 a.m. EDT --- (The Morning Of)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/28/katrina.doomsday/

Although, I don't really think it matters how or why the levies broke when they expected major flooding anyways.  It's kind of like complaining that you can't find the remote after your house burns down.

I just spoke tonight with a Michigan man who is down in  NOLA helping to rebuild. As his group wonked to strip a home down, to powerwash it with bleach, before rebuilding it, another man from next door came by to talk.

The man complained that nobody had even come by HIS house to remove the ruined furnishings and belongings, much less begin rebuilding his home.

My friend asked him why HE didn't haul his ruined possessions out himself.

The govenment is supposed to do it was the reply!

Hmmm, I wonder if that is in any way the problem?

The govenment is supposed to take care of it!

(Yes I do know I misspelled government!)

I talked with someone with a degree in civil engineering. Basically, if you have earthen dams, it is more or less assumed that overtopping will effectively mean a breach, because any significant overtopping will erode the base of the dam and cause a failure in almost all cases.

For NO-style levees, the terms are basically interchangeable.

it's hard to argue with a real civil engineer, but in all the interviews I've seen of LSU and Corps engineers no one has said that overtopping the levees would result in a breach as a given. And these guys have been building levees along the Mississippi for a long time; one would think if they saw this as a problem they'd have said something like 'and the levees are basically useless in a storm' or something rather than perpetuating the idea that there is some form of protection.

There have been a number of documentaries on the 'box' with interviews of LSU and Corps folks. The LSU types have drawn attention to the scouring effect of overtopping the walls but again didn't seem to be too concerned about an essentially automatic overtopping/breeching problem with the levees as a given.

And the system was designed for a Cat 3 storm. I can't see how they could say that it would protect the city if any overtopping would simply wash it out. Add to this that it is known that there was overtopping in many areas that did not breach.

I think maybe the difference is attributable to wave-driven overtopping versus full flood overtopping. The former is going to be intermittant and randomly distributed along the levee, where the latter is going to be a continuous torrent or water concentrated in the lowest areas of the levee. I can see how that could washout the backside of the levee.

Just my observations.