What id like to see is someone (with credentials) explain this like Tim did.

Until then, I wont buy into it. To me its possible that the proper backing may make a difference.
If there is significant pressure on that joint, and the backing is newpaper instead of the rope-like material he speaks of, then might it give way ?
We still dont know for sure from a valid source…

Brad
http://batcave911.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/911review/

Duct tape, WD40 and bailing wire and you have Bubba’s essentials to fix almost anything in the world. You can bet that they can use newspaper too – just don’t need to carry it around with you – you can get it on the job – the inspector likes crossword puzzles and he’s always got one.

Git – R – Dunn

Shall I waste my time trying to explain this to you? Here’s the facts. There are expansion joints in these concrete walls. What keeps water from running through the joints is a thick slab of rubber called a waterstop. It is cast into the concrete in the middle of the joint. Because it’s rubber, the concrete can expand and contract freely and because of the rubber waterstop the water will not flow through.

But that’s not the end of it. The joint has to be sealed. This is required because if you don’t seal it it will fill with dirt and sand and soon that expansion joint won’t work. FYI, sand is quartz and does not compress much so if the joint fills with sand you’ve got no joint.

Are you with me so far? Okay, so how do you seal the joint to keep the trash out. You don’t want to fill the entire joint with liquid sealant–that’s a mess. So the sealant is only applied at the surface. How do you get the sealant to stay just at the surface? The typical method is to use a compressible joint material that comes in sheets to fill most of the joint and then you put the joint sealant on the surface. Alternatively, you could use something called a backer rod, which is again a compressible material that looks like a rope that you shove into the joint for an inch or so and then apply the sealant.

So let’s recap: Most important: the waterstop. Next important is the sealant to keep the joint functioning. What about the stuff you put into the joint? Doesn’t really matter. It just needs to hold the sealant in place until it hardens. This ain’t rocket science. The exact same methods are used to seal joints in concrete highways and bridges.

So now you have a location where newspaper was used in place of a backer rod. Does that make the wall ineffective. No. Does that mean water will come squirting through? No. You never see the waterstop in the news story because it’s sealed deep inside the joint and embedded in the concrete. What you see is the layer of sealant that was placed to keep dirt out and the doofus pulling the sealant loose so he can expose the backer material–the newspaper.

But wait! What about that evil contractor? How can he get away with furnishing newspaper when the US Government paid him to use high quality backer material? The answer is simple–Channel 4 got the story wrong. Those walls existed before Katrina. Post-K the work included maintenance on the joints and installing some paving around the walls. You know Post-K the Corps is building a lot of erosion protection around transition points and on the protected side of walls to defend from overtopping. Why are they doing that? Because according to you, the entire engineering profession is vile and disgusting and you can’t trust them.

Anyway, the joint repair was accomplished with government labor and the paving was done by the company Lee Zurik accuses of malfeasance and fraud. So the specification they showed on TV was not even the floodwall spec, it was the sloped paving spec! Way to go, Lee.

Anyway, that’s the story. Typical main stream media, when you watch the news clip, notice they spend all their time with the local politician and an engineer who they blindsided with bad information, and less than 15 seconds with the person most knowlegeable about the project. We all should know that something is wrong when the news reporter does all the talking and only allows the key person of the story a 4-second sound byte. And you should know better, too, Alan.

Peace,

Tim

The comparison to the 80’s automakers is apt. It was painful to watch them churn out junk and constantly talk about changing their corporate cultures. Nothing change and their market share evaporated, along with America’s manufacturing base.

It’s hard to listen to the Army Corps when they come at us as continuous public relations exercise. We really need a more invasive media. I’m glad that Lee Zurik did this report.

Alan

http://friction.tv/ftv_debate.php?debate_id=2779

We also filmed work on the Lower 9th Ward Village Community Center which can be viewed here:
http://friction.tv/ftv_debate.php?debate_id=2780

Corps of Engineers addressing repairs made during rapid-response phase

If you remember the American cars of the 1980’s, you know what we are getting. The contractors are getting paid, the inspectors are reading the paper, taking naps, eating well and surfing porn while the workers put stuff together. Assembly details of floodwalls are missed and the processes of building levees are cut short because the “specifications” require too many hours to do what the contractor wants to do to complete the project and still “make money”.

Nothing is completely built to spec and the Corps and the ASCE knows it. Because the ASCE and the civil engineering profession are “Corps Whores” they will put you out of business if you dare to embarrass the Bubbas in the “construction division”.

There were over 50 failures of these “things” due to mostly construction problems but since they were covered up so quickly by the response, we will only know about the other problems when they fail. We are doomed if we really trust what was recently constructed in this “triage mode”.