Sunday, June 10, 2007
Army Corps of Engineers Hiding Truth About FUBAR New Orleans Pumps...
Yeah, the ones that Jeb!'s buddies supplied. They were messed-up to begin with, and are still dysfunctional. The Corps embargoed the report while the National Media was in NOLA for the start of the Hurricane season, and are still holding back the truth.
via Scout Prime at First Draft
May 11: The report itself was done
May 25: The national media started arriving in New Orleans to start putting together stories for the start of hurricane season.
May 29-31: General Van Antwerp visited New Orleans and had a big, whoop-te-doo, "We're going to tell the truth, no matter what" press conference at the 17th Street floodgates on May 31. Every news organization in town was there.
June 1: Hurricane season started. National media starts heading home.
Thursday, June 7: After repeated inquiries all week, only local reporters are emailed the report. Many public officials are not given a copy. The reporters are told not to report on it until after 2 PM Friday - a so-called "embargo."
Friday, June 8: Early in the morning, public officials at all levels of government receive the report, but not from the Corps. [...] far from the 17th Street canal and its photogenic backgrounds [...] in a conference room at the Corps' building on Leake Avenue, the Corps holds an invitation-only round table to release the report. [...]Six reporters are in the room. They represent the AP, the Baton Rouge Advocate, WWL-TV, Fox 8 (TV), the Times-Picayune, and an engineering magazine. No reporters, other than from the AP, represent national organizations.
"The flooded suction intakes have only been accomplished on the new additional contracted 6 pumps, the original contracted 34 pumps have not been revised to add the flooded suction intake as was agreed upon to be revised in June 2006. MWI has only provided a vacuum type check valve for priming the suction to the Denison Hydraulic Pumps. This is only a façade in addressing the real issue and requires the operation of vacuum equipment to prime the hydraulic pumps. If the vacuum is not drawn properly, then the pumps will aerate and create irreversible damage to the components of the pumps. The bilateral contract modification to change the intakes to a flooded suction at no cost to the Government has been in place since 12 July 2006 and has not been accomplished as of this date on any of the original 34 pumps."
Yeah, that's right. MWI and the Corps were so aware of the problem that they implemented it on the six extra pumps at 17th Street, but never bothered to retrofit the other 34, leaving them in the same danger of failure that they've been in since they left the factory.
This deserves a Blogswarm.
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Labels: Army Corps of Engineers, Bush Family Values, Hurricanes, New Orleans, Republican Values
