Grain Barges and the Levee

less0305

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I heard a radio interview with the actor/comedien Steve Harvey in which he told the interviewer that in his visits with evacuees he met an elderly gentleman who told him that he lived right next to the levee (Sorry I can't remember what location of the levee) and that a grain barge hit the levee and that's what caused the levee to break and that within a matter of three or four minutes his house was filled with water. The interviewer asked Steve Harvey a little more about the grain barge - you know, like "Were they cut loose by the storm, " etc., and Steve just said, "I don't know. I'm only telling you what one man told me he witnessed."

I really have not seen this covered at all in the news. Have any of you? I started trying to check on line about it, but can only find that there people discussing it on other blogs, but nothing in MSM. On one of the blogs someone said that there was footage of barges sitting on top of the levee.

Someone with a little more knowledge here might be able to shed some light on this for me. But is it a possibility that the storm really didn't cause the levee break - but loose grain barges did. Maybe the levee actually did hold back the water and did withstand the hurricane forces, but then got pounded by a barge?
 
My daddy's company had a dispatcher's trailer (like a little temporary office) in Fourchon, Louisiana. Dad told me that there were barges on top of the levees, but I think they were oil field barges. These things are HUGE. Like four stories tall and I cannot even estimate how long and wide. If a grain barge is anything like that, I can imagine that it could destroy the levee if it was being hurtled into it.

Katrina was unbelievable. My dad was telling me that one of the bouys (that has got to be misspelled!) measured waves in excess of 80 feet. In the Gulf of Mexico!! That is incredible.

He has been back and forth trying to salvage company property and he says SE LA looks like it was hit by an atomic bomb. Total complete devastation. He says the pictures on tv don't "do it justice."
 
kgeaux said:
My daddy's company had a dispatcher's trailer (like a little temporary office) in Fourchon, Louisiana. Dad told me that there were barges on top of the levees, but I think they were oil field barges. These things are HUGE. Like four stories tall and I cannot even estimate how long and wide. If a grain barge is anything like that, I can imagine that it could destroy the levee if it was being hurtled into it.

Katrina was unbelievable. My dad was telling me that one of the bouys (that has got to be misspelled!) measured waves in excess of 80 feet. In the Gulf of Mexico!! That is incredible.

He has been back and forth trying to salvage company property and he says SE LA looks like it was hit by an atomic bomb. Total complete devastation. He says the pictures on tv don't "do it justice."

I can't get over waves in excess of 80 feet. That is incredible. I am trying to imagine it and it is hard.
 
I have no idea if a barge hit the levee or not but if one of those massive oil barges ended up on the levee you would see it in the pictures. The 17th street canal is the one with the levee that broke on Monday night causing the initial flooding. The canal runs from Lake Pontchatrain through the middle of the city. The break is in the middle of the urban area. A grain barge would have had to have maneuvered itself from either the Mississippi River or the lake to that point. I never saw any barges near the break in the early aerial photos.

I believe there are a couple of other locations of breaks in levees, buti don't know where they are located.
 
My husband speculated a couple nights ago that it was most likely a barge that caused the levee to break. Looks like he could be right.
 
Cypros said:
I have no idea if a barge hit the levee or not but if one of those massive oil barges ended up on the levee you would see it in the pictures. The 17th street canal is the one with the levee that broke on Monday night causing the initial flooding. The canal runs from Lake Pontchatrain through the middle of the city. The break is in the middle of the urban area. A grain barge would have had to have maneuvered itself from either the Mississippi River or the lake to that point. I never saw any barges near the break in the early aerial photos.

I believe there are a couple of other locations of breaks in levees, buti don't know where they are located.

I agree, no pics that I could find showed a barge in the breech.

To clarify my earlier post, the barges in Fourchon were on top of the levee. They did not poke through the levee. Fourchon is not a part of New Orleans, and not near any of the levees which did break.
 
kgeaux said:
I agree, no pics that I could find showed a barge in the breech.

To clarify my earlier post, the barges in Fourchon were on top of the levee. They did not poke through the levee. Fourchon is not a part of New Orleans, and not near any of the levees which did break.

Once the levee was breached, could the barges have then been swept elsewhere? I only ask this because I don't live anywhere near levees and barges, etc. I have no experience with anything like this and I'm only curious. If a barge was being blown up or down a levee (see, I'm really dumb - do levees flow up and down or are they basically stagnant) and it was like a bumper car type thing where it bumps here and there as it's moving up and down - could it bump and then be swept down the levee or up the levee further? I'm just really curious about all that and how that happens.

Thanks for your on-hand experience!!
 
If memory serves me right, the Harvey Canal has bridges which prevent boat traffic of any large scale.

It is simply a drainage canal, built specifically to empty rain waters fron the City.

If I am incorrect, please advise...
 
Just saw a thing on Hannity and Colmes about a barge possibly being the cause, but no definate info is known
There were two witnesses who claimed to hear a loud "boom" around 3am Monday during Katrina's landfall. They didn't say they 'saw' it, but said later that "the barge is still there."
Also, a Core of Engineer's spokesman said the levee was topped at many places, so if a barge actually hit the metal flood protection portion, it wouldn't have mattered.
 

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