(Quality rumor) Levees opened on purpose routinely

[Robb]

This is the story from a buddy in the Houston press gaggle. According to reliable, if credulous, buddy, who has been going around doing quickie interviews with people inside the Astrodome, the 800-pound gorilla in the room is that in interview after interview, survivors there are telling journalists that their neighborhoods were routinely flooded, albeit only slightly, whenever the water was getting too high.
Apparently it was a standing practice to run a small amount of excess water through the poorer neighborhoods when the water built up. Usually it was just a few inches.
The belief among people being housed in the Astrodome is that this happened again, only this time there was waaaay more water behind there than usual, and the practice backfired and led to failure.
Again, not only a rumor, but also a rumored perception. Add grain of salt before serving. ;) Anyone else heard anything similar?

[LSparkle]

1. Didn't this actually happen in a prior New Orleans flood?

I thought back in the '20s or '30s, the city intentionally flooded the poorer neighborhoods to save the wealthier districts. Not a rumor, but proven fact. I don't blame those people one iota for thinking it could have been done again (or that similar discrimination contributed to this mess).

[bring_em_home_bush]

6. See this 1997 article by James Carville in Salon about the 1927 flood

S W A M P F E V E R | B Y J A M E S C A R V I L L E

After the Deluge

Looking back at the momentous
legacy of the most devastating natural
disaster in American history.

(snip)

When floods get their two hours of fame, I sure as hell hope the subject is the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the biggest natural disaster in the nation's history. I've just finished a brand-new book on the Great Flood, and I've been sending it out to all my friends. John M. Barry's "Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America" is the best book I've read in years.

Though most of you coastal city slickers have never heard of it, the Great Flood changed the character of America more than the Great War and only slightly less than the Great Depression. It altered forever the way we view our federal government. It warped our race relations. It reshaped the demographics of North and South. It swept Herbert Hoover to the White House and Huey Long to the Louisiana statehouse. It leveled a self-serving aristocracy. The story of the Great Flood is a classic American epic. Even Kevin "Waterworld" Costner couldn't screw up a story this good.

(snip)

The flood brought another clever political manipulator to office: legendary Louisiana Gov. Huey Long. Long's populist mandate arose in great measure as a reaction to a huge fissure that the flood created in New Orleans society. As the flood waters started approaching New Orleans, the close-knit cabal of New Orleans bankers who ran Louisiana from their exclusive krewes and clubs decided they were going to save their own skins by dynamiting a levee about 10 miles from the city. They were powerful enough that they didn't even need to do it under the cover of night -- they got the governor to sign an order making the operation legal.

On the afternoon of April 29, 1927, workers started blowing a massive hole in that levee. As New Orleans aristocrats watched from their yachts, the river buried St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes under 30 feet of water. The story gets worse: Although the New Orleans bankers had promised to repay the families they had flooded, they later reneged. To compensate for the loss of their homes and livelihood, each family wound up with a pittance of less than $300.


The rest here, an outstanding read: http://www.salon.com/april97/columnists/carville970407.html

[benburch]

2. The area is "Ward 9" if I recall...

It always floods when there is rain, and it is the poorest neighborhood.

The reason is that it is the lowest point and the pumps were so inadequate.

[DrDebug]

3. Actually the storm surges are usually design to leak as well

And that is on purpose as well to prevent the pressure from becoming too big, because that could potentially damaging the structure and lead to a breach, so they have a slight opening allowing some water to pass through.

So the story makes a lot of sense, since a slight leak is not that important as long as the majority of the water doesn't get through.

[Taxloss]

4. How do you "open" a levee? It's a reinforced earth berm.

Next question: How do you do it without anyone noticing?

Third question: How come the result looks like a busted levee?

[Land Shark]

5. In 1927 the levees broke in 149 places. Each break may have diff cause

[NorthernSpy]

7. I'm adding this to the collection!

Thank you for telling us about this new take on the deliberate breach rumor, Robb!

:thumbsup: