County Seeks to Block Army Auction of Site; Lawsuit to be filed today says effects of developing the Wilshire Boulevard parcel were not weighed

By Martha Groves

Los Angeles County plans today to file suit in federal district court in an attempt to block the proposed June auction by the U.S. Army of a prime 10-acre parcel at Wilshire Boulevard and Federal Avenue that is now used as the West Los Angeles U.S. Army Reserve Center.

The complaint, a copy of which was provided to The Times, alleges that the Army proposed auctioning the parcel to developers without first studying other alternatives or the environmental effects of disposing of the property, as required by federal law and the military's internal guidelines.

The suit further alleges that the Army ignored other proposed federal projects in West Los Angeles -- notably a new FBI headquarters and the redevelopment of the Veterans Affairs campus -- that probably will significantly affect traffic and density.

1. Christian Science Monitor

NEW ORLEANS - With meteorologists predicting another severe round of hurricanes this summer, the US Army Corps of Engineers is hastily working to finish repairs to the New Orleans' levee system by June 1 - the official start of hurricane season - calling the end product "stronger and better than before."

But independent engineers and scientists say that even with $800 million in repairs and re-inforcements, the levee system is not safe yet, and they caution residents in badly damaged areas against "buying promises" and returning too soon.

The result is that many evacuees remain uncertain about whether to rebuild and move home, adding to the trepidation about the approaching hurricane season.

"People need to have confidence in their protection system in order to come back," says Col. Lewis Setliff, the engineer overseeing the levee repairs for the corps.

Currently, his team is installing three new floodgates where New Orleans meets Lake Pontchartrain, to block tidal surges, as well as auxiliary pumps to help prevent inland flooding when the gates are closed. But the massive floodgates - at a cost of about $35 million each - are only temporary, says Colonel Setliff as he watches the work being done on the 17th Street Canal.

Congress is debating a more permanent solution, the building of which could take years and cost significantly more than the $3.1 billion now allotted for repairs to the protection system.

2. New York Times

By John Schwartz

Yet Hurricane Katrina, a Category 4 storm that did not strike the city directly, overwhelmed systems in dozens of places and cost more than 1,500 lives and billions in property damage.

Why? In part, say experts who studied the disaster, because the hurricane was more like four storms — at least — that battered the area in different ways. They say the system in New Orleans was flawed from the start because the model storm it was designed to stop was simplistic, and led to an inadequate network of levees, flood walls, storm gates and pumps.

The 2006 hurricane season begins Thursday, with four to six major storms predicted for this year by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And experts say that understanding the failings is essential in planning the next generation of flood protection for a rebuilt New Orleans, and for systems nationwide.

3. New Orleans Times-Picayune

By Sheila Grissett, East Jefferson bureau

It's a far cry from the capacity that would likely be needed in heavy rain, but the Army Corps of Engineers has secured more pumps to help drain the 17th Street and London Avenue canals if sheet piles must be used to block a storm surge before new floodgates are operational this hurricane season, a spokesman said Friday.

When corps officials said earlier this month that the gates and their auxiliary pumping systems wouldn't be ready by the June 1 start of the season, they avowed that braced-steel sheet pilings driven at canal bridges would provide just as much surge protection as the gates, which will reportedly be ready in July.

That was the good news.

Unfortunately, they said the fallback system wouldn't provide much pumping capacity to move water north of the protective sheet pile walls, which raises the specter of collateral flooding from rainfall in the thousands of densely developed acres that empty into the big outfall canals.

In fact, as originally announced May 11, corps officials said there would be only 400 to 500 cubic feet per second of pumping capacity for the 17th Street Canal, which is designed to handle a maximum of 10,000 cfs, and only 300 to 400 cfs at the London Avenue Canal, which is designed to move about 8,000 cfs.

4. New Orleans Times-Picayune

By Mark Schleifstein, Staff writer

With hurricane season only three days away, the Army Corps of Engineers on Monday announced that a 400-foot section of earthen hurricane protection levee being rebuilt near Buras High School in Plaquemines Parish slumped by more than 6 feet overnight Saturday, and repairs could take three to six weeks.

Corps spokesman Jim Taylor said the levee section, just west of the main Mississippi River levee and about 60 miles south of downtown New Orleans, seemed to twist in place, losing 61/2 feet of height at its top. The earth at its toe rose by 3 feet, he said.

The levee had been raised to 15 feet by Saturday, and was scheduled to be raised to 17 1/2 feet by Thursday, the beginning of hurricane season.

"An unexpected event such as this during construction is disappointing, but we will continue to work as quickly as possible to restore the hurricane protection system repairs while making sure the restoration is done correctly," said Col. Lewis Setliff III, commander of Task Force Guardian, which is rebuilding local levees.

Parish President Benny Rousselle said the incident highlights the importance of residents complying with all evacuation orders this year.

5. Pacific Stars & Stripes

By T.D. Flack, Stars and Stripes

Corps commander Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock told Stars and Stripes “yes,” even as experts in the States questioned the organization’s recovery work following Hurricane Katrina last year.

But even Strock, on a recent visit to Pacific bases, admits the Corps is relying on backup plans for keeping potential storm surges from swamping the city in upcoming months.

“There are some aspects that are not going to happen as we had hoped,” Strock said of the Corps’ efforts in New Orleans.

He explained that the most vulnerable areas in New Orleans are the drainage canals with the levies and floodwalls that were breached during Katrina. The problem, he said, is possible storm surges from Lake Pontchartrain.

6. New York Times Book News

By John Schwartz

In the face of horrifying destruction, Dr. van Heerden, the deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, knew that small things helped tell the big story. The moment that the clocks' time stopped could show when the homes filled with water, data "vitally important to any good forensic study," as he puts it in his new book, "The Storm: What Went Wrong During Hurricane Katrina — The Inside Story From One Louisiana Scientist," published last week by Viking.

Of the two most prominent new books on the subject, his is likelier to get fewer readers.

Many will probably snap up Douglas Brinkley's book "The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast." Dr. Brinkley, a historian at Tulane University, has written best-selling books, and his account digs the dirt on politicians and their failures, with a focus on details like how long Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans took to shave his head aboard Air Force One.

7. Washington Post

By Peter Whoriskey, Washington Post Staff Writer

VIOLET, La. -- When the floodwaters of Katrina reached the second floor of his home, Jesse Reed decided it was time to flee. He grabbed a shotgun, climbed onto the roof from a second-floor dormer window and jumped into his bass boat, which he kept nearby just for that purpose.

The 51-year-old, an outdoorsman and a plumber by trade, was proud of having ridden out previous storms with a certain woodsy elan.

Now, he says, "I wouldn't stay here for a goddarn hard rain."

All along the coast of the southeastern United States, even in those places untouched by its rage, Hurricane Katrina has obliterated long-held certitudes. Last year's destructive storm eroded the almost innate self-confidence of residents who once viewed hurricanes as tempests that could be weathered, not unimaginable catastrophes.

8. Washington Post

By Linton Weeks, Washington Post Staff Writer

NEW ORLEANS Around here, evil has a name: Hurricane Season. And it has a start date: June 1.

Though it seems like only yesterday that Hurricane Katrina tore through the area -- causing widespread flooding that caused evacuation that caused displacement and chaos and tragedy -- this week it starts all over again. But the panic started weeks ago: "There is not a lot of time," newly reelected Mayor C. Ray Nagin said during one of the campaign debates. "Hurricane season's going to start June 1, and we need to be ready."

He added, "I think we are."

There are lots of New Orleanians who don't agree with the mayor. It's not that they have proof to the contrary; it's just that they don't feel prepared. It's that once-flooded, twice-shy feeling they can't shake. And since the hurricane season traditionally kicks off on June 1 and lasts through November, the ominousness of the possible can be overwhelming.

9. Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS -- Less than a week before the next hurricane season starts, firefighters still searching for those missing after Hurricane Katrina have found another body.

A DNA test will be needed to identify the body; the only certainty is that it was an adult male, said John Gagliano, chief coroner's investigator in New Orleans.

It was found Saturday in the rear laundry room of a house in Mid-City, where most houses are raised several feet but floods still reached the attached mailboxes, nearly chest-high.

The house was fifth to be checked of 47 addresses given to the search team Friday, said Capt. Kenneth Kirsch of the New Orleans Fire Department.

The addresses came from the Louisiana Family Assistance Center, a state agency that has a list of 226 people missing since the 2005 hurricanes.

A state Health and Hospitals Department list of missing people shows Huey Hughes, 76, at the address where the body was found, but authorities could not confirm that Saturday. The mailbox shows a different name.

10. Washington Post Commentary

By Eugene Robinson

The evidence, by now, is overwhelming: Beautiful, decadent New Orleans wasn't doomed by Hurricane Katrina but by decades of human incompetence and neglect. As far as the drowned city is concerned, the greatest natural disaster in the nation's history would have been just a messy inconvenience if not for the fumbling hand of man.

The mortal threat to New Orleans, as Katrina plowed into the Gulf Coast, was not the powerful winds -- Mississippi took the brunt of those -- but the massive storm surge the hurricane generated. We now know that the levees, floodwalls and other barriers protecting the city were, for the most part, plenty tall enough and theoretically strong enough to keep the waters at bay. On paper, New Orleans should have ended up wet and wounded, but basically intact.

What happened instead was "the single most costly catastrophic failure of an engineered system in history," according to a report issued last week by the Independent Levee Investigation Team, a blue-ribbon panel led by experts from the University of California at Berkeley and funded by the National Science Foundation.

Some of the flood barriers were built using inadequate materials, the report says. Others were designed so poorly that they provided weak spots for the waters to exploit. Still others were left unfinished for lack of funds.

11. Pacific Stars and Stripes

By T. D. Flack, Stars and Stripes

He said he wanted to ensure the Corps is “doing the right kinds of things where the facilities are concerned” as U.S. Forces Korea transforms and moves troops onto a major military hub at Camp Humphreys.

The senior engineer in the Department of Defense agreed to a one-hour interview with Stars and Stripes to answer questions about the Corps’ worldwide mission, vision and future.

12. New York Times Week In Review

BEFORE "earmark" became a dirty word, Senator John W. Warner might have unabashedly claimed credit for steering $1.5 billion in federal money back home to rebuild the Wilson Bridge, which crosses the Potomac. But at the dedication ceremony this month, Mr. Warner, Republican of Virginia, practically apologized.

"There's much said in Congress about building bridges to nowhere," the senator said, invoking a bridge in rural Alaska that has become a symbol of federal spending run amok. "This bridge is a bridge to everywhere, and it is worth every penny."

Mr. Warner's remarks reflect a new reality in Washington, a city where pork has for decades been the currency of power. Most members of Congress regard bringing home the bacon as an important part of their jobs, not to mention an essential ingredient for re-election.

13. New York Times Book Excerpt

Excerpt
Cities in the Wilderness

By BRUCE BABBITT

Everglades Forever

In south Florida, hurricanes are the prime movers of land use planning. Periodically a big storm comes in off the Atlantic, smashing forests, wrecking roads and buildings, and flooding the land. Then, as the wreckage is piled up and carted away, there is a moment of opportunity to build something different, incorporating lessons learned from the storm, avoiding mistakes of the past, and even implementing new ideas of how to live in harmony with the constraints imposed by the land and the climate. Hurricanes, for all the human tragedy, bring opportunities for urban renewal.

It was in the summer of 1992 that I began to learn about hurricanes and renewal. In August of that year Hurricane Andrew blew ashore just south of Miami, leading with a seventeen-foot storm surge, followed by winds exceeding one hundred and seventy miles per hour. By most accounts it was the most powerful hurricane of the century, and as it moved inland it left a wide trail of destruction, leaving nearly two hundred thousand residents temporarily homeless.

14. New York Times Commentary

By JOHN WEBER

Bradley Beach, N.J.

COASTAL towns and cities all around America are deciding whether to let the government pay 90 percent of the cost of having the Army Corps of Engineers protect property along their shore by dredging and pumping sand to replenish beaches that have suffered from decades of erosion and overdevelopment. With sea levels rising and stronger, more frequent storms all but certain, how can communities pass up this offer?

Recently, though, the City Council of Long Beach, the largest coastal community in Nassau County, voted unanimously against a corps proposal to protect them from storms.

The reason? These projects do bring in sand that then protects storm waters from damaging coastal property, but they can also make swimming more dangerous and surfing the waves less appealing. The projects often destroy fishing and marine habitat and dump coarse, dark sand on the beaches, making them less aesthetically pleasing. (In 1994, a beach replenishing project in Coney Island brought dredged up rocks and mud to the beach there.)