Jose Ceralde
25 Oct 2009

Re: Mother Nature never lies

Editilla,

Mother Nature never lies is true but peoples understanding of events are always colored by biases and interpretations of what they believe-thus conclusion is what is a lie. Are you a lawyer? Lawyers believe in the truth and thus the model of the face of the prosecution and the defense are just like the two faces of your dime. It may have two faces but still carry same value of dime.

So here is a good reference versus your posting the Corps lied; http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/09/0902_050902_katrina_levees.html . From my read of the article the Corp said they built the New Orleans levee system to Hurricane Category level below Katrina levels. Here is portions of the article; ” Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, chief of engineers for the Corps,….. pointed to a danger that many public officials had warned about for years: The system was never designed to withstand a storm of Katrina’s strength. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been building levees along the Mississippi River since the late 1800s.

The artificial, reinforced soil embankments are designed to curb periodic and destructive floods.
But determining the level of protection needed versus what Congress and the public are willing to pay for isn’t often easy.
 Acceptable risks must be weighed, including the statistical likelihood of catastrophic events and the possible consequences if they do occur, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials.”

It’s pretty clear that just like you and me we have to consider how much money we could afford. Do you think the public is now willing to pay for a hundred year storm or now as many Global warmers say are no longer valid as they may now be 25-year storm?

So for my point of clarity, could you please help me understand what bad human engineering is, from your point of view? I could only equate it to no one from the responsible agency in the Philippines coming forward and say the same line of accountability as the Corps general.

Going back to the flooding in Pangasinan, these are the results of good intentions. Historically flooding had been felt by lowlanders in Central Luzon and brilliant minds in the country had proposed solutions. The solutions are well thought out but the follow-on phases are what failed.

Just like the Katrina solution implementation dams were built for flood control, water supply, and power generation but the dikes were not reinforced as cited by FVR when he pointed the phases of the Agno River projects when he approved the SRD project. These projects are illuminating and good read from UP.

The UP research team has research papers of inundations of lowlands and the water flow levels depicted in models. They have one for our major dams and rivers to include Bued and Sinocalan. From the papers, they either propose more studies for risk mitigations for different scenarios based on realities of the day. They even recommended that solutions not be based solely on the issue of money but include cultural and social underpinnings.

Just trying to cool off because of the sorry state of Pangasinan and Dagupan.

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