Todd Bensman & Robert Riggs
                             

09/26/05  It's not about flood control.  It's all about the money!

There are people in this town who are just beneath contempt.  I know that's a big shock, but it still is hard to understand the greed that controls our city.

I had intended to write about the fabrications in O'Neil's story in generalities, but Big Easy's nightmare could also be Big D's needs a point by point response.  My comments are in the white inserted boxes.

	Big Easy's nightmare could also be Big D's; As in New Orleans, the right storm could overwhelm local levees Saturday, September 24, 2005 By JAMES M. O'NEILL / The Dallas Morning News
Yes, it could happen to us.    Dallas, like New Orleans, could find itself underwater.    If Hurricane Rita had roared through just west of Dallas, stalled over Arlington and dumped as much rain here as it is expected to drop on East Texas, the levees that keep Dallas dry could very well have been breached, flooding a sizable swath of the city.    Downtown Dallas relies on a much-compromised 30-mile levee system to keep it dry from the Trinity River. Because of extensive development in the counties north and west of the city, the levees, completed in 1958, can no longer handle the severe storm runoff they were designed to contain.    Dallas is therefore now vulnerable to a far less serious storm breaching the levees and flooding business and residential areas that equal about 20 percent of the city's taxable property value.
This scenario is as plausible as telling you to put one finger on the right side of your nose, blink your eyes 3 times while clicking your heels at the same time a strong wind blows and you will wind up in a new town where everyone wears green and the witches actually fly around on brooms. I have lived in Dallas and the Metroplex since I was about 5 years old.  Guess how many hurricanes have hit Dallas or any city in the DFW area in 50+ years?  That would be NONE. We have had rain storms that lasted for days and caused flooding, but we've never had a hurricane.  If the existing 30-mile levee system is inadequate to control water runoff from areas upstream, why aren't we prohibiting development in the Trinity floodplain within our city limits, rather than encouraging it?
... The flooding would also complicate the city's standard emergency plan, since key shelters such as Reunion Arena and the Convention Center, as well as the city's emergency command post beneath City Hall, would all be flooded.
If we know it "would all be flooded", why in the world is the city's emergency command post beneath City Hall?  Why was it put there in the first place?  Why haven't we moved it?  According to the article, the second command post is also in a flood prone area.
Just as in New Orleans, where plans were in the works to fix a levee system that failed catastrophically and allowed a huge storm surge from Hurricane Katrina to swamp that city, Dallas officials have $340 million worth of improvements on the drawing board to restore the levees' ability to contain runoff from the type of storm they were originally built to withstand.    "If anyone does not think that a flood is possible in Dallas, I beg to differ," City Council member Ed Oakley wrote to a skeptical constituent recently. "It is not only possible, but could be a reality, just as the models [showed] New Orleans's levee system under certain conditions could fail, and did."
This is so bogus.  In the first place, federal funds have been distributed to New Orleans for improvements to their levees.  Those funds were used on projects like sports facilities and other pet projects of the crooks running New Orleans and the State of Louisiana, but they were not used to repair or maintain the levees. New Orleans is a 300 year old city that was built in low area and has only gotten lower with increasing populations and bad decisions made in the city and by other municipalities up the Mississippi River.  They not only have the Mississippi River to contend with, there's Lake Ponchatrain and the Gulf of Mexico.  Dallas is not surrounded by water, although we share a tradition of self-serving politicians misusing public monies to promote their own agendas and investments.
City officials now worry the massive post-Katrina rebuilding effort that the nation plans for New Orleans could make it far more difficult to secure vital federal funding for the plan to improve Dallas levees, which is scheduled for completion around 2014. Already this month, $4 million dedicated to the Dallas project has been redirected to New Orleans.
That's what this article is about.  Our Downtown Betters (the ODB) and The Dallas Managed News are very concerned we're not going to get all the pork that was promised to the Trinity Project from the Transportation Bill.  The Trinity Project is not about flood control.  It's about roads and new development on land that God intended to be a river bed.  The lesson of New Orleans is not about failed levees.  The lesson of New Orleans (that we will not learn) is that we should not build houses or anything else in flood-prone areas.
... Hurricane Rita swept north on Saturday too far east of Dallas to cause flooding here. But under the right conditions, a tropical storm similar to Rita and saturated with water from the Gulf of Mexico could move north into the Dallas area, then meet a cold front coming south, dumping 11 inches or more of rain in 24 hours over a 200-square mile area centered just northwest of Arlington. The water would surge through storm sewers, creeks and tributaries of the Trinity, course down the river channel, rise into the 1,700-foot floodway between the levees next to downtown Dallas, and spill over the 28-foot-high clay and earthen walls that keep the city dry.
Under the right conditions?  A tropical storm in Dallas, in the middle of the prairie?  When donkeys fly.  Notice reporter O'Neill doesn't mention Fort Worth's Trinity Project which will put more strain on the Trinity River water flow, making the water move harder, faster on its way through Dallas, where the ODB's plans would have it flowing even harder and faster after they squeeze the river into a divided trough with a fake lake in the middle.  No, reporter O'Neill talks about a tropical storm from the Gulf skipping over Dallas to be "centered just northwest of Arlington".  That puts a real kink in reporter O'Neill's "perfect storm".   If the water does surge through tributaries of the Trinity, we are better off with our current situation that gives the Trinity some room to spread wide. The ODB's Trinity Project will squeeze the Trinity into a deeper, more narrow trough.
... Once the water started to cascade over the levees, erosion could quickly dig gullies into the huge earthen walls, and water would stream into downtown.    The extensive network of tunnels under the city's most prominent skyscrapers would be inundated, destroying businesses and utility lines. The water would shut down the pumps that force rainwater from the city streets back into the river.
If we know the "extensive network of tunnels" Downtown makes the city vulnerable in the case of reporter O'Neill's perfect storm, why haven't we plugged the tunnels?  The tunnels and sky bridges are the primary reasons for the death of Downtown retail.  Again, another bad decision by Our Downtown Betters that we have to fix with taxpayer dollars. If flooding in the tunnels would destroy businesses and utility lines and "shut down the pumps that force rainwater from the city streets back into the river", why haven't we already moved the pumps or duplicated them in another, higher area?  That seems like a much less expensive safety project to protect us from Trinity River flooding than completely rebuilding the river as it flows through Dallas. Is it too simplistic to ask why we would have our command center and water pumps in an area the so-called experts expect to be ground zero for flooding in reporter O'Neill's perfect storm scenario?
... The flooding would compromise the Central Wastewater Treatment Plant near Cadillac Heights, allowing untreated sewage to escape into the floodwaters.    Such a nightmarish scenario may sound farfetched. And in fact, it might never happen. But given the right conditions, it could play out with the next Katrina- or Rita-like storm.    "A lot of things have to come together, but storm conditions like this happen fairly frequently in the country," said David Wilson, a hydrologic engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the Fort Worth district, which includes Dallas.
Here reporter O'Neill goes again with his all-the-stars in alignment scenario.  The chances of his perfect storm situation is as probable as a volcano erupting in Dallas.  We are in the middle of a prairie.  The US Army Corps of Engineers would cease to exist without projects to do, whether needed or not.  Where was David Wilson, hydrologic engineer, when the ODB gang first came up with their nightmarish scenario of reconfiguring the Trinity River?  An hydrologic engineer should have told them early on their plan would destroy our historic viaducts, which is why we need those stupid String Thing Bridges. How could Wilson have made a statement like reporter O'Neill's quotes from - "storm conditions like this happen fairly frequently in the country"?  We haven't had a Category 4 or 5 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico since the 80's.  We have never had storms like Katrina or Rita in middle Texas.  If I'm wrong, name one!
... The Corps of Engineers, which improved the levees in the 1950s before turning them over to the cities of Dallas and Irving to maintain, inspects the levee system once a year. Recent surveys reported that the system is in "excellent" condition.
How can we be in the peril that reporter O'Neill and Councilman Ed Oakley expect if the Corps of Engineers' surveys report our levee system to be in excellent condition?
... If the perfect storm did hit, the flooding would seem biblical. Decades ago, the levees would have been topped by runoff from a storm that dumped 15 inches of rain in 24 hours. Today, a lesser storm ? one that dumps only 11 inches in that period ? would be able to top the levees.
Reporter O'Neill must live in a very frightening world of nightmare possibilities for him to be so obsessed with the consequences of his "perfect storm".  The situation in New Orleans was an accident waiting to happen.  It wasn't the hurricane that did them in.  It was the corruption of their local and state governments that neglected those levees.  They did not pass any COE surveys as being in "excellent" condition.
... In the 1950s, the soil would have absorbed some of the rainwater. But today, the water would roll off roofs, rush down streets and course across concrete parking lots, speeding the flow into the Trinity and dramatically increasing the volume of water such a storm would send between the levees. ...  tremendous growth impedes the soil's ability to act like a sponge, sealing it over with a skin of hard, nonporous surfaces that force larger amounts of water into the Trinity and between the Dallas levees during major storms.
The Trinity Project would only make a bad situation worse by encouraging more development in an area that Mother Nature intended to be a flood plain for the Trinity River. Reporter O'Neill doesn't seem to see the conflict in his report.
... A day before the levees were expected to be breached, city emergency management officials would launch a massive evacuation of the city's downtown and close-in neighborhoods. Since people would not need to travel far to get out of harm's way, the exodus would probably not produce the nightmarish evacuation scenes witnessed last week on Houston highways as Hurricane Rita approached. But evacuating the heart of Dallas on short notice would pose its own major challenges.
Reporter O'Neill is buying into the ODB and Belo's company line, that Downtown is the heart of Dallas.  It is important, but there are hundreds of thousands of people who live in Dallas who never go Downtown.  Unfortunately, there is a new concentration of multi-family housing in and near Downtown.  Uptown, Turtle Creek and Oak Lawn all have huge new densities.  Inner-city Dallas residents would not have to even leave the city to get to safer, higher ground if Reporter O'Neill's perfect storm scenario were to occur.
... The flooding would create another hurdle for the city's disaster response. Normally, during an emergency, officials meet two floors below ground in City Hall and open the emergency command center, which has computers, radios and city wall maps.    But in a levee breach, the underground floors of City Hall, which also house the city's 911 operation, would probably be flooded. The backup location, a training center on Dolphin Road, would also be in the flood area. Officials would probably have to retreat to a second backup location, the Centennial Building in Fair Park.    Because the city's pump stations are behind the levees and about 25 to 28 feet below the levee crests, they would soon be put out of commission if the floodwaters topped the levees. Rain falling in Dallas would back up in storm sewers, burst manholes and swamp the streets.
Since Reporter O'Neill repeats himself, I have to again ask why our disaster response center is in an underground chamber that is expected to flood in a Trinity catastrophe?  Why don't we just move it now to an underground chamber in a higher section of the city that is not anywhere near the Trinity or even White Rock Lake?  More importantly, why are our pump stations 25 to 28 feet below the levee crests?  Why not move them now?
... With the pumps inoperable, officials might have to create several large holes in the levees to help get water flowing out of the city and back into the river.    It would take up to a month for the Trinity to retreat back into its channel.
Why would it take up to a month for the Trinity retreat back into its channel after the storm is over?  As it runs through Dallas, the Trinity River is little more than an exaggerated creek.  Until the second hurricane, New Orleans had just about drained itself in a little over two weeks and they are below sea level.  This is just a scare tactic at best and an outright lie at worst.
.. Juanita Alfaro is painfully familiar with the wrath of an engorged Trinity River. For the past 37 years, she has lived in Cadillac Heights, a community that lies just beyond the end of the west levee. When the rest of Dallas is dry, Cadillac Heights often floods. ... When she returned, she discovered that the water had ruined her furniture and plumbing and electric systems, and killed her plants. She had no flood insurance ? too expensive. The city helped with money for repairs. She did what she could, bringing the salvageable furniture outside to dry in the sun and calling friends for help.    Despite the flooding, she didn't want to move. "I know the neighbors here. I wouldn't know anybody if I moved somewhere else," she said.    A $140 million project is intended to improve the lower Dallas levee system. includes an extension to protect Cadillac Heights. In addition, under the plan, the city is buying the homes of some of Ms. Alfaro's neighbors
Why are we spending $140 million when we could put everyone in Cadillac Heights in a $140,000 home in a much less polluted neighborhood and let the river have its flood plain back?  Mrs. Alfaro doesn't want to move, but that's life.  I'm sorry she invested her life's savings in a house in a neighborhood where God intended a river to flow periodically.  Contrary to some people's thinking, man is not bigger than Mother Nature.  We cannot control the weather, and we cannot make a river behave.  Rivers need to have flood plains so the water can spread out from time to time when the river (even a creek like the Trinity) is gorged with storm water.
... In addition, to reduce the damming effect of the Great Trinity Forest, in the river's floodplain south of downtown, the city will remove a 600-foot-wide swath of trees to create a series of wetlands and help the floodplain handle more water.
The Great Trinity Forest is a natural filtering system to clean the river of the trash from our friends up stream before the river continues on Southeast to the Gulf.  There are cities South of us that will be put in grave danger by what the ODB and Belo want to do to the Trinity as  it passes through Dallas.  We are in grave danger by what the folks in Fort Worth are planning to do to the Trinity as it passes through their city limits.  We are entrusting our city, our homes, our lives into the hands of a bunch of engineers who are only guessing their plans will work.   Every place where rivers have been channeled, there have been tragic results.  Much more intense flooding than ever happened before the river improvements were made.
... the Trinity River Corridor Project, includes $200 million in flood protection and recreation improvements, such as raising the existing levees by 2 feet and adding a chain of lakes in the floodplain just west of downtown.  No money has yet been secured from the federal government for the flood protection portion of the Trinity corridor project, which has not yet reached the design phase.
That's what Reporter O'Neill's piece is really about.  The ODB and Belo are freaking that we may not get all the federal money that the Dallas delegation swapped pork votes with other area politicians to get this pork project (Trinity Bondoogle) funded.  Last week The Dallas Managed News Editorial Board forgot to talk to Robert Decherd and ran Katrina doesn't have to sink us in debt only have to retract the magnanimous offer to give up Trinity Project funds to help New Orleans recover in Katrina's Costs: Trinity River project is vital to North Texas.  If the DMN  wasn't our only daily paper (even if fewer and fewer of us subscribe to it), their propaganda blooper would be funny.
Since 2001, the corps has received $43 million in federal money for the Floodway Extension Project. But congressional budget committees will probably trim its $30 million request for 2006 by more than half.  In addition, about $4 million that had already been earmarked for the Floodway Extension Project has been redirected to New Orleans in Katrina's aftermath. ... But Dallas officials worry that the huge costs of rebuilding New Orleans might suck away money for other projects. ...
There he goes again, repeating himself.  It's all about the money.

The Trinity Project is not about flood control.  It's all about the money.  It's all about developing land that Mother Nature intended to be a flood plain for the Trinity River.  It's all about the Belo families developing their holdings along the Trinity.

We would be a lot safer if all the money for the Trinity Project were to be diverted to New Orleans.  God makes better river routes than the Corps of Engineers.

sb