Shake & Bake

If the upcomming 2006 hurricane season doesn't have south Louisianans nervous enough, geologists are saying that a geologic fault runs through New Orleans East.

The study, published in the April edition of the Geological Society of America's Geology journal, charts a major fault it says runs through eastern New Orleans.

It also argues that the fault's downward movement "set the stage for the devastation of Hurricane Katrina by lowering elevations of the land and surrounding levee defenses."

I have a first-hand professional experience with subsidence in NO East. While doing construction documents on a small building in the east, I called the city to establish the required base flood elevation so that the proper slab elevation could be determined.

During the process of construction, the surveyor calculated that the site was four inches lower than what was shown on the survey the team had been working on. Fortunately the cost of an additional four inches of fill was minimal.

Unfortunately I don't think that a little more dirt will solve this problem.