Why the Floods Came In

September 21st, 2005 Dan Chou's Story of the Week

Like everyone else, I’m wondering how New Orleans will be rebuilt. And an important part of that is why those flood walls couldn’t hold back the water.

At first, I didn’t give this article a second glance beyond its title. Everyone already knows that the reason they broke through was because the walls were built to handle a category 3 hurricane and not Katrina, which was a category 4.

Problem is, that may all be wrong. “But federal meteorologists say that New Orleans did not get the full brunt of the storm, because its strongest winds passed dozens of miles east of the city.” In other words, these walls during Katrina only felt 95 mph winds when they should be able to withstand winds up to 130 mph.

One factor they’re pointing to may be the height of the walls; at 11 feet tall, they are 4 feet taller than Army Corps of Engineer standards. This only makes me wonder if walls at other places are too tall as well. Government financing is also a problem, not keeping up with the growing alarm that something would be wrong.

Instead of just accepting what the government officials told everyone (that they would not be able to withstand category 4 winds), this article knows that there’s more than meets the eye. It lets its readers know where the real problems lie. Hopefully, people will push the government until the right thing is done.

Link to the Article

And We Kept Scoring

September 20th, 2005 Entries

Face painting time!

We wanted to go shirtless, but it’s not a smart thing to do at a night game. Maybe next time!

Such an artistic shot in Sun’s sunglasses.

My first Trojan football game did not disappoint. 70-17 against Arkansas, I left with a lot of good memories:

-Crowd of 90,411 and we got awesome seats, just about 5 rows behind the band. Great view… it would suck sitting all the way in the back and not being able to see anything. Even the video board would be really small.

-The refs walking up to each other to discuss something and placing their hands on each other’s butts.

-Leinart scoring a run himself when he couldn’t pass it to anyone. That ballroom dancing class is making him so graceful. People are pulling on his legs trying to tackle him and he just gives a quick flick to make a perfect pass.

-Refs making a bad call, and then almost another one. The band started playing the “Darth Vader” theme from Star Wars. That made the refs change their mind real quick.

-Being ridiculously thirsty because we were in a rush to get our faces painted and forgot to get drinks. Waiting for the lemonade guy to come, but he never came. Went out and purchased a 4 dollar coke. Best tasting coke ever. So refreshing.

-Putting about 8 stickers on Nicole’s back before she realized it… and then putting altogether 23 stickers on her back. Awesomeness!

It’s easy to have school pride when your team is so good.

Rowing with Chandler Hurts

September 20th, 2005 Entries

So this morning, I went to Lyons center to exercise, like I do every Tuesday and Thursday morning. Chandler and I have been meaning to work out together ever since that first week of school when we went swimming, but he a) never wakes up on time b) has his alarm clock set wrong or c) too many girls are surrounding him and he can’t get away from them. But this time he was actually there!

Anyway, so recently I’ve fallen in love with the Urg, otherwise known as the rowing machine. I remember playing with one in middle school and just thinking how awesome it was. So two Thursdays ago, I rowed 1000 m. Then last Tuesday, I rowed 2000 m, so I decided that I should add 500 m whenever I exercised. On Thursday I rowed 2500 m, and I planned on rowing 3000 m.

But instead of wanting to row for distance, Chandler wanted to go for time. 30 minutes. I agreed because, frankly, I didn’t remember how long it took me to row 2500 m and so 30 minutes didn’t sound too bad at all. It actually wasn’t too bad, except I had to take a small break at the 15 minutes point because my legs were just burning. And like that above picture, you can tell that I got/am getting blisters. Oh joy.