Katrina was not a natural catastrophe but a man-made one

[Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl]

Please see the following YouTube news story to see what people think
about us engineers specially about Corps of Engineers and what it did in
design of levees in New Orleans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28jPUWDX_bA

Regards
"Hassan"

Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, Ph.D., P.E., Professor
UC-Berkeley

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[Alexander Bausk]

I'm sorry I'm intruding into your domestic issue, but by 'people', do you mean those acephalous YoutTube comment posters?

--

Alexander Bausk
Civil/Structural design & inspection engineer, CAD professional
http://bausk.wordpress.com
ONILAES Lab at PSACEA
Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine
Tel. +38 068 4079692
Fax. +38 0562 470263
bau...@gmail.com

[Stan Caldwell]

Professor Astaneh:

 

You are long overdue for a reality check.  Repeat after me:

 

1)

[Stan Caldwell]

Professor Astaneh:

 

You are obviously long overdue for your reality check.  Please repeat after me:

 

1)  "Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans."

 

2)  "Terrorists destroyed the WTC towers."

 

The facts are what the facts are, whether the good people in New Orleans and Berkeley like it or not. 

 

Now that the facts are clear, it might also be a good time to stop mindlessly bashing ASCE, the USACE, and Caltrans.  Your endless cheap shots have no effect except to make you look like a malcontent idiot.

 

Regards,

 

Stan R. Caldwell, P.E., SECB

Plano, Texas

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 2:44 PM, Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl <ast...@ce.berkeley.edu> wrote:

[Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl]

To: Stan R. Caldwell, P.E., SECB,
Vice Presidentand and Manager of the Structures Group
Halff Associates, Inc., 1201 North Bowser Road
Richardson, TX 75081-2275

From: Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, Ph.D., P.E.
Professor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
781 Davis Hall,
University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720-1710

Date: November 24, 2009

Subject: Your November 23, 2009 Hate Mail and Insult Directed towards me

This is to formally notify you that your posting of Nov. 23, 2009 on the
Seaint forum (redacted below) constitutes "hate mail" and personal
"insult" directed towards me and posted in a public forum for all to
read. Your posting is unlawful and has caused and will continue to cause
great harm and injury to me , my family and friends, my students, my
clients and the fine University of California, where I am a professor.
Since these postings are read throughout the world and remain on the
Internet forever, even after I pass and no longer able to defend myself
and my honor, the damage that you have caused will continue to hurt me
and my family long after even have passed away. Unless you duly and
immediately post an apology to me as well all who have read your
posting, promise not to commit such an unlawful act in the future, ask
Seaint to remove your posting and resign from being a member of this
respected forum, I will consider seeking remedy through our judicial
system for the harm and injury that you have caused. Furthermore, I will
also report this extreme violation of Canons of Code of Ethics for
Engineers issued by the National Society of Professional Engineers fro
registered Professional Engineers, such as yourself to follow, and seek
an investigation of the case.

With a copy of this to Seaint, I am also putting Seaint on notice that I
consider the officers of Seaint an accomplice to what you have done
since Seaint has not posted policy on abuse while notifying users not to
use Seaint posts in unlawful manner for hate mail and personal insult
and have not provided a mechanism for "report abuse" as is common in
forums on the internet. Unless Seaint removes your posting immediately
for abusing these pages and prevents you from abusing the forum to
commit an illegal act, I may consider taking my case against Seaint to
the judiciary as well.

For your information, here are the definitions of "hate mail" and
"insult" below.

From Wikiepedia:

*Hate mail* (as electronic <http://www.answers.com/topic/e-mail>, posted
<http://www.answers.com/topic/mail>, or otherwise) is a form of
harassment <http://www.answers.com/topic/harassment>, usually consisting
of invective and potentially intimidating or threatening comments
towards the recipient. Hate mail often contains exceptionally abusive,
foul or otherwise hurtful language.

The recipient may receive disparaging remarks concerning the subject's
ethnicity <http://www.answers.com/topic/ethnic>, sexuality
<http://www.answers.com/topic/human-sexual-behavior>, religion
<http://www.answers.com/topic/religion>, intelligence
<http://www.answers.com/topic/intelligence>, political ideology
<http://www.answers.com/topic/ideologies-of-parties>, sense of ethics
<http://www.answers.com/topic/ethics-legal-term>, or sense of aesthetics
<http://www.answers.com/topic/aesthetics>. The text of hate mail often
contains profanity <http://www.answers.com/topic/profanity>, or it may
simply contain a negative, disappropriating message.

From http://www.yourdictionary.com/insult

in·sult (in sult*′*; /for n./ in*′*sult′)

transitive verb

1. to treat or speak to with scorn, insolence, or great disrespect;
subject to treatment, a remark, etc. that hurts or is meant to
hurt the feelings or pride

=======================================================
Subject: Re: Katrina was not a natural catastrophe but a man-made one

From: Stan Caldwell <stanca...@gmail.com>
To: sea...@seaint.org

Professor Astaneh:

You are obviously ......

Regards,

Stan R. Caldwell, P.E., SECB
Plano, Texas

/=====================================
/

[extrem...@gmail.com]

Is this a joke? "Hate"? Am I missing something here?????

[Richard Calvert]

That’s a little overboard.  Slightly insulting, sure, but hate mail?

And I have to point out – what happened to freedom of speech?

 

---

[Michel Blangy]

Lighten up Francis.

[Jay Shilstone]

I don't believe for a minute that I know all the facts, but it is my
understanding that the flooding of New Orleans was caused by a great
many things, all of which acted together:

1) Katrina dumped a lot of water on New Orleans and the Mississippi
River region

2) The people of New Orleans built up the city on land that would
have been underwater, if not for the levees

3) The Corps design was probably inadequate (that is from news
accounts, not from any personal knowledge)

4) Congress wouldn't/couldn't provide enough funds to produce an
adequate levee system

5) Vegetation (namely trees) were allowed to root into the levees,
thereby damaging the stability of the levees

6) Several of the primary pumping systems failed (whether due to
inadequate maintenance or an overload situation, I don't know)

Yes, a lot of people blame the US Army Corps of Engineers (note the
word "engineers" in the name) but there is plenty of blame to go
around. Yes, Katrina WAS the precipitating factor, however, there
were a lot of factors that contributed to the flooding. Despite all
the efforts being made, I can pretty well GUARANTEE that New Orleans
will flood again at some point in its future. I can also GUARANTEE
that San Francisco and Los Angeles will be hit by a devastating
earthquake, that the Dallas/Ft. Worth downtown areas will be hit by a
major tornado, that Miami will suffer major damage from a Category 5
hurricane, and even that some day (hopefully in the far, distant
future) the Earth will be struck by a meteorite of sufficient size to
cause another ice age. So get over it!

If anyone is going to help protect us from natural disasters, it will
be engineers. Let's act like professionals, learn from the past and
move on to the future.

As a side note, I think the YouTube clip was funny in that it
appeared the New Orleans City Council missed the whole point of the
activist group and kept referring to the Katrina Flooding. Just like
it is easier to call H1N1 the "swine flu", it is easier to call the
New Orleans flooding "Katrina". Even the title of this thread misses
the point. Katrina was a hurricane, and as such it was a natural
phenomenon (unless you want to get off into conspiracy theories). The
flooding of New Orleans contained man-made components. The two things
are different. We are turning into a nation that makes life-changing
decisions based on "sound bites".

Thank you, Stan and Dr. Astaneh for BOTH your points of view.

Jay Shilstone

At 09:08 PM 11/23/2009, you wrote:
>Professor Astaneh:
>

>You are obviously long overdue for your reality check. Please repeat after
>me:
>
>1) "Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans."
>
>2) "Terrorists destroyed the WTC towers."
>
>The facts are what the facts are, whether the good people in New Orleans and
>Berkeley like it or not.
>
>Now that the facts are clear, it might also be a good time to stop
>mindlessly bashing ASCE, the USACE, and Caltrans. Your endless cheap shots
>have no effect except to make you look like a malcontent idiot.
>

>Regards,
>
>Stan R. Caldwell, P.E., SECB
>Plano, Texas
>

>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 2:44 PM, Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl <
>ast...@ce.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>
> > Please see the following YouTube news story to see what people think about
> > us engineers specially about Corps of Engineers and what it did
> in design of
> > levees in New Orleans.
> >
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28jPUWDX_bA
> >
> > Regards
> > "Hassan"
> >
> > Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, Ph.D., P.E., Professor
> > UC-Berkeley
> >
> >
>
>

******* ****** ******* ******** ******* ******* ******* ***

[John Sieszycki]

Dear Mr AA-A,

 

It seems your memory is a little bit short.

In your own previous emails (sent to public domain accessible for everyone) you described some of us (means engineers) as corrupted, incompetent, just to cite some of your own words.

It seems for me that your own insinuations, repeated many times in your own emails, may well qualify for the definitions of "hate" and "insult".

 

I followed, probably as many others, your emails and responses from some of us who take a chance to present their point of view to you and all of us.

Without any judgment about your professional abilities, it seems that your emails were full of opinions which can be qualified as "hate" and "insult" toward others. I understand that everyone can present his opinion but I do not think that the way you did it can be seen as professional.

 

I wrote it with a great regret that some inflammatory words are used in professional exchange site, where we should present our opinions about the technical issues without personal insults, even as we disagree with the others.

 

I do not think that the way you present your opinions about the other engineers can be seen by your own students as an example of civic aptitude for our future colleges. I do not think even that the kind of inflammatory language you often use in your emails can be appreciate by your own Alma Mater.

 

 

John W. Sieszycki, P.E.

Montreal, Canada 

---

From: Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl <ast...@ce.berkeley.edu>
To: sea...@seaint.org; in...@halff.com
Sent: Tue, November 24, 2009 10:33:10 AM

[Chance, Acie]

Thank you Stan.  That was the phrase I was looking for "Malcontent Idiot".

 

Acie P. Chance

-----Original Message-----
From: Stan Caldwell [mailto:stanca...@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 7:09 PM
To: sea...@seaint.org
Subject: Re: Katrina was not a natural catastrophe but a man-made one

[Drew Morris]

Let's see if I follow this.  There are posts from Berkeley complaining about all the incompetent and corrupt structural engineers that led to the fatal accident on the bridge in SF and also the failure of the tension rod.  Another post comes out from Berkeley and accuses the Corps of Engineers for the failure of the levees.  Yet when Stan Caldwell responds to the posts from Berkeley, this becomes hate mail.  If the poster from Berkeley can't stand the heat he should get out of the kitchen and stop posting with inflammatory language.  This discussion can and should be done on a mature and professional level.

[ECV...@aol.com]

Dr. Astaneh-Asi,

Thank you. It's about time the "T-Baggers-on-the-list" are shut down and expelled.

s.macie

[Glenn Otto]

s.macie,

 

That’s right, “open-minded” people can’t have dissent from those “uneducated” peasants who believe in the Constitution and freedom.  You’ve summarized yourself quite well.

 

Glenn C. Otto, P.E.

A Structural Engineer, P.C.

Virginia Beach, VA 23454

www.astructuralengineeronline.com

 

"Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say 'what should be the reward of such sacrifices?' ... If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!"

--Samuel Adams

 

From: ECV...@aol.com [mailto:ECV...@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 12:43 PM
To: sea...@seaint.org
Subject: Re: Katrina was not a natural catastrophe but a man-made one

 

Dr. Astaneh-Asi,

[Avi Sharma]

Lets cool this up and I would like all to remember that this place is
just for good technical discussion, I will not point out who started
it before but simply put things straight that If you are not impressed
with what Dr Astaneh has said in his first post, You should simply get
to the point of Discussing issues and if you don't want to be its part
then leave the topic all together. I am quite small in age compared to
all of you but please think over the issue I have raised. We should
avoid any person to person or indivisual attacks/ Response prior to
earlier frustration in this platform.

Regards
Avi Sharma

--
Avi Sharma
2nd Year
Department of Civil Engineering,
SRKNEC, India

[ECV...@aol.com]

Thank you. You've proved my point.

s.macie