Engineering Society accused of cover-ups in Investigations of Katrina, World Trade Center

After the attack on the World Trace Center and the levee failures caused by Hurricane Katrina, the federal government paid the American Society of Civil Engineers to investigate what exactly happened and went wrong with these disasters. The professional orgainzation for engineeers who build our roads, dams and bridges have been accused of covering up designs flaws by their fellow engineers. They are accusing them of covering up engineering mistakes and not focusing attention on the need to change building standards.

An independent panel was put together to investigate the disasters. The panel is expected to issue a report about these disasters and may recommend that the society stop receiving funds from government agencies. Critic say the engineering society was wrong in their conclusions that skyscrapers cannot withstand getting hit by airplanes, like the disaster at the World Trade Center. Many accusations have been placed upon the engineering society and the Army Corps of collusion by Raymond Seed, who is a levee expert at the University of California.

In one of the published reports the World Trade Center was praised because the building held up long enough for thousands of people to escape from the building. But in this report it was said the skyscrapers were not designed to withstand airplane impacts.

Astaneh-Asi, a structural engineer and forensics expert received funds from the National Science Foundation to investigate the collapse. He questioned the fact that the makeup of the society's investigation team because the wife of the structural engineer was a part of the investigation. Astaneh-Asi called it all moral corruption and we see here where the morals and integrity of all involved have practiced poor judgment in their dealings. People were placed on the team because of their ties to the original builders to get inside information in their investigation. This is a difficult situation to assess because of all the politics involved with these castastrophies. The government and some of these engineers have a lot to answer to because they never thought about the well being and safety of the public. There should be more than investigations checking into these castastrophies because no one has shown to the public that these disaster won't ever happen in New Jersey. Someone needs to take control.