Most of the I-10 Freeway corridor in Louisiana was a disaster in itself before Hurricane Katrina. The road is scalloped and very difficult to drive on, especially for trucks, which use I-10 as a major distribution channel to deliver America the goods. As we repair and replace sections of I-10, bridges, levees, streets, etc we should take a look at some of these new flexible concrete materials which a 500 times more resistant to cracking, 40% lighter and could help in the bumpy road issues, which destroy equipment and cause dangerous safety issues for traffic. There have been lots of roadway tests and the new flexible concrete has withstood the challenge.
I propose some departure from previous thinking and use some of these space age type materials in the rebuilding of our new New Orleans. By using some of these new materials on a large project we may get an incredible economies of scale to assist us with costs. Now for many things this flexible concrete may not be desired, yet for other projects it will be considered to be from heaven? Another technology is inflatable concrete, which might be worthy as a back up against future levee breaks? Using flexible concrete with inflatable concrete back up we will have a system which can act more like a portable swimming pool in your back yard, able to give a little. This way when Big Overweight Katrina does a belly flop into the pool it will flex a little extra with the waves?
We need to be thinking of our advances in materials and our present period technologies, because this is not 1965 when much of the 350-mile levee system was build and re-enforced. Please think on this.
“Lance Winslow” – If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance;
