The Army Corps of (Civil) Engineers

Posted on September 6, 2005 by Arthur

Mind the title: I’m a bit confused about the Army Corps of Engineers. Their Mission: "to provide quality, responsive engineering services to the nation".

Clearly, this is a part of the military that is in charge of the civil works that are to protect the US homeland of extreme weather conditions. Why military, I wonder? For example, if a disaster strikes Holland (god forbid), the Dutch military will conduct ‘life saving missions’, but they are generally lead (and managed) by specialists and civil engineers from the Department of Interior and Traffic and Water Management.

I guess, no matter how you look at the difference in approach, in both cases, it will be still the government that’s in charge at the end. It’s still confusing, though.

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3 Responses to The Army Corps of (Civil) Engineers

  1. alfons hoogervorst says:
    September 7, 2005 at 4:12 pm AST

    The corps is highly regarded by the famous Delft university. There was ofcourse criticism: The American corps and engineers think a chance of 1/200 to be pretty safe – where in Holland the civil engineers think a chance of 1/1000 of failure of levees to be safe.
    Some Dutch engineers also pointed out that just throwing bags of sand into the rescue might endanger the affected levees. Most of them recommended sinking caissons and then filling those up.
    There was also minor criticism about the pumps being dependent on electrical engines.

  2. Arthur says:
    September 7, 2005 at 7:05 pm AST

    Some Dutch engineers also pointed out that just throwing bags of sand into the rescue might endanger the affected levees.

    Yeah, I was surprised to see those bags too.

  3. Arthur says:
    September 7, 2005 at 7:48 pm AST

    For the interested (Alas, Dutch only).

    Also surprised that the American market is truly protectionist. I quote (and roughly translated from article):

    Het onderzoeksinstituut in Delft, bekend om zijn toegepast wetenschappelijk onderzoek, denkt vooral een rol te kunnen spelen bij de advisering van de adviseurs; zelf optreden als consultant is moeilijk, zo niet onmogelijk. “Daarin is de Amerikaanse markt nogal protectionistisch, zegt De Vriend.

    The research institute Delf, famous for its (applied) technological research, thinks it may be able to take part in recommending advisers: playing a more active role is hard or even impossible: ‘The American market is rather protectionist and closed’, says De Vriend’

    Also interesting to see is how the Dutch engineers (as you say) think there should be a national plan to protect those coasts.

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