Expert implies wall is a no-deal brain-dead idea

Amy Patrick's professional opinion counts, as she posted on FB. The below is posted with her permission.

She is a court expert on walls as Trump proposes. She believes that it will be costly, environmentally prohibitive, and very ineffective.

Not one Trump here will be able to rebut her.


Amy Patrick
January 8 at 9:52 PM
Howdy.

To recap: I’m a licensed structural and civil engineer with a MS in structural engineering from the top program in the nation and over a decade of experience on high-performance projects, and particularly of cleaning up design disasters where the factors weren’t properly accounted for, and I’m an adjunct professor of structural analysis and design at UH-Downtown. I have previously been deposed as an expert witness in matters regarding proper construction of walls and the various factors associated therein, and my testimony has passed Daubert.

Am I a wall expert? I am. I am literally a court-accepted expert on walls.

Structurally and civil engineering-wise, the border wall is not a feasible project. Trump did not hire engineers to design the thing. He solicited bids from contractors, not engineers. This means it’s not been designed by professionals. It’s a disaster of numerous types waiting to happen.

What disasters?

Off the top of my head...
1) It will mess with our ability to drain land in flash flooding. Anything impeding the ability of water to get where it needs to go (doesn’t matter if there are holes in the wall or whatever) is going to dramatically increase the risk of flooding.
2) Messes with all kind of stuff ecologically. For all other projects, we have to do an Environmental Site Assessment, which is arduous. They’re either planning to circumvent all this, or they haven’t accounted for it yet, because that’s part of the design process, and this thing hasn’t been designed.
3) The prototypes they came up with are nearly impossible to build or don’t actually do the job. This article explains more:

https://www.google.com/…/mobile.engineering.…/amp/17599.html

And so on.

The estimates provided for the cost are arrived at unreasonably. You can look for yourself at the two-year-old estimate that you see everyone citing.

http://fronterasdesk.org/…/Bernstein-%20The%20Trump%20Wall.…

It does not account for rework, complexities beyond the prototype design, factors to prevent flood and environmental hazard creation, engineering redesign... It’s going to be higher than $50bn. The contractors will hit the government with near CONSTANT change orders. “Cost overrun” will be the name of the game. It will not be completed in Trump’s lifetime.

I’m a structural forensicist, which means I’m called in when things go wrong. This is a project that WILL go wrong. When projects go wrong, the original estimates are just *obliterated*. And when that happens, good luck getting it fixed, because there aren’t that many forensicists out there to right the ship, particularly not that are willing to work on a border wall project— a large quotient of us are immigrants, and besides, we can’t afford to bid on jobs that are this political. We’re small firms, and we’re already busy, and we don’t gamble our reputations on political footballs. So you’d end up with a revolving door of contractors making a giant, uncoordinated muddle of things, and it’d generally be a mess. Good money after bad. The GAO agrees with me.

And it won’t be effective. I could, right now, purchase a 32 foot extension ladder and weld a cheap custom saddle for the top of the proposed wall so that I can get over it. I don’t know who they talked to about the wall design and its efficacy, but it sure as heck wasn’t anybody with any engineering imagination.

Another thing: we are not far from the day where inexpensive drones will be able to pick up and carry someone. This will happen in the next ten years, and it’s folly to think that the coyotes who ferry people over the border won’t purchase or create them. They’re low enough, quiet enough, and small enough to quickly zip people over any wall we could build undetected with our current monitoring setup.

Let’s have border security, by all means, but let’s be smart about it. This is not smart. It’s not effective. It’s NOT cheap. The returns will be diminishing as technology advances, too. This is a ridiculous idea that will never be successfully executed and, as such, would be a monumental waste of money. ‍♀️

This is set to public. Have a blast sharing it.

 

You started with the word 'expert'. Bit of an errror. That tends to lead to instant dismissal in today's post-truth society.

 

She is "literally a court-accepted expert on walls."

She lives in the real world, not the pretend world of Trumpers.

 

But post-truthers see more educated as more biased. Its only the uneducated that can be trusted, making Trump god-like.

 

Meanwhile the people that actually work there and keep the records say she's full of crap. Expert in this case equals paid political hack of the dc variety.

 

Funny, considering the metal bollard wall Trumps proposing already exists in areas and has had no issues.

The real people who have to fix engineering mistakes are the people putting their concoction together and bring engineering theory into real world practice. Aka Builders, metal, workers, machinists, technicians etc.

 

You forgot an argument. Is it in the post?

 

No one says that about her, just about you.

 

Sorry I live on SS. And some one certainly just did. And again I will defer to the people on the scene on the border who say that barriers and walls reduce the rate of incursion.

 

I'll bet I could figure out a way to get a package of drugs across the border if I had an accomplice on the other side...I'll bet I could figure out a way to saw my way through the border in less than one night. I'll bet there are people who smuggle for a living that could figure this out too.

 

You can't post anything to rebut the OP, just your opinion.

 

I agree with most of what she wrote except the part about contractors not hiring engineers. That's just dumb.

 

where was she when chuck and nance proposed a wall to stop illegal aliens from flooding our country?

 

Immaterial comment by chingler. If she was around, chuck and nance did not listen to her. Their bad.

 

See you've already demonstrated that the wall serves it's purpose. which is to delay.

 

The administration accepted bids from contractors who use engineers to design their offerings. Several companies were given contracts to create prototypes. The linked article includes requirements according to the Washington Post. Testing is happening now so there isn't a specific design for Ms. Patrick to address. I'm not questioning Ms. Patrick's credentials but suggesting that employing a contractor precludes professional engineering design to meet the required specifications, is ridiculous.

Part of any civil engineering design of this magnitude includes flood control and drainage management.

Ms. Patrick is undoubtedly wrong about there being a lack of professional engineering for this project. Every engineering firm that ever built a road includes compliance with all environmental requirements as a matter of course. To suggest that this project would not include that basic requirement is at best unfounded.

That is the reason for an early step being prototyping. If the prototypes don't meet the requirement they will be rejected and a new set of options will be created, until some firm comes up with a design that does meet all the requirements.

This is the nature of government. Has there ever been a major project that didn't exceed budget? If that was a valid argument that would effectively stop a government project, the military would still be using 19th century weapons and we wouldn't have any public roads or buildings. In short, I agree. Whatever the estimated cost, a doubling or tripling of it should be assumed.

Again, as far as the cost and efficiency of such a project, cost overruns are an inevitable consequence of the "Cluster Foxtrot" that is the nature of government projects. To the question of engineers that will be called in when things go wrong, few firms would refuse to take the bales of money to be made working on any government project(s). Government is already the largest customer for private civil engineering firms. There is absolutely no reason to think any firm would turn down the opportunity to consult on this or any government project.

This could potentially be true for the current crop of prototypes but its impossible to say that for the final design when it is chosen. To think there won't be significant counter measures built into the wall is a true lack of engineering imagination. How would your extension ladder and cheap saddle work if the wall is topped with a nice little forest of concertina wire?

Technology will certainly be a factor in maintaining the border wall but if you assume that immigrants will have technology but the border patrol won't counter it is again, a deficit of imagination. In regard to the specific example of inexpensive drones, I would counter with the possibility of directional EMP to knock down the drones or basic tracking technology to allow border patrol agents to be in place where ever a drone lands.

Again, we're talking about government. Nothing it does is ever smart, effective or cheap. A few of the questions I have are:
In regard to any other government boondoggle, how does this one compare? Aircraft carriers cost 12 or 15 billion a pop, not counting the aircraft. The Obamacare website cost a couple of billion, how comparatively smart, effective or cheap was that? If other government projects aren't smart, effective or cheap, can we shut them down too?

I'm not particularly partial to a border wall but if the government is going to spend tens of billions of dollars for border security what I'd want to see is the creative alternatives Ms. Patrick or any other wall naysayer can come up with that would be smarter, more effective and cheaper.

 

The only problem is, being an expert doesn’t mean anything to fear mongerers . The entire universe of major corporations , research facilities, universities and countries believe in AGW, Trump and his followers dismiss that with a wave if the hand.
Dismissing ligit arguments against a wall is easy stuff for them .
They won’t be changed. But, It’s just as entertaining to watch a dog chase his own tail as read a Humper in denial.

 

Fencer's rebuttal got flattened by Ms. Patricks's comments. No amount of misconstruction by you, Fencer, changes her overpowering smashing of the Trump myth that "we need a wall." We need good border security, and the wall is not it.

 

Just what makes someone who is an expert in building walls an expert in border security. Thats like saying an aircraft structural engineer knows everything there is to know about being a pilot. Pretty weak resource for advocating a non wall policy.

 

I worked in the aerospace industry for quite a few years. I never considered myself an expert, but what she said is contrary to the aerospace industry practices. When the government asks for a bid on an aircraft or spacecraft, they do not go to engineers. They request bids from contractors. The contractors in turn provide proposals based on engineering designs prepared by engineers.. I doubt that those prototype walls had no engineering input as Amy Patrick has suggested.

 

When contractors submit proposals if this type , it’s on existing designs, not on prototypes. If a firm is in line for a multi billion dollar bids they’re going to submit something they have built many times over if it’s basic construction. For one thing, manufacturing costs are pretty much set in previously made products. These are not prototype airplanes. They are basic functional structures they’ve built many times before. Niether are they going to use a hardened steel never used before....the price would be astronomical. Surely you can built impenetrable structures......but only for the first mile of your wall proposal.

 

Get back to us when you have a real expert opinion on border security not some expert on public restrooms.

 

Wow, I suppose you have the same opinion if that was the consensus of researchers firm MIT ? How about every facility dealing with these types of construction. At what point do Trump supporters believe real experts not instead of Charlatans. Well, if you can’t believe all the experts in one area, you probably can’t believe the experts in any. Name your expert sources.

 

It will still be a contractor who makes the bid whether it is an old design or a new design. She is acting like a contractor submitting the design is wrong. It is not wrong. It is standard practice. The government rarely deals directly with the engineer.

 

I would say the border patrol agents who are at the border watching how barriers do work.