"Off the cuff engineering"

Now there's a phrase that inspires confidence.

"This is a very unique situation in that we have to come up with the kind of the off-the-cuff engineering solution to close the end of a tunnel in the middle of downtown New Orleans, and there's a lot of underground facilities that we have to consider to make sure we don't make anything worse,"  said Mark Jernigan, director of the Department of Public Works.

Lots of complicated systems to consider. They don't fully understand the precise cause of the collapse. But the repair is a rush job because there's all sorts of doings about to be transpiring. 

The foot of Canal Street is at the cusp of a renaissance. Four Seasons is expected to move into a renovated World Trade Center. The ferry terminal got $15 million in federal grants for a major makeover. City planners are chewing pencil ends as they decide how to rework an admittedly convoluted traffic pattern around Harrah's.

The hole shouldn't impact any of those plans, Jernigan said.

"This is going to be a very fast-paced, evolving project, and things are going to happen pretty much every day once we start working," he said.

 This doesn't necessarily mean something bad.  But it's... well it's something to think about.