Articles

The assertion that the levees did not fail due to inadequate design certainly contradicts much of what we have heard here in New Orleans.

Some examples:

The Corps of Engineers in June, 2006 said that the design of breached levees was inadequate.

The COE violated its own margin of safety standards by using the standard for rural areas instead of densely populated areas in its levee design.

The depth of sheet pilings for some levees were shortened from the originally designed 50+ feet to less than 20, many suspect because of the lack of money appropriated from Congress.

Nobody seems to notice the elephant in the room: why are there multiple canals through the center of the city going nowhere? Why not just cap off these canals at the lake?

These canals may have provided a function in the past, but they are now much more dangerous than helpful.

The one canal from the lake to the river could be shored up if necessary.

The whole article suggests that it will be difficult and costly to achieve "storm protection." Obviously, many of the short comings of the current system come down to funding. Improving the levees to the point where they can withstand the century-storms would be much more costly than what currently exists. That does raise the question, again, whether such a big population center should be at this particular location, if it is so difficult to protect it.

A big part of the problem with the New Orleans levee system has to be attributed to the US federal government. Flood and storm protection in New Orleans is fundamentally a local issue--yet the levees were built and maintained by a federal agency based a thousand miles away. Doing anything to the levees required state, local, and federal involvement--a recipe for failure. Now we are making this condition worse because of all federal aid pouring in to rebuild New Orleans. If we really wanted to help the city, maybe we can make all the residents exempt from federal income tax. Keep the money local, and let them fix their own problems.