Wednesday, September 21, 2005

New Orleans follow-up

More from the Washington Post today on the 'levees' and what caused the failures. Despite all the talk about the levees only being strong enough to withstand a category 3 hurricane (Katrina was category 4) the storm should not have caused a failure in the levee system. The flood-walls/levees should have held:
scientists and engineers at Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center have concluded that Katrina's surges did not come close to overtopping those barriers. That would make faulty design, inadequate construction or some combination of the two the likely cause of the breaching of the floodwalls along the 17th Street and London Avenue canals -- and the flooding of most of New Orleans.
All the bleating about under-funding is growing less and less credible.

Read this and this if you want to get some idea of the power of Katrina as it came ashore.

If you want to watch the sequel – Katrina II or Rita – check-in regularly with Brendan Loy.