"It's our fault"

The Army Corps of Engineers has pretty much accepted that the New Orleans levees failed due to a design flaw.

"We have now concluded we had problems with the design of the structure," Strock told members of the subcommittee that finances corps operations. "We had hoped that wasn't the case, but we recognize it is the reality."

Experts from the National Science Foundation, the external review panel for the corps, said potential problems have been known for some time. They cited a 1986 corps study that warned of just such separations in the floodwalls.

But Strock told the panel that the corps was unaware of the potential hazard before Aug. 29, when Hurricane Katrina drove a massive surge of water against New Orleans' storm-protection system. He said the corps is evaluating all the levees to see whether they, too, could fail in the same way.

"There may be other elements in the system designed that way that may have to be addressed," Strock said.

It's almost refreshing to read of someone saying, "Yeah, we blew it". Now, some clarity regarding that 1986 study wouldn't go amiss.