Katrina Coverage

From Online NewsHour: Engineers Investigate New Orleans Levee Failures -- October 20, 2005 comes a report on what caused the flooding and whether the current repairs are sufficient. Three groups are involved in the report: the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Science Foundation, and the American Society of Civil Engineers. "Dr. Raymond Seed, a world famous civil engineer" wrote a scathing letter saying the repairs were insufficient, and blaming the failures on underfunding.
"the corps' work at the 17th Street Canal breach "did not appear to have improved the situation, indeed," [Seed] said, "it had likely made it more dangerous."
Sandbags dropped to support the leveeSeed cited the row of big sand bags placed "like flower pots" on top of the damaged levee, saying they "did not block the likely points of water ingress." Dr. Seed said open stone also placed on top would not be "effective in mitigating erosion of the underlying embankment." And he wrote "dauntingly similar apparent shortcomings" exist at the other four breach sites which flooded massive sections of the city.
The American Society of Civil Engineers voiced similar concerns about the 17th Street Canal, saying, "stability in the repaired areas may be deteriorating."
Responding to the criticism this week, the Army Corps said it has "already implemented the majority of the interim recommendations that pertain to the strengthening the breach sites."
But Dr. Seed worries about a bigger problem -- that years of budget cuts may have eroded the corps' ability to protect public safety.
DR. RAYMOND SEED, Civil Engineer: If you're dealing with highly complex systems and your manpower gets stretched thin enough, your ability to consistently and reliably catch all potential errors and flaws diminishes. Another way of saying that is, that if we under fund oversights and safety, we will eventually lose.
BETTY ANNE BOWSER: Is that what happened in New Orleans?
DR. RAYMOND SEED: It would appear likely that is an issue that's on the table.
BETTY ANNE BOWSER: Donald Basham, the corps chief civil engineer, strongly disagrees.
DONALD BASHAM: The Army Corps isn't going to let anything get built that isn't safe and efficient to protect the American people. We may not build as much of it but that's not a health and safety issue. What will get built though, I'm confident that we've got the expertise both within our organization and our construction companies to build infrastructure to protect the American people.
Then, PBS turns to the question whether it was design fault:
...LT. GENERAL CARL STROCK: The area where the levee breaks occurred was at its final design configuration so that's as good as it was going to get. And what does that mean? Actually we knew that it would protect from a Category 3 hurricane. In fact it has been through a number of Category 3 hurricanes. The intensity of this storm simply exceeded the design capacity of this levee.
BETTY ANNE BOWSER: Investigator Paul Kemp of Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center wasn't so sure about that. While most of the levees were overtopped, his computer models told him that water did not go over the top of the levees at the 17th Street or at the London Canals, which would mean there was another reason for the levee breaks.
So Kemp and his researchers went out into the field. They measured how high the water went with flood lines that became visible as the water receded. What they found contradicted the corps early assessments.
PAUL KEMP: We're close to the 17th Street canal. If this mark was in fact higher then the levees we would know that there was a very good chance that the levees, or that the seawalls that eventually failed had experienced overtopping, actually water had gone over the top of those levees. In fact, what we see is the mark is somewhat below the top of these levees.
BETTY ANNE BOWSER: With Kemp's finding the Army Corps and its independent investigators are now focusing on soil under the levees...
The remainder discusses how the ACE outsources its work to private contractors.