Katrina Coverage

From this March 3 CNN transcript come these claims from former FEMA head Michael Brown:
- FEMA had been marginalized.
- He thinks Michael Chertoff should quit or be fired.
- He thinks Chertoff was misleading the American public about Brown appearing on TV and characterizing it as show-boating.
And, this:
MESERVE: In the transcripts of the 29th briefing, you […]

The Associated Press has issued the following voluntary confession:
WASHINGTON (AP) _ In a March 1 story, The Associated Press reported that federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees in New Orleans, citing confidential video footage of an Aug. 28 briefing among […]

Around noon on the day when Katrina hit New Orleans, Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco told the Bush administration that the levees were safe:
"We keep getting reports in some places that maybe water is coming over the levees… We heard a report unconfirmed, I think, we have not breached the levee. I think we have not […]

From this:
Engineer Manual No. 1110-2-2502 is not a publication that would normally excite interest from the general population. But in the weeks and months ahead, as New Orleans struggles to rebuild from the floods of Hurricane Katrina, Section 4 of that Army Corps of Engineers book could be scrutinized intensely by city and state officials.
The […]

This page has pictures of the measures that various countries take to protect their coastlines from being flooded, ending with the New Orleans levee system. Point taken, but it's not exactly fair to blame the Army Corps of Engineers for fault that, once again, is shared by various levels of government as well as the […]

From this:
A termite expert is questioning whether tiny, voracious Formosan termites played a role in the failure of levee walls in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
Louisiana State University entomologist Gregg Henderson said there are clear signs that the destructive insects were present, and he wants the opportunity to dig into the levees beneath the walls […]

From this:
A difference in soil boring data transferred from one chart to another may have played a key role in engineering decisions that led to the breach on the 17th Street Canal floodwall that flooded much of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, National Science Foundation investigators say.
A cross-section drawing in the project design documents shows […]

President Bush visited New Orleans yesterday in what appears to have been a visit designed to bring back tourists and conventioneers. Here's the NYT's first paragraph:
President Bush made his first trip here in three months on Thursday and declared that New Orleans was "a heck of a place to bring your family" and that it […]

The Army Corps of Engineers did a design review of the New Orleans levees in 1990. Apparently the engineers on the project thought the soil under the 17th Street Canal was stronger than it was, and one of their offices discovered this at that time:
Corps documents show the mistake of overly optimistic levee strength was […]

Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Susan Jackson responded to the news that Katrina was apparently weaker than originally reported as follows:
"In the Gulf, Katrina was a Category 5 storm, and the surge was still Category 5 when it hit the ground… It's the surge — the pressure of water against those levee walls — that's […]