So in case you haven't been following this lately. The cause of levee failure was that they were badly designed and constructed by the Army Corp of Engineers. Today it comes out that 2 days before Katrina hit New Orleans, Homeland Security agencies overseen by Brown and Chertoff forecasted the possibility of a breach and included damage estimates. Apparently due to the design flaws they probably couldn't have prevented the breaches but they most certainly could have improved FEMA's anemic response.
Now why this is such a big deal I don't know. I heard media warnings that the levee might break before the storm hit. It's not like people didn't say this before every big storm that hit New Orleans. I already knew that Bush's statement that no one could have predicted the failure was wrong.
1 comment:
Yeah...the levee pilings were short. Strikes me as run of the mill construction shenanigans.
Well, it bothers me more that, post-Katrina, FEMA is still probably a practically useless government agency....and the thought of how many other agencies are similarly useless and headed by political appointees selected for their donations, support, and contributions to Bush election rather than abilities.
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