An excellent article with expert engineer report on the status of New Orleans' levees post Katrina and post Army Corps reconstruction. With hurricane season upon us this is a vivid reminder of a domestic problem that deserves attention.

This piece cites several engineering sources claiming that the reconstructed levees are inadequate. The US Army Corps of Engineers acknowledges that the work is not yet where they would like. Pretty much the only question left unanswered is why the general public is unaware of the true situation.

An almost unbelievably startling look at the deficiencies in the flood protection system for New Orleans AFTER the Army Corps of Engineers “fix” of Katrina damage. One might expect the quality of work done to correct the levies to be found surrounding a third world city. That this work was done by the Corps to shield a major American city is a disgrace.

As far as it goes, the story does an excellent job of covering another disaster in the making with short-sighted fixes and rampant corruption. What it doesn't cover is just as important: whether levees are the best way to protect the city (many experts think not), and why the levees were built in the first place with federal money but no funds for maintenance (because big land developers wanted to build expensive houses, but didn't care about them after they were sold). The same thing is happening in other areas on the great rivers of our country, from the Missouri to the Sacramento. Estimates in California are that a modest earthquake, to which the area is prone, could not only imperil millions of homes protected by aging ... More »

The problems with the story: Primary source is an expert witness in a lawsuit against the Corps of Engineers. There is a secondary source quoted as concurring. I question that. If the secondary source agrees with the primary source dump the conflicted source. So conclusion not complete agreement. The article focuses exclusively on levee systems and the construction problems, and potential corruption in the Corps of Engineers. The large issue of what is the best means of coping with floods, levees, catchment basins flood friendly construction (housing on stilts) etc are not addressed. Nor is the endemic corruption in the body Politic in Louisiana and the poor leaderships contribution to the problems addressed.

My criticism of this story is that after 8 paragraphs of criticism the articl only has one paragraph in response from the Army Corps. Also, the primary source has an obvious conflict of interest as he is serving as an expert witness in a multi-billion dollar lawsuit. This article may call into question the work done, but it clearly does not present a balance of viewpoints. Ideally, the article should have included a point by point refutation of the charges.

Story leaves impression that experts that are witnesses in lawsuits are necesarily to be believed. The story is unfair because it did not include point by point rebuttals by the Corps of Engineers. The conclusions may be correct but the slant of the story is towards corruption and incompetence.

I believe it is good journalism, I almost always trust NG. The experts they have quoted, may be a little too negative, but they did quote the corps with the one more positive view. I feel though that the negative remarks are probably the most accurate. I know so very little about this kind of information but on a TV program maybe even two years' ago, it was stated that when the Corp first built this levee system that they did not put enough money, time and thought into the planning. As I say, my knowledge is very limited but even to me steel sheet piles driven into the ground 20 feet, seems not deep enough. You could give this piece kudo's in good journalism for the fact that after reading it one might go looking for more ... More »

"Can Disaster Strike Again"??? If you answered no to this question, then, and only then would this story be illustrative. The fact that I could answer YES without even looking at the story did not bode well. The rest of the story goes on to detail how current work is inadequate while all future plans are unfeasible. The situation is dismal, but I already knew that much.