The Corps has admitted they're at fault so why do a another study?
The Corps has admitted only to poor design of floodwalls on the 17th Street and London Avenue canals. They have not admitted to a litany of errors that they control. For example, levee walls in many areas were 2 feet too low, levees were not armored, levees mainly in eastern New Orleans and St. Bernard parish were filled with erodable sand instead of good clay, and numerous connective points were improperly constructed. The Corps chose the wrong standard project hurricane, therefore designing for too weak a storm and the Corps used a margin of safety appropriate for cattle, not people and their property. The Corps has not admitted that the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet played a role in the flooding by contributing to the death of buffering cypress forests and contributing to "funneling" of the storm surge into the heart of the city via the Industrial Canal.

For more information, read "Why an 8/29 Investigation?"

Didn’t the local politicians divert federal levee money into local projects?
The only entity controlling federal flood protection funds is the federal US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). This is also true for work the Corps contracted out to private industries.

If the Corps is largely to blame, why did Louisiana consolidate their levee boards?
After Hurricane Betsy in 1965, the USACE became the sole authority for the design and construction of flood protection metro New Orleans. The role of the levee boards became primarily maintenance. In time, the levee boards became a source of patronage and some state money may have been diverted to projects unrelated to flood safety; however, such diversion was not relevant to the flood protection failures. The levee failures were due to poor design and construction not to maintenance. A state constitutional amendment recently passed in Louisiana has created a technically competent regional Levee Board whose job will include checking and rechecking the Corps’ work.

Didn’t the Mayor wait until too late to issue an evacuation order?
The Governor of Louisiana evacuated 90% of the region's vulnerable population in an evacuation that was the most successful ever of its magnitude. Those who stayed could not or would not leave and it's true that the City of New Orleans lacked a comprehensive plan for them. But even a 100% evacuation would have not have altered the destruction of 200,000 houses, 81,000 businesses, 175 schools, and 6 major hospitals. Further, had the Corps of Engineers built the the flood protection system that Congress had authorized and projected to be complete by 1978, Katrina would have been just a major wind event.

Haven’t New Orleans residents known for years that this could happen?
No, because the Corps assured the city's residents that they were safe from a Standard Project Hurricane (roughly equivalent to a Cat 3 Storm). New Orleans residents did not know that the flood walls could rupture 4 feet below design specs or that the floodwalls were designed to collapse if water briefly overtopped them. On August 25, 2006, Lt Gen Carl Strock conceded that “better communication from the Corps of the risk associated with the existing levee system might have spurred more people to evacuate” in advance of Katrina.

Congress gave you $110 billion. Isn't that enough?
Actually the $110 billion went to emergency response and administration for three storms, Hurricanes Rita, Wilma and Katrina across five states, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. The allocation includes almost $30 billion for FEMA's response and Department of Defense expenses including the restoration of federal facilities. And almost $20 billion was flood insurance payouts to citizens collecting on their own private insurance claims.

Why was New Orleans built below sea level in a bowl?
New Orleans was built neither below sea level nor in a “bowl.” The original residents settled on the high ground along the Mississippi River. Later developments eventually extended to nearby Lake Pontchartrian built upon fill to bring them above the average lake level. Navigable commercial waterways extended from the lake to downtown. After 1940, the state decided to close these waterways since there was a new Industrial Canal for waterborne commerce. Once these waterways were closed, the water table was drastically lowered by the city's drainage system and some areas settled up to 8 feet due to the consolidation of the underlying organic soils. After 1965, the US Army Corps built a levee system around a much larger geographic footprint that included previous marshland and swamp. The average elevation of the city is between 1 and 2 feet below sea level. There are no residential areas of the city that are currently more than 10 feet below sea level.

Is the Lower Ninth Ward the lowest area in town?
Interestingly, the vast majority of the portion of the city we call the "Lower Ninth Ward" is actually above sea level. "Lower" referred to that portion of the Ninth Ward which was downriver from the rest of the ward. The Lower Ninth Ward is separated from the Upper Ninth Ward by the Industrial Canal.

Why is the engineering community relatively quiet about blaming the Corps for the errors that caused so much damage and deaths?
The US Army Corps of Engineers hires civilian engineers to perform much of the design development. Openly criticizing the Corps is akin to biting the hand that feeds lucrative contracts to the majority of large engineering firms. For more information on this, contact .

Why rebuild the City of New Orleans?
The Port of New Orleans is the largest in the US and the fourth largest in the world. Sixty two percent of the consumer-spending public in the United States receive their goods through the gateway at the Port. New Orleans was founded 288 years ago on high ground along the Mississippi River and 125 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico. The River's depth decreases dramatically north of the city, and so New Orleans is as far upriver as possible to accommodate large ocean going vessels. Sadly for the City, the unintended consequences of engineering decisions that benefited the entire nation greatly increased the vulnerability of the region.  Environmentalists and business interests agree on this, and luckily this is reversible and cost-feasible. The bottom line is that with proper coastal management and a robust commitment from the Corps and Congress, New Orleans can and should be rebuilt

Information on coastal erosion and its impact comes from these sources:
Tidwell, Mike, Bayou Farewell- the Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast, New York: Vintage Departures- A Division of Random House, Inc, 2003
Fischetti, Mark, Drowning New Orleans, Scientific American Magazine, October 1, 2001