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On the 15 month anniversary of the worst engineering failure in US history, the American Society of Civil Engineers released their final report reviewing the work by the US Army Corps of Engineers’ Interagency Performance Evaluation Taskforce (IPET).

The following paragraph comes from Chapter 9 on “Re-evaluating and Fixing the Hurricane Protection System” (highlighting is mine).

“The first line of defense in the hurricane protection system for New Orleans includes levees and floodwalls to hold back the high water from storm surge, yet it failed catastrophically at over 50 places during Hurricane Katrina. There was no second line of defense other than perhaps to some extent, the pump stations.

Not only did the hurricane protection system have many weak links – in the form of penetrations, low points and gaps, – but it lacked “redundancy.” If one component failed, there was no back up component or strategy to take its place to reduce the damage.  Internal levees were not used as much as they could have been to isolate various sub-sections of the city and prevent floodwaters from spreading. The pump stations, which might have removed water from the city more quickly, were not designed to function in a major hurricane or mitigate flooding if the levees were over topped or breached. The “system” was not a system.”

The ASCE meticulously and accurately describes the mechanical and engineering failures but does not identify who made what decisions and when those decisions were made.

The responsibility for the design and construction of the flood protection system belongs to the US Army Corps of Engineers who receive their marching orders from Congress. Be it the Corps or be it Congress, the responsibility for the metro New Orleans flood lies at the feet of the federal government.

Levees.Org seeks to educate our nation’s citizens of the facts surrounding the metro New Orleans flood. Getting the truth about the New Orleans levee failures in front of the American people will create a much better environment to secure the citizens of New Orleans and south Louisiana the assistance they need and deserve — and will continue to need and deserve in the decade ahead.

Sandy Rosenthal
Founder