I'm not teasing ayone, scouts honor. After a storm like this, it takes several days for enough anecdotal evidence to build up to even begin asking the right questions. Then you start searching (meanwhile more data is coming in, so you have to keep up with that too), and the search process starts with viewing and discarding a great deal of chaff before you ever start getting to the meatier issues.
Then comes the point in time when you find the motherlode, a database, raw information, no spin included. It takes a little bit of time to spool up, to understand and organize what you've been given, and then begins the long process of hauling it in, plugging it into the big picture, and working your way around the...perimeter...of the problem.
At some point you have gained enough of the big picture to realize that you are on the downhill side of the slope, that more of the project has been completed than what remains. Then you can take a chance on predicting when you might be able to disseminate the collated data, and the conclusions drawn from it.
However, even once on the downhill slope, certain things have become obvious, and if, at that point in time, you see misconceptions being bandied around....well, you let it be known that this or that POV probably doesn't fit the data at hand, without jumping the gun and spreading false information based on a partial assessment yourself.
Given that...
The water in Lake Pontchartrain dropped very slowly. On Flood Monday, the Lake was around 5 feet above normal, which put it at 6 feet above sea level. By the time the water equalized, achieved the same levels inside the breaches as outside, the Lake had only dropped to 3 feet above normal, 4 feet above sea level.
Even though I pointedly haven't mentioned the Industrial Canal levels in this post, I will say that the description of why the water was flowing out of the 9th ward breach would greatly benefit from the inclusion of an additional body of data which hasn't really made the mainstream media yet.
For starters, take a look at post 40 from this thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1482715/posts?page=40#40
and then scan this one start to finish:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1484668/posts
The first link includes an anecdotal timeline, and the broad picture of the dynamics of the storm's hydraulics, what water moved from where to where, when. The second begins to ask the questions I'm working on answering definitively now. Since both will need to have been assimilated to utilize what is coming, and since you asked for more info, this kills two birds with one stone and gets you a jump on what is yet to come.
Oh yes, almost forgot. This whole topic is sort of like an elephant in the living room. There are a lot of people with a lot more schooling in the subject, with a lot more hands on experience with this set of levees and this flood, or with much better access to data than I have, or various combinations of the above.
I'd guess that they mostly fall into one or more of three categories.
1. People who know what went wrong but choose not to distribute this information.
2. People who have a gut feel for what happened but choose not to distribute this information.
3. People who either know or have a gut feel for what happened but who are prohibited from distributing the information.
The first two groups may have valid or less valid reasons for choosing not to distribute the info. They might be busy unwatering the city. They might not feel qualified to offer an opinion. They might be in the middle of the same process I am, not wanting to spread false information until an overall assessment has been completed.
There is at least one circumstance where the third group is...defensible, primarily reporters who know what happened but who do not have enough hard data to satisfy their managing editors, who in turn have to keep the lawyers happy.
Fortunately, I am under no such restrictions, and have no compunctions about discussing my opinions and letting the chips fall where they may. Which brings me to the critical point.
I have not claimed any "truth" yet, and I probably will not. I have presented data, and have tied that data together with my OPINION of what it means. Opinions can be wrong, and I make no guarantees, express or implied, to any person living or dead, yada, yada, yada...
I don't post raw speculation though. I know how to classify information, bit by bit as it comes in, as to relevence and credibility, and I put my logical process out where they can be examined, assessed, discussed, and then either accepted or rejected by the individual viewer.
Two conclusions then, one I may be wrong, and two, I am far from the center of those who are "in the know" on this subject. They just aren't talking for the record yet.
But I was.