[hummingbird]

The levee that broke was reinforced in 1998 by the Army corps of engineers and was not scheduled for any further repairs.

I thought about that levee "breeching" in spite of its recent repairs and that led me to wonder if 1)people who didn't evacuate the area were overconfident of the levee and 2)if there was substandard construction with the accompanying requisite graft & corruption. Skim a little, fudge a little and count on being long out of office and way out of town before a level 4 or 5 hurricane hits.

Truly hate to be so cynical about my fellow man but every minute exposes more and more corruption. So many lives lost, so much property and land damage, and people traumatized for years...maybe life. If it takes cynicism to keep from crawling into fetal position over this heartbreaking event, I guess cynicism it is.

[Eva]

My husband has been saying that NOLA is like a third world country for years. Yet, he's volunteered to go help with the clean up.

The fact is that preparing the levee to withstand a cat three was a gamble. NOLA lost. Who profited, who knows?

[syriacus]

that led me to wonder...if there was substandard construction with the accompanying requisite graft & corruption

You can almost count on it.

[shield]

Sounds to me the more this is looked into it...the levees even for a cat 3 weren't up to specs...pocketing the monies saved by under adequate materials and construction.