While most people familiar with the area will agree with you, the statement is technically correct as written.
In the image, east is down, and from the lower edge of the photograph to the closest point of the London Canal is roughly 4800 feet.
The image used comes from NOAA, available here:
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/090E30A_KATRINA.HTM
The sequence of aerial images was captured such that each image overlapped the previous one by approximately 50%. In other words, moving from one photograph to an entirely new area immediately adjacent to the original view requires jumping over the next image in sequence.
In downloading these images for analysis, I used image 24425546 as baseline for the entrance for the London Canal. This is ambiguous as several images cover that area, but for clarity I designated that one as a reference point.
The next image west of there, 24425551 includes most of the area shown in the above image, but it is not the one I used. I jumped over the redundant area and used the second image west of 24425546 for this report, number 24425556.
To allow the display of greater detail, only part of image 24425556 was used. These are large, high resolution aerial images, measuring 4096 by 4096 pixels, while the referenced image in this report is no more than 1200 x 800 pixels. In looking at the small section of the image as displayed here, it would be difficult to believe that the next image fully displaced to the east would include the London Canal, but it does.
Regardless of technical accuracy, your point has merit. As displayed, the description of the image could raise confusion, and should have been worded better.
Thanks for pointing this out.
That part of Lake Vista wasn't flooded. The lakefront levee didn't fail and the damage was on the exposed lake side of the levee. I don't see what this has to say about the breaks along either the 17th St. or London Ave. canals.
The highest levee elevation in this photo is situated where all the arrows point, not at the lower seawall that lies between the road (Lakeshore Dr) and the lake. The seawall is outside the floodgates.
I keep coming back to the fact that neither the Orleans Avenue Canal nor Bayou St. John failed. These 2 are between 17th St and London Av, so what was different? The floodgates.
I'm the farthest thing from an engineer, but it seems like neither of these canals would have failed during the surge from the lake if they had been equipped with floodgates similar to the ones on either side of Lake Vista.