“Katrina was the closest that an environmental disaster had hit home for someone who has spent her career solving environmental problems.”
Katrina hit a good ways away from her “home”, the tragedy that struck NOLA was the result of decades of government corruption and graft that left New Orleans unable to withstand the weaker side of Katrina that hit them. I feel very sorry for those poor people, no doubt, but I feel much much sorrier for what will happen if they do get hit by the big one.
Corps of Engineers contrite for Katrina flooding
Corps vows to prepare better on first day of 2006 hurricane season
updated 4:29 p.m. CT, Thurs., June 1, 2006
NEW ORLEANS - A contrite U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took responsibility Thursday for the flooding of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina and said the levees failed because they were built in a disjointed fashion using outdated data.
“This is the first time that the Corps has had to stand up and say, ‘We’ve had a catastrophic failure,”’ Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the Corps chief, said as the agency issued a 6,000-page-plus report on the disaster on Day 1 of the new hurricane season.
The Corps said it will use the lessons it has learned to build better flood defenses.
“Words alone will not restore trust in the Corps,” Strock said, adding that the Corps is committed “to fulfilling our important responsibilities.”
The $19.7 million report includes details on the engineering and design failures that allowed the storm surge to overwhelm New Orleans’ levees and floodwalls Aug. 29.
Many of the findings and details on floodwall design, storm modeling and soil types have been released in pieces in recent months as the Corps sought to show it was being open about what went wrong. But the final report goes into greater depth.
The Corps, Strock said, has undergone a period of intense introspection and is “deeply saddened and enormously troubled by the suffering of so many.”
Katrina damaged 169 miles of the 350-mile hurricane system that protects New Orleans and was blamed for more than 1,570 deaths in Louisiana alone.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13078978/