You can't see it in the pictures posted here, but It really looked more obvious from some video they ran about an hour ago.
They really need to use concretee to build these levee's. I watched the FoxNews live footage, but it was looking at the flow from the backside.
Here is a picture of the repair "pre-overtopping. The top look like something other than earthen - and if the entire repair is earthen, then it'll wash down to flush is a matter of a few hours. There is lots of water going over, and plenty of volume if Lake Pontchartrain to keep flowing for hours more.
it could be a thin layer of concrete over the top of that(In your pic). I know I have seen pictures on TV where they were just pushing in dirt and rocks to repair the levee's. And I have also heard that many of the levees were earth even before Katrina. I guess we will find out later what happened.
