Free Republic

When the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board developed a plan in 1981 to improve street drainage by dredging the 17th Street Canal to increase capacity for Pump Station No. 6, residents across the city applauded. Increasingly heavy rains were not only flooding streets, but also pushing water into homes. Action was needed. It seemed like a no-brainer. Today, forensic engineers investigating the levee breach that flooded much of city during Hurricane Katrina aren't so sure. The search for the cause of the failure keeps returning to that dredging project as the probable starting point for a series of mistakes...

When the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board developed a plan in 1981 to improve street drainage by dredging the 17th Street canal to increase capacity for Pump Station No.¤6, residents across the city applauded. Increasingly heavy rains were not only flooding streets, but pushing water into homes. Action was needed. It seemed like a no-brainer. Today forensic engineers investigating the levee breach that flooded much of city during Hurricane Katrina aren’t so sure. The search for the cause of the failure keeps returning to that dredging project as the probable starting point for a series of mistakes they believe...

New Orleans is a sea of darkness, at night in New Orleans on Friday, Nov. 18, 2005.

Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans with a double blow when it made landfall Aug. 29. First, storm surge waters from the east rapidly swamped St. Bernard Parish and eastern New Orleans before the eye of the storm had passed the city around 9 a.m. Within hours, surge waters collapsed city canal floodwalls and began to “fill the bowl,” while top officials continued to operate for a full day under the mistaken belief that the danger had passed. --Snip-- Sometime Monday morning, the 17th Street canal levee burst when storm surge waters pressed against it and possibly topped it, Corps officials...