It's a weak pun, but it expresses what most New Orleanians feel is at the heart of the problems caused by Katrina. How could a multibillion dollar hurricane protection system designed by the best and brightest over a period of forty years fail so miserably?

At first the US Army Corps of Engineers said it was because the storm was more intense than the Standard Project Storm they were authorized to defend against. Well this statement is wrong on so many levels it's just impossible to dissect. Read about the Six Floods to see what really happened. Over time the Corps claimed it was unafraid of the truth. I would have been happier if they said they were actively searching for the truth. As it turns out they were.

The Corps commissioned the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task force (IPET) to find out what happened. IPET reported in March, 2006 that the 17th Street Canal levee failed because the water pushed the flood wall backward (deflected) allowing water and pressure into the heart of the levee causing the failure. They claimed the failure was unanticipated but Bob Bea, a Berkley engineer and Betsy era New Orleanian, funded by the National Science Foundation held their feet to the fire by surfacing a 1986 study by the Corps itself that showed the levees would fail in just this way. Nobody at the Corps stepped up to explain why they ignored that study. They later reported that London Avenue failed in much the same way.

Finally in April, 2006 they admitted they might have made a mistake. The Head Engineer, Lt. Gen. Carl  Strock said it was the design. "We have now concluded we had problems with the design of the structure. We had hoped that wasn't the case [why?], but we recognize it is the reality."  And now what? Are any changes being made? Does anybody care?  Strock apparently did. In August he asked the Secretary of the Army for permission to retire. In May, 2007 Lt. Gen. Robert Van Antwerp is poised to take his place.

In May, 2006 the Independent Levee Investigation Team (Berkeley and other researchers under NSF grant) released their final draft report citing numerous problems within the Corps as the key issue. (cultures, communications, lack of knowledge, use of existing technology, structure, organization, management, leadership, monitoring, control, mistakes)

A few people do care and one very important group should care more:

• levees.org is trying to staying on the Corps case with continuing information and lobbying
  
• Under pressure from the public spearheaded the Citizensfor1GreaterNew Orleansby Louisiana legislators voted to create a consolidated Levee Board made up of professionals that ought to be able to keep an eye on the Corps
• John Barry is writing another book. His first Rising Tide took the Corps to task for the 1927 flood.
• Douglas Brinkley already released his book The Great Deluge and roundly criticized everyone involved.
  
• Some enterprising lawyers are trying to sue. You see, even though the Corps is immune from lawsuits for their "flood control" efforts, the MRGO was a "navigation" project. Other lawyers are pursuing other theories.
  
• The Washington Post has their opinion that the Corps is a Congressional sweetheart as host of many a pork barrel project.
  
• Congress has not investigated the Corps. They investigated the heck out of the response and FEMA but failed to show more than cursory interest in the Corps and its performance.
• When the Senate passed the 2005 Water Resources bill (in July 2006) they added an amendment that will require external peer review for Corps Projects over $20 million. Its a start, but the Senate failed to create an external agency to prioritize projects. This is important because the Corps is perennially overtasked and a favorite pork parking lot. And even worse it ended up moot as the bill did NOT emerge from confrence so did not become law.
  
• Bob Bea, Raymond Seed, Ivor vanHeerden, and all the professionals involved in investigating the levee failures are all active and critical of the Corps.