Engineers: 1985 Test Predicted Levee Break

[tuvor]

NEW ORLEANS - Scientists working on an independent study of a floodwall that collapsed during Hurricane Katrina said Monday that a government test 21 years ago predicted the wall could fail.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' built a levee and floodwall system to test a design similar to the 17th Street Canal in 1985, which "indicated that failure was imminent," according to a statement from Raymond B. Seed and Robert G. Bea, in charge of the
National Science Foundation's Independent Levee Investigation Team.

"Not only did they have that in their repertoire of information, they failed to use it, as best we can tell," Seed said in a telephone interview from the University of California, Berkeley.

Corps spokesman Wayne Stroupe said his agency knew about the 1985 test, and that he would forward the scientists' statement to a Corps official for a response.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060314/ap_on_re_us/katrina_levees

[rurallib]

1. Geez - they shoulda told shrubeenie

Then he coulda started a 20 year vacation - wait he was on vacation that week.