http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2005/September/theworld_September597.xml§ion=theworld&col=WASHINGTON - Poorly designed and built floodwalls, and not an unusually high storm surge, was responsible for the collapse of sections of the barrier designed to keep water out of New Orleans, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
The US Army Corps of Engineers, responsible for building and maintaining the earthen levees and concrete floodwalls surrounding the below-sea-level city, said that Hurricane Katrina simply overwhelmed the defenses. snip
Not so, scientists and engineers at Louisiana State University’s Hurricane Center told the Post.
“We are absolutely convinced that those floodwalls were never overtopped,” Ivor van Heerden, the Hurricane Center’s deputy director, told the Post.