New Orleans' Rebuilt Levees "Riddled With Flaws"

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New Orleans' Rebuilt Levees "Riddled With Flaws" 06 May 2007 Almost a year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers declared that it had restored New Orleans' levees and floodwalls to pre-Hurricane Katrina strength. But the system is actually riddled with flaws, and a storm even weaker than Katrina could breach the levees if it hit this year, say leading experts who have investigated the system... During a recent inspection of the levee system with National Geographic magazine, engineering professor Bob Bea of the University of California, Berkeley, found multiple weak spots...

The most serious flaws turned up in the rebuilt levees along the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet ship channel. The channel's levees had failed in more than 20 places when Katrina's storm surge pounded them, leading to devastating flooding in the Louisiana city's Lower Ninth Ward and in St. Bernard Parish, which borders the city to the southeast. Bea found several areas where rainstorms have already eroded the newly rebuilt levees, particularly where they consist of a core of sandy and muddy soils topped with a cap of Mississippi clay. "It's like icing on the top of angel food cake," Bea said. "These levees will not be here if you put a Katrina surge against them."

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Corps Asked to Explain Pump Contract 30 Apr 2007 When the Army Corps of Engineers solicited bids for drainage pumps for New Orleans, it copied the specifications - typos and all - from the catalog of the manufacturer that ultimately won the $32 million contract, a review of documents by The Associated Press found. The pumps, supplied by Moving Water Industries Corp. of Deerfield Beach, Fla., and installed at canals before the start of the 2006 hurricane season, proved to be defective, as the AP reported in March. In a letter dated April 13, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., called on the Corps to look into how the politically connected company got the post-Hurricane Katrina contract. MWI employed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to market its pumps during the 1980s, and top MWI officials have been major contributors to the Republican Party.

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