From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:
The floodwall on the 17th Street Canal levee was destined to fail long before it reached its maximum design load of 14 feet of water because the Army Corps of Engineers underestimated the weak soil layers 10 to 25 feet below the levee, the state’s forensic levee investigation team concluded in a report to be released this week.
That miscalculation was so obvious and fundamental, investigators said, they “could not fathom” how the design team of engineers from the corps, local firm Eustis Engineering and the national firm Modjeski and Masters could have missed what is being termed the costliest engineering mistake in American history.
As this AP report indicates, the Army Corps of Engineers signed off on the flawed design plans in 1993. I’m not sure how he did it, but it’s becoming clear that President Bush traveled backwards through time and approved those plans himself. The only other explanation is that Bush isn’t personally responsible for the flooding of New Orleans, a proposition so ludicrous that I only mention it to demonstrate the strength of my GOP time-machine hypothesis.
And Howard Kurtz wonders why the media have lost interest in Katrina.