Engineers Probe New Orleans Levees

CNN.com, 10 Oct 2005 Hoping to prevent past mistakes during the rebuilding process, civil engineers gathered in New Orleans to determine how Hurricane Katrina breached the city's levees, flooding 80 percent of the city. The central issue they grappled with: Did Katrina overwhelm the city's flood defenses with a torrent they weren't designed to contain? Or did faulty construction or maintenance cause them to burst open at water levels well within their capacity? Read more