Report blames incomplete system for Katrina crisis

By Staff
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NEW ORLEANS, June 2 (Reuters) An incomplete system of defenses built in pieces over 40 years was responsible for the flooding that devastated New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina last year, the US Army Corps of Engineers said.

A few critical links failed in the system of earthen levees and concrete floodwalls designed to protect the city, the report said yesterday.

The region's flood protection system, built by the Corps over the past 40 years, was compromised by ''incompleteness in the system'' and inconsistent standards of construction and protection levels.

The eight-volume, 6,100-page report by the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force is one of the most extensive to date in the effort to find out what allowed storm damage to spiral out of control.

About 1,500 died in Louisiana due to Katrina, which slammed into the U.S. Gulf Coast August 29.

''It's been sobering for us, but really this is the first time that the Corps of Engineers has had to stand up and say we had a catastrophic failure of one of our projects,'' said Corps chief Lt. Gen. Carl Strock.

The Corps has repaired and improved most of the 270 km of the 565-km storm protection system that were damaged. But with many levees still functioning at pre-Katrina protection levels, the region remain vulnerable to hurricanes, Link said.

The hurricane season began June 1.

Complicating matters, a report recently published in the journal ''Nature,'' showed that New Orleans may be sinking at a faster rate than previously believed. Subsidence, or settling, has caused levees and floodwalls in many spots to drop far below their original height.

Critics say the Corps has not adequately addressed the issue in its flood-protection plans. Roy Dokka, a geologist at Louisiana State University and co-author of the ''Nature'' article, said he had not yet seen Thursday's Corp report but hoped engineers would focus on the effects of subsidence.

''Somebody who knows something about levees probably ought to be very interested in the fact that this area has been sinking at a rate of over an inch per year,'' Dokka said in a phone interview.

Reuters PDS VP0640

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