re: What did you learn from Katrina?

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Had the levee protection system been properly built, Katrina would have been a downed-power-line, roof damage hurricane to New Orleans rather than a cataclysm. But the levees were not properly built, which was a fact the government and its contractors knew from day one, dating back to the 1990s and before that. The lesson was that Katrina, at least for New Orleans, was a man-made disaster.

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It's a little more complicated than that.

If the levees were properly built and maintained, the flooding would have been less wide-spread, but it still would have been horrific.

You still had 25 ft plus storm surge in the MRGO and into the Intercoastal / Industrial Canal. No levees on any of those waterways were built to withstand a 25 ft surge. Not only would they all have been overtopped, but you still would have had backside scouring which could have caused some levees to fail.

But, you are talking now 3-4 ft of water in lower 9 and St. Bernard, not 8 plus feet of water. Property damage would be similar with 4 ft of water, but loss of life would have been less.

You also would have had failures in 17th Street canal as the amount of water passing through the lake into it was more than the design load. You still would have had the failures on the twin spans, etc.

No doubt properly maintained levees would have left this city in better shape, but it would still have been an insane level of disaster.

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Mike da Tigah

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That hit and runs were suddenly a big thing on local traffic reports....