Emergency managers prepared for a killer hurricane strike on New Orleans for years.
But they didn't plan for a failure of New Orleans' levees and flood walls, the event that transformed Katrina from a major hurricane into one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history.
A team from the American Society of Civil Engineers said Friday that its inspection found that a failure of earthen embankments caused the breaches at the 17th Street and London Avenue canals.
When those gave way, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had to scramble to find material and equipment to close the breaches as water from Lake Pontchartrain filled the city. As a result, the effort to drain the water from New Orleans was delayed for days. [Read more - WWLTV]
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