From USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-09-01-katrina-new-orleans_x.htm
Inadequate walls. Scientists and engineers knew that the flood walls and levees that hold back the Mississippi to the city's south and Lake Pontchartrain to the north would be no match for a Category 4 storm like Katrina. Three years ago, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune newspaper laid out the problems in an incisive series of articles. Last year, an emergency response exercise showed that the city's defenses would be overwhelmed even by a lesser storm. Yet those with the money or clout to respond didn't. It was as if the disaster plan was to hope nothing would happen.
Each year since 2001, the Bush administration has slashed Louisiana's requests for flood control funds. Congress did only slightly better in its final budgets. Whatever the reasons, less than 2% of the Army Corps of Engineers' $4.7 billion budget this year was set aside for three crucial New Orleans levee projects. Now it's hard to fathom why such urgent needs were such low priorities.
It will be many months before New Orleans can look toward rebuilding. When it does, the solutions most difficult to achieve, such as diverting the river to replenish coastal marshes, might turn out to be the best investments. They will require not only enormous expenditures but also political will — sacrificing short-term economic gain for long-term survival of a great city and a region critical to the whole nation.
