From: John Cuccia 

On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 21:24:15 -0700, Ellen K.
 wrote:

>It would have been nice to define what the design then SHOULD have been,
>based on information known at the time the design was made.  Criticizing
>after the fact is easy.

I disagree.  This appears to be an appropriate conceptual design critique,
not a detailed design analysis. Nothing this fellow mentioned was unknown
at the time and his points seem valid.

Besides, it is reasonably sure that some of the critical pieces of
"information that was known at the time" were wrong.

Go to the top of this thread for a link to an MSNBC article. They produce
documentary evidence showing that the contractor who built the floodwalls
notified the Corps of Engineers that their design soil strength assumptions
were incorrect.  That's exactly what is claimed in point 1 of this
critique.

It looks more and more like New Orleans was killed by an engineering error
which was then hidden by a bureaucracy that did not encourage people to
admit their mistakes (that is, a bureaucracy like every other on the face
of the planet).

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