From: George Sherwood 

On Thu, 02 Mar 2006 12:33:10 +0100, Phil Payne wrote:

> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4765058.stm
>
> Video showing President George W Bush being warned on the eve of
> Hurricane Katrina that the storm could breach New Orleans' flood
> defences has emerged.

It seems to me reading the transcripts.  See
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/katrinatranscript0828partia.pdf
and
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/katrinatranscript0829partia.pdf

There is mostly talk of topping the levees and not breaching.  From one of them:

"One of the valleys here in Lake Pontchartrain, we've got on our
forecast track, if it maintains its intensity: about 12 1/2 feet of storm
surge in the lake. The big question is going to be: will that top some of
the levies? And the currrent track and the forecast we have now suggests
there will be minimal flooding in the city of New Orleans itself, but we're
-- we've always said that the storm surge model is only accurate within 20
percent.

If that track were to deviate just a little bit to the west, it would -- it
makes all the difference in the world. I do expect that there will be some
of the levies over top even out here in the western portions where the
airport is. We've got valleys that can't overtop some of the levies.

The problem we're going to have here -- remember, the winds go
counterclockwise around the center of the hurricane. So if the really
strong winds clip Lake Pontchartrain, that's going to pile some of that
water from Lake Pontchartrain over on the south side of the lake. I don't
think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the
levies will be topped or not, but that's obviously a very, very grave
concern."

This is not as clear cut as many here would like to believe.

George

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