Reply #5: Thank You, well said, but to your point about FEMA FLood insurance

[Up2Late]

I'm not to sure that people living in the "100 year flood" zones even were able to get FEMA Flood Insurance, wasn't it limited to the "25 year flood" zones?

And then, there's this:

New Orleans Levee Was Doomed; Report Blames Army Corps of Engineers

BY BOB MARSHALL
c.2005 Newhouse News Service

NEW ORLEANS -- The floodwall on New Orleans' 17th Street Canal levee was destined to fail long before it reached its maximum design load of 14 feet of water because the Army Corps of Engineers underestimated the weak soil layers 10 to 25 feet below the levee, Louisiana's forensic levee investigation team concluded in a draft copy of a report expected to be released next week.

That miscalculation was so obvious and fundamental, investigators said, they "could not fathom" how the design team of engineers from the corps, local firm Eustis Engineering and the national firm Modjeski and Masters could have missed what is being termed the costliest engineering mistake in American history.

The failure of the wall and other breaches in the city's levee system flooded much of New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore Aug. 29, prompting investigations that have raised questions about the basic design and construction of the floodwalls.

"It's simply beyond me," said Billy Prochaska, a consulting engineer in the forensic group known as Team Louisiana. "This wasn't a complicated problem. This is something the corps, Eustis, and Modjeski and Masters do all the time. Yet everyone missed it -- everyone from the local offices all the way up to Washington."

<http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/marshall1201052.html>
(more at link above)

If anyone is uncomfortable about the source, here's the same artical in the Cleavland Plain Dealer: <http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1133457373181730.xml&coll=2>