The Washington Post
Builders suspected of deceit on levees
POSSIBLE NEW REASON FOR SOME NEW ORLEANS FLOODING

By Joby Warrick And Spencer S. Hsu
November 3, 2005

WASHINGTON - Investigators yesterday added a possible new explanation for some of the flooding that devastated New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina: deliberate misconduct by contractors who may have skimped on construction materials in building the city's floodwalls and levees.

Experts investigating the cause of the flooding have received at least a dozen allegations of serious cheating by builders and possibly others involved in levee construction in the past 15 years, two investigators said in testimony before a Senate panel. They said these were potentially criminal acts that may well have contributed to the collapse of the city's flood-control system on Aug. 29.

The list of alleged misdeeds includes the use of weak, poorly compacted soils in levee construction and deliberate skimping on steel pilings used to anchor floodwalls to the ground.

"What we have right now are stories of malfeasance and some field evidence that seems to correlate with those stories," said Raymond B. Seed, leader of one of three independent teams of experts investigating why the levees failed. Seed, an engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley, said it is not clear how big a role such acts ultimately played in the failure of the levees.

The reports emerged from one of two Senate hearings yesterday to examine why New Orleans' levee system failed so spectacularly, and how it might be rebuilt to prevent catastrophic flooding when the next hurricane hits.

Most of the devastation caused by Katrina was inflicted not by high winds, but by massive flooding that resulted when the city's levees breached. Four major breaches and dozens of smaller ones occurred on the morning of Aug. 29, sending water surging across 80 percent of the city and swamping an estimated 100,000 homes. About 1,000 people died.

The levees were designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and built primarily by contractors hired by the Corps.

Leaders of the three teams yesterday presented preliminary findings of their two-month investigation to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee. In recent weeks, findings by the independent investigators have pointed increasingly to human error -- flaws in design, construction, or both -- as a likely culprit in the breaches of two key floodwalls along Lake Pontchartrain.

Although Army Corps officials initially suggested that the 17th Street and London Avenue canals were simply overwhelmed by Katrina's storm surge, the findings confirmed that the two floodwalls were never overtopped by rising waters. Instead, the concrete walls toppled when their earthen foundations weakened and gave way.

"Failure of the 17th Street and London Avenue canals was due to a design that did not take into account the very weak nature of the soils, " Ivor Van Heerden, an engineering professor and leader of the Louisiana team, said in prepared testimony.

"Much of the flooding of New Orleans was due to man's follies," he said. "Not to have given the residents the security of proper levees is inexcusable."

Brown seemed detached

Even as subordinates warned him that the flooding of New Orleans was a matter of life or death, Michael Brown, the now-dismissed head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, remained strangely detached from the crisis, e-mails made public yesterday show.

He mused about his future, joked about a new shirt and wondered how he looked on TV.

On Aug. 31, two days after the storm flooded the city, a FEMA regional director sent Brown an urgent e-mail about patients dying "within hours," a lack of food and water, hundreds of rescues and a situation "past critical."

Brown's response? "Thanks for update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?"

Members of Congress said the e-mails show that Brown was not focused on the rescue and relief efforts he was supposedly leading.

The e-mails "reveal that Mr. Brown made few decisions and seemed out of touch," said Rep. Charlie Melancon, a Louisiana Democrat who pushed for the e-mails' release. "They depict a leader who seemed overwhelmed."

The e-mails indicate that Brown had intended to leave the FEMA job before Katrina hit. In one dated Sept. 2 he tells a colleague of his plans: "Last hurrah was supposed to have been Labor Day. I'm trapped now, please rescue me."