Here is an e-mail from my “floodwall guy” regarding that Post story Cliff mentioned earlier:

Rich, the article confirms some of the things we spoke about almost two weeks ago. Funding is not the issue in any fashion. I am waiting for the Daily K(ooks)os folks to issue a retraction. The scandal may well center on the contractor(s) who did the 17th Street Canal work and London Avenue work which was done from about 1999/2000 to the early in 2005. With all of the levee board cronies I fear that is the issue rather than Army Corps negligence or incompetence. If those breaches did not occur, Hurricane Katrina’s damage would have been similar to Hurricane Betsy in 1965 — severe damage and flooding in Saint Bernard and the Lower Ninth Ward and other low lying areas of the City of New Orleans, (The one exception to his was Plaquemine Parish which was destroyed on the east bank in Katrina due to the category 4 winds and storm surge) and Mississippi’s destruction would be the main story.

ME: Here was my column last week on this topic. And here is a key quote from Bob Livingston from the Post story:

Former representative Bob Livingston (R-La.), who helped lead the charge for Corps projects in Louisiana when he chaired the House Appropriations Committee, noted that the earthen levees along Lake Pontchartrain had all held, while the concrete floodwalls had failed. He was especially concerned about the 17th Street barrier, saying it “shouldn’t have broken.”
“I don’t know if it’s bad construction or bad design, but whoever the contractor is has a problem,” said Livingston, now a lobbyist on Capitol Hill.