Rich: you are quite right to ask ‘how come it was the new, reinforced, federally funded levees that failed?’ and it is entirely plausible that the materials used were inferior. If NOLA were Naples (and you know that NOLA is ‘our Naples’) everyone would know, intuitively, that the levees were inferior because a lot of the money had been pocketed by the local pols and mafiosi. Maybe that’s worth looking into?