US News
Army engineers take responsibility for New Orleans dam breaches
By DPA
Jun 2, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Washington - The US Army Corps of Engineers said it was responsible for breaches in the dam system that was supposed to protect New Orleans from flooding, according to local news reports Friday.

'This has been sobering for us, because it's the first time the corps has had to stand up and say we had a catastrophic failure with one of our projects,' said Lieutenant General Carl Strock, the commander of the corps, quoted in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

The admission followed the release of a 6,000-page report, which detailed failures that led to breeches in the levee system after hurricane Katrina hit the city last August, flooding most areas.

It was 'a system in name only,' the report said.

Ed Link, a professor from the University of Maryland who led the task force that produced the report, said the 40-year project to protect the city 'was funded in a piecemeal basis, and it was built in a piecemeal way.'

Link also warned that New Orleans remains vulnerable to a storm like Katrina, despite improvements to the parts of the dams that had broken. He added that undamaged parts of the levee system would also need to be overhauled to protect the city, a large part of which lies below sea level.

About half of New Orleans' residents have not returned to the city since their homes were destroyed by the flooding. More than 1,500 people were killed and billions of dollars of damage caused when hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast last August.

Newly re-elected Mayor Ray Nagin came under fire earlier this year after a report suggested that the most vulnerable areas of New Orleans should not be rebuilt. Nagin has since been adamant that reconstruction should encompass the entire city.