Well, Here's My Guess
He Who Needs No Links points us to "17th Street Canal levee was doomed", which states that the forensic levee investigators in New Orleans
..."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.[...]
Investigators have been puzzled by the corps' design since it was made public in news reports. They said it was obvious the weak soils in the former swampland upon which the canal and levee were built clearly called for sheet piles driven much deeper than the canal bottom. It was not a challenging engineering problem, investigators said.
The design for the $20 million levee specified 17.5-foot sheet pilings which, according to the investigators' calculations, was inadequate. And ground sonar has proven that the pilings were actually only 10 feet deep, which, obviously, was even less adequate.
Given the nature of the Louisiana political machine, it would probably be wise to examine what was specified for the project, how much it cost to build what was specified...and then compare it to what was actually built, and how much that should have cost.
To locate the difference between those two amounts, examine the linings of certain pockets.
