More unheeded warnings revealed

Engineers: 1985 Test Predicted Levee Break:

Scientists working on an independent study of a floodwall that collapsed during Hurricane Katrina said Monday that a government test 21 years ago predicted the wall could fail.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' built a levee and floodwall system to test a design similar to the 17th Street Canal in 1985, which "indicated that failure was imminent," according to a statement from Raymond B. Seed and Robert G. Bea, in charge of the National Science Foundation's Independent Levee Investigation Team.

"Not only did they have that in their repertoire of information, they failed to use it, as best we can tell," Seed said in a telephone interview from the University of California, Berkeley.

[..]

"The Corps should not claim that the weak foundation soil strata at the 17th Street canal breach site were unexpected," the scientists' statement said.

This appears to be yet another in a long line of warnings that went unheeded.

As mentioned here at Facing South back in December, NBC news uncovered documents related to a 1998 lawsuit between the Corps of Engineers and a contractor expressing concerns that that the levees were not built to specifications, noting the weakness of the soil and the substandard materials used in construction.

And don't forget FEMA's 2004 Hurricane Pam exercise, which predicted the flooding and the resulting human tragedy.