UPDATED 12:51 EDT — It’s been over nine months since Hurricane
Katrina and the unprecedented devastation it left in its wake
rocked the Gulf coast. The Interagency Protection Evaluation
Task Force has taken that devastation, recreated the environment
that caused it with supercomputers and scale models and studied
it. According to IPET’s Draft Final Report, New Orleans’
protections systems were nowhere near ready for the record waves
and storm surge caused by Katrina. In a written comment, IPET
Director Dr. Ed Link stated there are three overarching
findings: - The system did not perform as a system. - The storm
exceeded design criteria, but the performance was less than the
design intent. - The flooding and the consequences of the
flooding were pervasive, but also concentrated. IPET determined
that, after 35 years structures at the Inner Harbor Navigation
Canal were more than two feet lower than their design
specifications. Other discrepancies, such as outfall canals
built one to two feet below their specifie