We begin every morning with the dulcet tones of WQXR host Jeff Spurgeon, possessor of perhaps the most amiable voice in radio. At seven A.M. we heard the hourly New York Times news blip, which mentioned the infuriating report by National Geographic that New Orleans’ levees, supposedly rebuilt by the Army Corps of Engineers to “pre-Hurricane Katrina strength,” are in fact filled with flaws that could cause them to be breached by a storm much less powerful than Katrina.

I spent several weeks in New Orleans after Katrina helping residents get online to fill out FEMA forms and attempt to get in contact with their displaced families. Since then much work has been done to rebuild the communities that were already in rough shape due to crime, poverty, and neglect from the civic and state governments. It would be a more than a disaster for such a preventable event to happen again in New Orleans—it would be a crime.

Bea found several areas where rainstorms have already eroded the newly rebuilt levees, particularly where they consist of a core of sandy and muddy soils topped with a cap of Mississippi clay. … Bea also found that decade-old gaps remain in the floodwalls lining the Orleans Avenue Canal. And hurricane-damaged sections of the walls along the London Avenue and 17th Street Canals have not been repaired or replaced.

Even more troubling, water appears to be seeping under the stout new floodwall erected along the Industrial Canal to protect the Lower Ninth Ward.

The Corps disputes the criticisms made by Nat Geo’s expert engineer, believing the levees are stronger than ever.

New Orleans’ Rebuilt Levees “Riddled With Flaws” [NationalGeographic.com]

(Photo: A photo I took near the CBD in downtown NOLA, where higher flood line marks are visible on the building.)