The story contains two admissions I thought significant: The Corps did not follow its own guidelines when it built the New Orleans floodwalls, and it did not test the floodwalls against storm surges that went over their tops — even though it was predicting that would happen.

The USACE is in no way obliged to accept responsibility for local or State authorities that fail to adhere to clearly defined standards that condition the CoE participation in a public project in the first place. It is inappropriate for an independent command in the military to usurp civilian authority or to prepare to do so when the legal system decides against the USACE position in open court.

Put bluntly, if legitimate legislative representatives and judges chose to ignore the USACE on matters of life and death, like the ability of levee’s to keep New Orleans from being submerged under twenty feet of water, then it is THE CIVILIAN authorities that MUST accept the consequences of doing so. The USACE does agree to assume additional responsiblities for resource management in extra-ordinary cases, but NEVER without first securing the necessary legal authority to maintain the Corps very high professional standards. The links to the USACE guidelines and related documents are in earlier posts on this subject.

Without over-hydrating a drowned horse… the Louisiana State treasurer is insisting on outside auditors to oversee Federal relief fund distribution, basically an admission of political impotence, for a reason. This does NOT suggest outsiders should take promises from Louisiana Politicians eyeballing Federal billions as being remotely sincere. Until the Country sees New Orleans and/or Louisiana convict and jail the dirty politicians responsible, we should gird ourselves for more trouble rather than naively holding expectations contrary to experience and common sense. Once burned, twice shy… as my grannie always said, and I’d suggest this is especially true of famously corrupt political machines.

Lastly. It is inexcusable folly to rebuild key national industries in a political jurisdiction that has yet to feel the wrath of the actuarials and litigators… If there was criminal liability on the part of State authorities, should Act of Nature claims be challenged? In a legal jurisdiction notorious for anti-business class action rulings, should an insurer imagine a challenged claim in THE SAME jurisdiction will receive a fair trial? Etc.