This is how Bush & Co. will handle the Brownie video

[question everything]

From a WSJ editorial:

The (AP) reporter implies that Mr. Bush lied when he said after the storm that nobody had anticipated "the breach of the levees." This is supposed to be contradicted by the video footage of a pre-landfall briefing in which the National Hurricane Center told the President of the possibility that "the levees will be topped ."

But in fact the New Orleans levee system wasn't topped; it was breached, just as Mr. Bush said -- and there's a big difference between the two. The levees being topped by the storm surge would have caused damage, but arguably much less severe than what happened after the structural failure that actually occurred. And in any case, the levee breach was the result of flaws so fundamental they were beyond anyone's power to fix that close to the storm.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114134737163788188.html?mod=todays_us_opinion (subscription)

[simonm]

1. Criminal Negligence - IMPEACH NOW

:nuke:

[RagingInMiami]

2. I think the gig is up

People are not going to buy it anymore. They've seen the video and know bush is full of bullshit.

[threadkillaz]

3. Some overtopping of the levee system did occur...

...and breaches resulted, destroying 1000's of homes. Overtopping did cause some of the breaches. Other causes listed below. Overtopping is a cause, a breach is an effect.

And if over a dozen breaches were observed, that seems like a lot, if a so called "levee breach" was supposed to be a real rare event, and not anticipated.

Here's the report:

Hurricane Katrina: Why Did the Levees Fail?

Testimony of Peter Nicholson, Ph.D., P.E. Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Graduate Program Chair University of Hawaii

On behalf of the AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS

Before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs U.S. Senate November 2, 2005

"What we found in the field was very different than what we had expected, given what we had seen in the media reports. Rather than a few breaches through the floodwalls in the city caused largely by overtopping, we found literally dozens of breaches throughout the many miles of levee system. A number of different failure mechanisms were observed, including scour erosion caused by overtopping, seepage, soil failure, and piping. As geotechnical engineers, we were particularly interested to find that many of the levee problems involved significant soil-related issues."

--

"Outside New Orleans - It is important that the impact of the levee breaches outside of the city of New Orleans not be overlooked. Many sections of the system were severely tested by overtopping from a direct onslaught of the storm surge. Many portions of these levees were breached and/or severely distressed, causing severe flooding and, in many cases, complete destruction of thousands of neighborhood homes.Some of the levee sections were nearly obliterated and were observed to have been constructed of highly erodable materials"

HTML Link
http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:40pKOUSyMr8J:www.ewrinstitute.org/files/pdf/katrinalevees.pdf+number+of+breaches+katrina&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2

PDF Link
http://www.ewrinstitute.org/files/pdf/katrinalevees.pdf