What were the main cause of New Orleans flooding?|103904

I know one of the main causes was the levees breaking, but that can_t be the only one.

Can someone please help me and list the main cause New Orleans was destroyed.

Katrina would have been a catastrophe even if New Orleans_ city-proper had not flooded. Realize the storm wrecked an area of almost 90000 square miles, which is larger than all of Great Britain. Much of the Mississippi coast still looks like Hiroshima after the atomic bomb.

However, the city-proper flooded because the US Army Corps of Engineers built poorly-designed flood-walls along drainage canals connected to Lake Pontchartrain. The walls failed at the height of the storm surge, with water levels almost 13 feet above sea level. That is what caused the horrific scenes you saw on TV, with people trapped on their roofs, etc.

In February of 2008, a federal judge agreed the city flooded due to negligence by the federal government (the US Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency). However, he also ruled the federal government has immunity from liability for negligence.

Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the costliest hurricane, as well as one of the five deadliest, in the history of the United States.[3] Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall. Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005, and crossed southern Florida as a moderate Category 1 hurricane, causing some deaths and flooding there before strengthening rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico. The storm weakened before making its second landfall as a Category 3 storm on the morning of Monday, August 29 in southeast Louisiana. It caused severe destruction along the Gulf coast from central Florida to Texas, much of it due to the storm surge. The most severe loss of life and property damage occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana, which flooded as the levee system catastrophically failed, in many cases hours after the storm had moved inland.[4] The federal flood protection system in New Orleans failed at more than fifty places. Nearly every levee in metro New Orleans was breached as Hurricane Katrina passed just east of the city limits. Eventually 80% of the city became flooded and also large tracts of neighboring parishes, and the floodwaters lingered for weeks.[4] At least 1,836 people lost their lives in the actual hurricane and in the subsequent floods, making it the deadliest U.S. hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane. Economist and Crisis Consultant Randall Bell, brought into the area after the levee failures, writes in his book, Real Estate Damages, _Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was the largest natural disaster in the history of the United States. Preliminary damage estimates were well in excess of $100 billion, eclipsing many times the damage wrought by Hurricane Andrew in 1992.[5]_ The storm is estimated to have been the costliest tropical cyclone in U.S. history.

The levee failures prompted investigations of their design and construction which belongs solely to the US Army Corps of Engineers as mandated in the Flood Control Act of 1965. There was also an investigation of the responses from federal, state and local governments, resulting in the resignation of Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael D. Brown. Conversely, the National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service were widely commended for accurate forecasts and abundant lead time.[6] Three years later, thousands of displaced residents in Mississippi and Louisiana were still living in trailers.
As the eye of Hurricane Katrina swept to the northeast, it subjected the city to hurricane conditions for hours. Although power failures prevented accurate measurement of wind speeds in New Orleans, there were a few measurements of hurricane-force winds. From this the NHC concluded that it is likely that much of the city experienced sustained winds of Category 1 or Category 2 strength.

Katrina_s storm surge led to 53 levee breaches in the federally built levee system protecting metro New Orleans. Failures occurred in New Orleans and surrounding communities, especially St. Bernard Parish. The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MR-GO) breached its levees in approximately 20 places, flooding much of east New Orleans, most of Saint Bernard Parish and the East Bank of Plaquemines Parish. The major levee breaches in the city included breaches at the 17th Street Canal levee, the London Avenue Canal, and the wide, navigable Industrial Canal, which left approximately 80% of the city flooded.[39]

Most of the major roads traveling into and out of the city were damaged. The only routes out of the city were the westbound Crescent City Connection and the Huey P. Long Bridge, as large portions of the I-10 Twin Span Bridge traveling eastbound towards Slidell, Louisiana had collapsed. Both the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway and the Crescent City Connection only carried emergency traffic.[40]

On August 29, at 7:40 a.m. CDT, it was reported that most of the windows on the north side of the Hyatt Regency New Orleans had been blown out, and many other high rise buildings had extensive window damage.[41] The Hyatt was the most severely damaged hotel in the city, with beds reported to be flying out of the windows. Insulation tubes were exposed as the hotel_s glass exterior was completely sheared off.
The Superdome, which was sheltering many people who had not evacuated, sustained significant damage. Two sections of the Superdome_s roof were compromised and the dome_s waterproof membrane had essentially been peeled off. Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport was closed before the storm but did not flood. On August 30, it was reopened to humanitarian and rescue operations. Limited commercial passenger service resumed at the airport on September 13 and regular carrier operations resumed in early October.[43]

Levee breaches in New Orleans also caused widespread loss of life, with over 700 bodies recovered in New Orleans by October 23, 2005.[44] Some survivors and evacuees reported seei

erm because of the hurracaine? :P
that would be the main reason i_d have thought...the reason behind everything else happening would have been because of the destruction caused from the hurricane katrina...

since New Orleans is below sea level, they use a system of levees and canals to control the water. when the levees broke, New Orleans flooded

Because New Orleans is below sea level.

A levy breach and human error, not the storm.

George Bush, according to the residents.