Paul Krugman begins his Friday column:
Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans. “The New Orleans hurricane scenario,” The Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, “may be the deadliest of all.” It described a potential catastrophe very much like the one now happening.
So why were New Orleans and the nation so unprepared?
They weren’t really unprepared, per se; those levees were never designed to withstand a Category 4 (or even 3) storm. That’s common knowledge. However, the funding needed to upgrade had been diverted.
Another article here.
The potential for catastrophe related to the destruction of N.O. has long been a point of discussion here along the Gulf Coast — sadly, we’re already beginning to see the ripples of a very serious problem here in Houston and it hasn’t even been a week.