So you know me well enough to call me uneducated, where in this thread did I insult your intelligence? I'm uneducated because I don't quote Limbaugh and O'Reilly every other word...ok.
Don't worry, you and the majority of my fellow Americans are grossly uneducated about the Katrina disaster - mostly due in part to the liberal press and other rabble rousers. If you want to take this comment in a negative way that is your prerogative.
However, I stand by my original statement about the Katrina disaster. I have designed many public roads, drainage systems, ponds in the US and am qualified to make the observation. 99.9% of the people in the US probably don't know that roads and drainage systems aren't designed to handle EVERY possible storm event that can come along. In fact, the typical design storms in many areas are 50 year events, although in coastal areas, 100 year event designs are used. Not only that, but only a limited amount of the infrastructure is designed for the 100 year event, such as ponds. Many times the pipes connecting the drainage system are designed for a smaller event with the assumption that if the design storm is exceeded, the water will somehow make it to the pond/retention areas. This is done for cost, pure and simple. Taxes would have to increase considerably to make every public drainage system handle the 100 year event, therefore it will never happen.
Furthermore, in addition to designing for the 100 year storm event rainfall, on coastal areas storm surge has to be accounted for. This is a hit and miss proposition at best, trying to determine the peak stage and what not. The bottom line is that the Hurricane Katrina was very close to the limit of the design of the drainage infrastructure, and is typically the case with 99% of the drainage infrastructure systems in place in even in the US, they
cannot function at full capacity because of a variety of reasons, mostly due to trash and debris lodged in the drainage infrastructure, or siltation of the pond areas which minimizes the effectiveness of the ponds - storage.
New Orleans also is an atypical case where the city was developed long before flood analysis and drainage systems were available, and has had to have retrofitted a drainage sytem.
Taken altogether, the combination of a few factors, the almost design storm(H Katrina), the drainage system operating at less than 100% capacity(the norm) and the New Orleans being located below see level(very little room for erro), and we had a disaster in the making.
To put things in perspective, Hurricane Katrina was a slightly more powerful Storm than Cyclone Nargis in Mynamar with a somewhat higher storm surge, but more actual rain fell in the Cyclone. A total of some 2500 dead and missing were caused by hurrican Katrina, whereas more than likely 130,000 plus will be the number of casulties in Myanmar. For those who want to riducule the US gov't for the Katrina disaster, I think this is quite telling. BTW, GW has nothing to do with the US Army Corp of Engineers, yet somehow he gets the blame anyway.