"As they completed sections of the New Orleans area's hurricane protection system in the 1980s and '90s, Army Corps of Engineers officials assured residents the structures had been raised to standards mandated by Congress.
That, however, was mostly a legal fiction, documents and interviews with current and former corps employees show.
The corps' levees and floodwalls might have met specifications in the plans, but the engineers involved knew the measuring stick being used was out of date.
In fact, many sections of the system were a foot or more below authorized heights because the local office of the corps made a decision in 1985 not to use updated elevation values for projects then under way.
Some engineers familiar with the history of the project, such as the former head of the office's survey section, Wayne Weiser, say the decision was a planned deception that left people nprotected."
The Corpse just keeps smelling more and more rotten.
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