A levee failure might be more gradual than with a floodwall. It means you may have flooded a little slower.

If you don't install some type of substantial hurricane protection along the Gulf coast it's going to be very hard to re-assure people. There were some very sound military and economic reasons for the city to be where it was. Now the policy-makers have to decide whether those reasons are enough to keep it there.

They did not contribute to the flooding of the city.

The water does circulate out of the basin eventually. But it depends a lot on meteorological conditions, which we really don't have much control or much knowledge of, at least not here.

It's not a significant decrease but it's not rising any more. It will still take a while to get the water out of the city. It's a lot of chaos right now.

It's possible to protect New Orleans from a Category 5 hurricane. To do nothing is tantamount to negligence.

It's a right-of-way issue. Usually, there are homes right up against the canal. You have to relocate five miles of homes (to build a levee), or you can build a floodwall.

There's a possibility that we wouldn't do anything out here. That, maybe, we would just keep Category-5 protection around the city. I know that they want to do what they can to protect themselves and I certainly would encourage them to do that.

As I remember it, the worst of the storm had passed when we got word the floodwall had collapsed. It could have been when we were experiencing westerly winds in the aftermath of the storm, which would have been pushing water against it.

As I remember it the worst of the storm had passed when we got word the floodwall had collapsed. It could have been when we were experiencing westerly winds in the aftermath of the storm, which would have been pushing water against it.