“Everybody anticipated the breach of the levee, Mr. President,”
Mary Landrieu
“I heard from a reliable source who saw a 25-foot-deep crater under the levee breach. It may have been blown up to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry.”
Louis Farrakhan
“We're doing repairs on the breaches, but there are many, many, many miles of levee that we don't have any idea of.”
Ivor van Heerden
“This is not a new levee breach up there. It's just that the old one hasn't been repaired.”
Bob Benjamin
“The river goes through New Orleans like an elevated highway. ...Among the five hundred miles of levee deficiencies now calling for attention along the Mississippi River, the most serious happen to be in New Orleans...the levees tend to sink as well. They press down on the muck beneath them and squirt materials out to the sides...The guide levees, ring levees, spillways and floodways that dangle and swing from Old River are here because people, against odds, willed them to be here.”
John McPhee
“The levee system on the American River is not going to be stressed by this particular storm.”
Jeff McCracken
“there would be overflow from the levee, maybe a small break in the levee. The collapse of a significant portion of the levee leading to the very fast flooding of the city was not envisioned.”
Michael Chertoff
