Free Republic

Decades of debate failed to answer whether a little-used shipping channel east of the city would invite disaster during a major hurricane. Katrina may have settled the argument. After massive flooding killed hundreds in St. Bernard Parish, eastern New Orleans and the Lower 9th Ward, there is growing consensus that Katrina's surge was made far worse by the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a 76-mile shortcut between the city and the Gulf of Mexico. And while the shipping industry vows to protect the channel, political momentum appears increasingly in favor of St. Bernard officials who have long warned the waterway must be...

Editor's Note: An additional article by Mike Bayham, Katrina's Wrath, can be found here. For 90% of the day I have been furiously calling anyone in New Orleans-St. Bernard for information, without much success. By midnight New Orleans time, the cell phone transmitters in the area were mostly operational (with the exception of Verizon) and I was finally able to reach a member of the sheriff's office for an update. What he said sent chills down my back. Almost all of St. Bernard was destroyed by the hurricane. The crevasse in the levee system led to the flooding as did...