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Since hurricane Katrina, Louisiana is protected by a new 133-mile federal levee system.
Coastal areas outside the system didn't fare so well in hurricane Issac.
So how did this segment hold up?
"It looks really good," pronounces the US Army Corps of Engineers' senior project manager for the St. Bernard Parish portion of the federally funded upgraded flood defenses...
The improvements, which include a 1.8-mile-long surge barrier that blocks a navigation canal that, seven years ago, funneled water into St. Bernard Parish and on into New Orleans, already have earned kudos from the likes of Gov. Bobby Jindal (R)...
Officials with the Corps of Engineers and others have estimated that if the levee system had been at pre-Katrina levels when Isaac arrived, flooding in New Orleans would have been as bad as the flooding experienced with hurricane Betsy in 1965.
Residents within the improved protective walls, flood gates, and surge barriers also have been singing the system's praises.
Residents outside the federally funded system didn't fare as well.
Communities along the western edge of Lake Ponchartrain flooded, and then communities on the eastern edge flooded as Isaac's winds shifted.
Plaquemines Parish, which sports an 8-1/2 foot, nonfederal levee, experienced severe flooding that killed two people.
Congress authorized the US Army Corp of Engineers to spend as much as $800 million on levee improvements in some of the areas that experienced flooding as a result of Katrina.
But lawmakers did not follow through with the appropriations, leaving the Corps with an approval to spend money it didn't have...
