Introduction
On Monday, August 29th, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans, Louisiana. This hurricane brought with it devastating winds and floods to the people of New Orleans. Following the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, several investigations we opened to identify what went wrong with the hurricane protection system, including questions into the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the failure of the levees causing billions of dollars in damage in the greater New Orleans area, and more importantly, contributed to the displacement and loss of life to hundreds of New Orleans citizens.
In order to better understand the cause and root issues of the levee failures in New Orleans, this paper takes a look at the accountability framework developed by Romzek and Dubnick in their assessment of the Challenger disaster. Moreover, this paper argues that out of the four accountability approaches (bureaucratic, political, professional and legal), the two accountability approaches that dominate the decisions and actions of the USACE include professional accountability, and predominantly, legal accountability. …show more content…
This complacency is evident in the testimony of James P. Huey, former President of the Board of Commissioners of the Orleans Levee District. In his testimony he stated that the Orleans Levee Board had “complete confidence” in the flood protection system “unless [they] hear otherwise from the experts that [they] look to in the Corps of Engineers (Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs)”. Complacency drew less attention to the structural and design issues that were clearly present. While the levee boards were responsible for maintenance and operation of the levees, they operating in an environment where they believed the USACE had created sound levee structures when placed in their