This from WSJ online:

12:25 p.m.: Flood waters are pouring into New Orleans’s Ninth Ward neighborhood. “We have three significant breaches in the levee and the water is rising rapidly,” says Maj. Barry Guidry of the Georgia National Guard. Rains from Rita sent water gushing through breaches in a patched levee in this low-lying neighborhood. Dozens of blocks in the Ninth Ward were under water as a waterfall at least 30 feet wide poured over and through a dike that had been used to patch breaks in the Industrial Canal levee. On the street that runs parallel to the canal, the water ran waist-deep and was rising fast. Guidry said water was rising about 3 inches a minute. Officials believe the neighborhood has been completely cleared of residents.

This should drive home my point that we simply shouldn’t put good money after bad, rebuilding eastern New Orleans. If we do, we would do well to import some engineering expertise from our friends in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Currently, it looks as though this won’t happen, due to our political leader’s zeal to “just do something.”