In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina tore along the U.S. Gulf Coast, causing more than 1.800 fatalities...

 

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In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina tore along the U.S. Gulf Coast, causing more than 1.800 fatalities and more than $100 billion in damage. Nowhere was the hurricane's destruction more catastrophic than in the city of New Orleans, where the levee system proved inadequate against the storm surge. Some 80 percent of the city and its neighboring parishes were submerged in floodwater, and it was here that the death toll was heaviest This was one of the deadliest engineering-related disasters in US history. Many of history's best-known engineering failures can be traced to a single, catastrophic design flaw, for example, the faulty "O rings in the space shuttle Challenger and the inadequate connections in the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse in Kansas City, Missouri. Although the engineering causes of the New Orleans levee system failure are far more complex and diffuse, the Katrina disaster bears one distinct similarity with these other engineering failures-namely, that the failure did not occur because of the design flaws alone but because of a series of faulty decisions by the individuals charged with designing and managing the system. These decisions. in combination with the design flaws, led to a tragic result. QUESTION Research the faulty decisions contributing to this disaster and discuss them. What ethical lessons can be drawn from the New Orleans levee system failures during Hurricane Katrina? In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina tore along the U.S. Gulf Coast, causing more than 1.800 fatalities and more than $100 billion in damage. Nowhere was the hurricane's destruction more catastrophic than in the city of New Orleans, where the levee system proved inadequate against the storm surge. Some 80 percent of the city and its neighboring parishes were submerged in floodwater, and it was here that the death toll was heaviest This was one of the deadliest engineering-related disasters in US history. Many of history's best-known engineering failures can be traced to a single, catastrophic design flaw, for example, the faulty "O rings in the space shuttle Challenger and the inadequate connections in the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse in Kansas City, Missouri. Although the engineering causes of the New Orleans levee system failure are far more complex and diffuse, the Katrina disaster bears one distinct similarity with these other engineering failures-namely, that the failure did not occur because of the design flaws alone but because of a series of faulty decisions by the individuals charged with designing and managing the system. These decisions. in combination with the design flaws, led to a tragic result. QUESTION Research the faulty decisions contributing to this disaster and discuss them. What ethical lessons can be drawn from the New Orleans levee system failures during Hurricane Katrina?

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The hurricane protection system as a whole was significantly underdesigned for its purpose which represented an overall lapse in vigilance on the part of the engineers and other decision makers in the... View the full answer