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Flawed Walls Led to Flooding in New Orleans

Engineers testify before the Senate that downtown New Orleans should not have flooded during Hurricane Katrina. The flooding occurred because walls along canals had faulty foundations and collapsed. The investigators said it's unclear whether the failures were the result of design flaws or cutting corners during construction.

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David Kestenbaum is a correspondent for NPR, covering science, energy issues and, most recently, the global economy for NPR's multimedia project Planet Money. David has been a science correspondent for NPR since 1999. He came to journalism the usual way — by getting a Ph.D. in physics first.