Influence and Impact of Engineers and Engineering Design:
The impact of engineers and engineering design on the event was by far the main focus when people and the government tried to place blame for the levee failure. After many investigations lack of funds was found to have led to inadequate safety protection. However, the substantial piece of evidence in the investigations was the debris line that fell below the level of the top of the levee in many cases. This meant that the floodwater could not have topped the failed levees; therefore, they must had failed in another way. The engineers that criticized the levee design pointed out many poor reinforcements allowed the collapses, as the levees gave way when floodwater pushed against them. Another design flaw was that the multiple sections of the levees were not interlocked weakening their strength.
Moral, Legal, and Ethical Issues:
The failure of the New Orleans Levees was a violation of the first code of the fundamental cannon of the NSPE Code of Ethics for Engineers: an engineer is to “hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public”. The New Orleans disaster took many lives, destroyed or damaged careers and livelihoods, and recovery has taken many years after this travesty, and even after seven years everything is not back to what it was. If engineers would have projected a more clear message about life-threatening concerns with the design of the levees, it may have prevented the devastation Hurricane Katrina brought. Had they been aware of the design flaws, they could have possibly kept true to the first fundamental cannon. The engineering decisions were truly the difference between life and death affecting not just one area but an entire nation.