CLICK HERE to view devastation almost beyond comprehension in St. Bernard Parish on the east bank of the Mississippi River below New Orleans.

St. Bernard Parish and the Lower Ninth Ward were victims of a tsunami-like storm surge that overtopped - and scoured away in some instances - the protection levees.  Contrarily, the balance of flooding to the northwest in the City of New Orleans constitutes the largest civil engineering disaster in American history - and it was the result of breaches in protection leveees due to absolute ineptitude in drainage canal design.  The reprecussions of this aspect of the disaster may very well lead to transformation of the social and political fabric in the southeast region of Louisiana.