As far as I've read in Zeituon the levees have only been mentioned briefly, but when mentioned you can feel the sudden urgency, fear and concern in the text. Before knowing that the levees had been overcome Zeitoun mentioned to his wife Kathy that the winds and rain had caused damage but the minumal street floods had drained and that the storm was likely over (p. 76, 77). Once new flood water (or river water) had reached Zeituon he knew the levees had been overtopped and things had become much more serious, and knowing that these floods certainly overtook New Orleans his area would soon be entrenched (p. 85, 86).

Anyone who knows about Hurricane Katrina knows about the vast amount of damage the city of New Orleans and the surroundings areas took. Though the high winds and rains would cause flood and damage on its own, much of the damage came from a flawed levee system. A system that would not be prepared to hold the amount of water that would infiltrate its system. In fact, the damage Hurricane Katrina caused would be significantly less had the levee system be able to hold, let alone the lives that would have been spared.

Clearly New Orleans was not prepared for such an event and after years of clean up and rebuilding, construction for a new levee system is currently underway. I actually have a friend who is working on this levee. A monstrosity of a system (and extremely expensive) it should save New Orleans from another catastrophic event such as Hurricane Katrina, though the residents of New Orleans are still skeptical and rightfully so. The people of New Orleans endured something I can't even wrap my head around, and I can understand how it would be hard to trust another levee, especially after the levee prior failed to do it's job and ruined their lives, homes, and community as a whole. This project will be one of the biggest pump/levee systems in the world, if not the biggest. One can hope that it lives up to its duty and protects those citizens from another potentially brutal storm if there should be one. As I said I understand the concern from the people of New Orleans about trusting another levee system, but you almost have to just trust it, trust that it will work if its need to. Really, there aren't many options than to reconstruct a hopefully superior levee. Let's just hope they have taken every consideration, every possibility when rebuilding a levee to protect New Orleans, unlike they had done previously.