How the water got into New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005, is well-documented.

Hurricane Katrina pushed seawater across eroded marshes and up a network of navigation and drainage canals, along which federal floodwalls and levees breached in multiple locations. The surge poured into neighborhoods that had subsided below sea level during the century prior, due to mechanized swamp drainage. What resulted was a catastrophe like few others: an immense, deep, impounded deluge.

This is the story of how the water got out.

It focuses on the role of Sewerage & Water Board employees who were on the front lines, as they recounted to famed broadcast journalist Norman Robinson in a series of interviews recorded in 2015. I express my gratitude to those employees and to Mr. Robinson. Following is an edited e

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