Stopped Clocks Tell Tale of Katrina Flooding

By David Kestenbaum

Published January 30, 2006 at 9:27 PM EST

The day after Hurricane Katrina passed through New Orleans, it looked as if the city had dodged the bullet. But the water levels continued to rise, barriers broke and much of New Orleans filled with water. Some residents described the water as coming from all directions at once.

A team of state investigators decided to recreate the path of flood by searching for stopped clocks and plotting their times and locations.

The analysis is still ongoing, but preliminary results give new evidence that one of the breaches was caused by a design flaw at a levee at an industrial canal by the Ninth Ward.

David Kestenbaum

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.

See stories by David Kestenbaum

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