Fantasy Assignment Desk--Katrina

Okay, here's the game: while the MSM and the blogosphere conduct a battle over FEMA and the timeliness of federal/state/local emergency actions, you get to cover the real story: according to Mayor Ray Nagin's serially angrier interviews a week ago today (Tues) on local WWL-TV, WDSU-TV and WWL radio, the Army Corps of Engineers assured him and Gov. Blanco that morning that sandbagging to heal the breach in the 17th St. Canal floodwall would begin immediately. As readers of this site may recall, Mike Dumstein of the Corps said on CNN mid-day Wednesday, "we're filling sandbags now." The actual operation to drop sandbags and heal the breach didn't begin until Thursday, by which time flooding had reached its peak.

Your assignment: find out the reason for the delay, from which all other consequences--the lack of electricity at the Dome, the dire conditions throughout the city, the impassibility of which FEMA's Mike Brown complained, etc.--flowed. Good luck.