"Residents of Moonachie and Little Ferry, N.J., are beginning to clear the damage after their communities were inundated by floodwaters. The flooding occurred when a system of levees and berms was unable to control the storm surge pushed ashore by Superstorm Sandy."

"Geologist Jeffrey Mount of the University of California, Davis, isn't surprised. 'There really are only two kinds of levees,' he says, 'those that have failed, and those that will fail.'

Perhaps somewhat more surprising is that there is no state agency in New Jersey that regulates or maintains levees. One of the reasons for that lack of oversight is that the levee system has evolved in an ad hoc fashion over a period of centuries."

Joe Palca reports for NPR's All Things Considered November 1, 2012. [2]