Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst combined natural/technological disasters in United States history.Failures within New Orleans? engineered hurricane protection system (levees and flood walls),which was designed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers,contributed to the severity of the event and drew considerable public attention.The system was again in the spotlight with the recent passage of Hurricane Isaac through the New Orleans area.Drawing from a large body of literature ranging from news articles and government reports generated in the years leading up to Katrina,to forensic investigations in the years following,in this presentation I seek to identify an array of potential pitfalls that can compromise engineering projects,particularly large socio-technical ones.I attempt to frame these issues,using illustrative examples taken from Katrina,in a way that might be of benefit for engineering educators and their students in discussions of engineering design,engineering ethics,and the societal context of engineered systems.Issues to be discussed include problems of unanticipated failure modes,faulty assumptions,lack or misuse of information,the importance of resiliency,the effects of time,balancing competing interests,attending to the details of interfaces,the fickleness of risk perception,and how the past constrains the present.I will also discuss some of the changes and improvements that have been made since Katrina,along with what we know of their performance during Hurricane Isaac.