Their statements in the article were not political, they were about engineering and funding.
It cannot be humanly known what happened during the height of the storm, since it was at least 16 hours after the height of the storm before any human aerial or ground survey of the levees and floodwalls could be undertaken. It was at least that long before the windspeed dropped enough to where it would be possible to fly an airplane or helicopter at low albreastude.
At the height of the storm, the base water level of the lake may have overtopped the levees and floodwalls, causing erosion and scour; or if the base water level didn't quite reach that high, the repeated pounding by 10-20 foot high waves may have overtopped the levees and floodwalls, causing erosion and scour that caused a small breach that grew into a large unstoppable breach.
The story about the Dutch boy that held his finger in the dike and saved the city, is factual, because even a small breach in a dike at flood state, if not stopped, will grow large enough that the breach becomes unstoppable.
-- Scott M. Kozel Highway and Transportation History Websites
