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Ethics & accountability · Owning failure

A drainage culvert you designed for a rural road washed out in a storm that turned out to be smaller than the design event you'd sized for, cutting off access for a day. The client wants to know what happened. How do you handle the conversation?

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If a culvert I sized for a bigger event washed out in a smaller one, my first instinct is not to blame the weather — the storm being under the design event is the clue that somethi…

The full answer: structure, worked example, likely follow-up.

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