I heard this on Fox News Channel yesterday.

Problem:
The verb “breach” requires an object.

Explanation:
The word “breach” — spelled with an E and an A — is both a noun and a verb.

Its meaning as a verb is to make an opening in.

In other words, the verb “breach” is a transitive verb — a verb that takes a direct object.

Examples of transitive verbs include “open” and “hit”.

The expression that I heard on television yesterday used “breached” as if it were an intransitive verb — a verb that does not require or cannot take a direct object.

Examples of intransitive verbs include “sleep” and “rain”.

“Breach” is a transitive verb. “The water breached the levee.” is a grammatically correct example.

I believe that the grammatically incorrect expression “… when one of the levees breached” comes from speakers who hear the grammatically correct, passive-voice expression “… when one of the levees was breached” but do not notice the “was” in such a passive-voice expression.

As a result, these speakers — and writers — drop the “was” and get an active-voice but grammatically incorrect expression.

Solution:
“… when one of the levees was breached.”