The phrase "a devastating failure" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a situation or event that has resulted in significant negative consequences or disappointment.
Example: "The project's outcome was a devastating failure, leading to the loss of funding and support from stakeholders."
Alternatives: "a catastrophic failure" or "a crushing defeat."
Depressed from what appeared to be a devastating failure, he closed for a week.
In fact, commoditizing coastal fish stocks, to the exclusion of local fishermen, is proving to be a devastating failure in the New England cod fishery.
Still, Republicans said they would soon release a second part of the report, focusing on what they called a "devastating failure of supervision and leadership" by the Justice Department.
It is a devastating failure of state for any country when its citizens have to think twice before going to their place of worship.
The Senate's confirmation last night of Michael Mukasey for Attorney General was a devastating failure of leadership, and a serious set back in our fight to take back America.
But what would be "a truly devastating failure would be if the social movement fails and Sarkozy is then re-elected," he said.
A1 FIREPROOFING FAULTED -- The head of an inquiry into the collapse of the World Trade Center towers said that inadequate or faulty fireproofing that had gone unrepaired for years might have played a role in the devastating failure of the two 110-story buildings on Sept. 11.
The new revelation of corruption comes after the exposure of the deception of the Iraq war, fraud in parliament and the police, the criminality of a media mafia and the devastating failure of the banks four years ago.
Accounts of Sept. 11 from New York City firefighters, collected for an internal Fire Department review, revealed the devastating failure of two intertwined necessities at the World Trade Center: communications lines and lines of command.
Relapse of a hematological malignancy after an SCT given with intent to cure the disease represents a devastating treatment failure with no ideal treatment options.
After Adams's devastating failure, in the election of 1800, to win a second Presidential term, he spent much of the rest of his life worrying about how history would treat him.
