USA-KATRINA/LEVEE SYSTEM Ten years, and $14 billion later: New Orleans better protected - officials

Record ID: 135217

  • Title: USA-KATRINA/LEVEE SYSTEM Ten years, and $14 billion later: New Orleans better protected - officials
  • Date: 19th August 2015
  • Summary: QUEEN BESS ISLAND, LOUISIANA, UNITED STATES (JUNE 5, 2010) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF OIL SOAKED MARSHES
  • Embargoed: 3rd September 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA13QA70LX18IXXPJ5MH21NO2KJ
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: On a blazing hot August day in New Orleans, Sandy Rosenthal is out in the sunshine and humidity to greet a busload of tourists.
    Across the city from the brass bands playing on Bourbon Street, Rosenthal welcomes the tour group to an open-air museum at the site where the London Avenue Canal Floodwall breached after Hurricane Katrina swept in on August 29, 2005. Dozens died in the surrounding Gentilly neighborhood.
    Rosenthal, founder of levees.org, has dedicated herself to telling the story of the flooding of New Orleans caused by the storm surge generated by Hurricane Katrina.
    "People arrive in Louis Armstrong airport with a desire to understand what happened here, even though it's been 10 years. And we're glad that they do, because the survivors deserve for everyone to know the vetted facts about the flooding. The survivors deserve for everyone to know that we were flooded because of civil engineering failure, not due to just Mother Nature," Rosenthal says.
    She places much of the blame on a faulty flood protection system built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It failed to protect New Orleans. She says the system put in place prior to 2005 was antiquated, inadequate and cheaply built.
    "Well, in the case of these levees, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was looking for way to save money, and so, at a savings of $100 million, they determined they only needed to drive sheet-piling down into the levees 17 feet (5 meters) instead of 50 (15 meters), and during Katrina, these walls fell over on both sides," Rosenthal says.
    Ten years later, at a cost of $14.5 billion, a new system is nearly completed. It's called the Greater New Orleans Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System. It too was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
    The new system is designed to mitigate storm surge before it enters the city's borders. Flood walls help block water incoming from Lake Borogne and Lake Pontchartrain before it reaches drainage canals within the city. Levees are reinforced. Flood walls on those levees are stronger and embedded deeper. Massive pumping stations now help push water out of the city during major storms.
    Colonel Richard Hansen is the Commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the New Orleans District. He's a trained engineer and soldier. He says New Orleans is now better protected than ever.
    "Some of the changes that we made in the planning and construction of the Hurricane Storm Damage Risk Reduction System is - we pushed the perimeter out, insured that the system would defend against storm surge at the city's perimeter - no allow it to penetrate in towards the center of the city. We constructed T-walls instead of I-walls. We used much more robust material standards for construction materials - much more stringent designs. And we want those, we built those features to be resilient to possible over-topping, so they won't erode. They can even be resilient to a greater than 100 year or one percent storm," Colonel Hansen says.
    But Hurricane Katrina was more powerful than a one in one-hundred years storm. It was a one in four-hundred year event.
    If it happened again, flood waters would hit the streets of New Orleans, but the system would better withstand the pressure, Hansen says.
    "Well, the system that has been designed and has been constructed and is in place today, again, was set to defend against a 100-year storm. We set a threshold of wanting to allow just only a minor amount of over-topping in that possible 100-year event. If a much larger storm, such as a Katrina-type intensity storm were to threaten the greater New Orleans area, there would be, probably, more over-topping than the design calls for, but the system would be resilient to that over-topping. The Levees would be resilient to that over-topping, the flood walls would also. We have much greater pumping capacity than we had in 2005. The pump stations have been strengthened. The shelters there will allow the operators to continue to man the pump station through the storm. So, we can be confident that the system would perform much better than what we saw in 2005."
    Steel, reinforced concrete, and massive pumping stations will help New Orleans, but the environment also plays an important role.
    Dr. Alisha Renfro is a staff scientist for the National Wildlife Federation's Mississippi River delta restoration campaign.
    "So, the wetlands that surround coastal Louisiana are an important component to our storm protection. They act as a natural buffer that helps slow down storm surge. But over the last decades, we've seen a tragic loss of those wetlands. And as those wetlands have been disappearing, we've become more and more vulnerable to major storms, things like Hurricane Katrina, which could have been somewhat slowed down by a more intact wetland buffer," Dr. Renfro says.
    Recognizing the wetlands' importance, in 2007, the state of Louisiana started a 50 year, $50 billion coastal restoration and protection plan. Ironically, another disaster is helping to fund the project: the 2010 BP Oil Spill.
    In July, the state of Louisiana announced it will receive over $6.8 billion from a settlement deal with BP. Much of that money will be used to restore coastal wetlands.
    "It's a really interesting situation, in which we have a tragedy that might actually give us a lot of hope for the future. Since we have moneys that are going to be coming through from the BP oil spill, we can put that through, we can put that towards coastal restoration. And it is a very sad opportunity, but actually a very unique one that can actually help us out a lot," Dr. Renfro says.
    Hurricane Katrina was ultimately responsible for 1,833 deaths and damage estimated at $151 billion, including $75 billion in the New Orleans area and along the Mississippi coast, according to the United States Census Bureau.
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