Dozens of levee failures occurred at five major sites around
the city and filled three of the city's largest basins with water. The traditional high ground near the river, the westbank and most of Metairie were spared.
Click the image to see the depths around the city. How could this happen? In retrospect it is clear, that there was questionable
levee engineering and maintenance that left the city at risk. The
levee failures
have been examined by engineers from across the world. Katrina was a force of nature and its destruction a "natural catastrophe" but the flooding of New Orleans triggered by Katrina speaks more of ignorance, arrogance and neglect.
The LSU
Hurricane center initially took the lead investigating the causes, then the National Science
Foundation with researchers from Berkeley, the American Society of
Civil Engineers and the Corp's own Interagency Performance Evaluation
Team all weighed in. Their
findings were that the levees as they were, would never work. Design
errors put the entire system at risk. Subsidence caused the existing levees to droop well below their
specified height.
Some citizens continue to believe that an independent "8/29 Commission"
is needed to get to the bottom of the problems. The levees that failed were federal levees designed, built and maintained by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the replacements are being designed and built by that same agency.
Now that the levees are being rebuilt questions are being raised
about whether they can protect the city from a category 3 storm much
less a monster 4 or 5. Alternatives are being considered. Flood gates
at the Rigolets, Chef, Intracoastal Waterway and the lake canal
entrances have been proposed.
The westbank is being considered but
the word on the flood control structure in the Gulf
Intracoastal Water Way (GIWW) at the Hero Canal proposed by the BNOB as
necessary to protect the westbank from surge up the GIWW is that it
should have been recommended twenty years ago. Once again we are faced
with doing what we know is right versus doing the expedient. The Corps
of Engineers is clearly behind the expedient. DO we need to drown the
westbank too?
The federal government is moving in the right direction but will have
to display considerably more resolve in order to make New Orleans
attractive for investment. The Corps is finally on record admitting that
it did something wrong. Now will it marshall its resources to become an
active participant in making things right?
Slowly, as the fog lifts, we begin to see the facts for what they are. Levees are just a temporary
fix. To restore safety is to restore the wetlands. The measures needed
to accomplish this goal are growing tougher every day. Removing the
river levees below Belle Chasse and building a massive diversion at
Donaldsonville would be a start. It will cost somewhere between $14 and $40 billion. New Orleans may be worth that much.