« Memories of Greensburg
Video: 8 Soldiers Die In Iraq »

Rebuilt Levees Worse Than Before Katrina?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in History, Hurricane Katrina

Yep, we’re staring another disaster in the face as hurricane season approaches New Orleans.

From National Geographic:

Almost a year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers declared that it had restored New Orleans’ levees and floodwalls to pre-Hurricane Katrina strength.

But the system is actually riddled with flaws, and a storm even weaker than Katrina could breach the levees if it hit this year, say leading experts who have investigated the system.

The unwelcome news comes as residents gird for what is predicted to be a “very active” Atlantic hurricane season, and as residents are still slowly rebuilding their homes and lives after Katrina.

During a recent inspection of the levee system with National Geographic magazine, engineering professor Bob Bea of the University of California, Berkeley, found multiple weak spots.

The most serious flaws turned up in the rebuilt levees along the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet ship channel.

If those levees break again…wow…I don’t know what we’re going to do.

Related Posts

Zemanta

This entry was posted on Monday, May 7th, 2007 and is filed under History, Hurricane Katrina. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Rebuilt Levees Worse Than Before Katrina?”

  1. Rich Horton Says:
    May 7th, 2007 at 9:08 pm

    I’m not surprised the levees in general are in worse shape. Even places that didn’t fail in 05 might have been weakened. Rebuilding the whole system will take decades not 18 months. It was criminal that the flood control system was allowed to reach the level where a glancing blow from a moderate Cat 3 storm could bring the city to its knees.

Leave a Reply


NOTE TO COMMENTERS:


You must ALWAYS fill in the two word CAPTCHA below to submit a comment. And if this is your first time commenting on Donklephant, it will be held in a moderation queue for approval. Please don't resubmit the same comment a couple times. We'll get around to moderating it soon enough.


Also, sometimes even if you've commented before, it may still get placed in a moderation queue and/or sent to the spam folder. If it's just in moderation queue, it'll be published, but it may be deleted if it lands in the spam folder. My apologies if this happens but there are some keywords that push it into the spam folder.


One last note, we will not tolerate comments that disparage people based on age, sex, handicap, race, color, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry. We reserve the right to delete these comments and ban the people who make them from ever commenting here again.


Thanks for understanding and have a pleasurable commenting experience.


Related Posts: