Members of the Louisiana Recovery Authority tour New Orleans’ hurricane-ravaged Lower ninth Ward, Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2005, as a lot of the ninth Ward was destroyed when the levee broke on the Industrial Canal throughout Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Seventeen years after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, the Army Corps of Engineers has accomplished an in depth system of floodgates, strengthened levees and different protections. Credit: AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File
Seventeen years after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, the Army Corps of Engineers has accomplished an in depth system of floodgates, strengthened levees and different protections.
The 130-mile (210-kilometer) ring is designed to carry out storm surge of about 30 ft (9 meters) round New Orleans and suburbs in three parishes.
It is “the most important civil works venture within the Corps’ historical past and is the results of practically twenty years of onerous work and collaboration on the native, state and federal stage,” Gov. John Bel Edwards stated throughout a symbolic handoff to the state Friday. “The individuals of New Orleans have skilled the worst Mother Nature has to supply, and with the completion of the system, they’re going to be protected by the most effective of engineering, design and hurricane safety.”
The Atlantic hurricane season begins June 1, and federal meteorologists predict it will likely be busy.
Congress offered $14.5 billion for what’s formally referred to as the Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System and associated initiatives. It contains two options the Corps describes because the world’s largest—a pumping station and a 1.8-mile (2.9-kilometer) barrier that may be closed in opposition to storm surges.
Louisiana can pay $1.1 billion, the governor’s workplace stated in an e mail Friday. It didn’t say whether or not that features curiosity.
The levees stood as much as Hurricane Ida in 2021, although some suburbs outdoors the system flooded.
By 2011, the system may defend in opposition to a storm with a 1% likelihood of occurring in any given yr, in accordance with the Corps.
Features added since then embrace armoring levees to stop erosion and scouring when stronger storm surges rise above their tops, and three everlasting canal closures and pumps.
“We know that finally we’ll face a surge larger than the 1-percent elevations so we designed the HSDRRS to be overtopped,” Col. Stephen Murphy, commander of the Corps’ New Orleans District, stated in a information launch. “With the entire armoring now in place, this technique enters the 2022 Hurricane Season stronger than it has ever been.”
The state has been taking management of the system for years as parts have been constructed, The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate famous.
It stated upkeep and operation prices are anticipated to run about $25 million a yr for the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East and about $7.8 million yearly for its west financial institution counterpart.
EXPLAINER: Is New Orleans protected against a hurricane?
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17 years post-Katrina, New Orleans-area protections full (2022, May 28)
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