How far along are efforts to rebuild New Orleans levees?
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has pledged to rebuild the area’s flood-protection system to the level that was in place prior to Katrina. The Corps says it will have the work completed by June 1, the beginning of hurricane season. A spokesman for the Corps says the project is now about 40-percent complete. What changes are being made? The major change is the construction of three new floodgates that can be closed in case of a storm and keep water from coming into the city’s canals from Lake Pontchartrain. Normally, these canals are used to pump rainwater out of town and into the lake. But during Katrina, storm surge from the lake rushed into the canals and the canal walls failed, flooding downtown. The idea now is to close off the canals from the lake if the storm surge gets high. The Corps is also building some tougher walls to replace the ones that gave way. The new stretches of canal wall will be a stronger “T-wall” or “L-wall” design, which have more support at the base. And the
