Critic Says Levee Repairs Show Signs of Flaws
Some of the most celebrated levee repairs by the Army Corps of Engineers after Hurricane Katrina are already showing signs of serious flaws, says Robert G. Bea, a professor of engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He warns that heavy storms may cause massive failures.
The most troubling, Dr. Bea said, was erosion on a levee by the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a navigation canal that helped channel water into New Orleans during the storm.
Breaches in that 13-mile levee devastated communities in St. Bernard Parish, just east of New Orleans, and the rapid reconstruction of the barrier St. Bernard Parish hailed as one of the corps’ most significant rebuilding achievements in the months after the storm.
But Dr. Bea, an author of a blistering 2006 report on the levee failures paid for by the National Science Foundation, said erosion furrows, or rills, suggest that “the risks are still high.” Heavy storms, he said, may cause “tear-on-the-dotted-line levees.”
Dr. Bea examined the hurricane protection system at the request of National Geographic magazine, which is publishing photographs of the levee and an article on his concerns about the levee and other spots on its Web site.
At times you wonder if our government can do anything right.
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