Most Levee Repairs Way Behind Schedule
USA Today reports what I think anybody that even closely follows the situation of levees in our nation already knows:
Communities nationwide have repaired fewer than half of the 122 levees identified by the government almost two years ago as too poorly maintained to be reliable in major floods, according to Army Corps of Engineers data.
State and local governments were given a year to fix levees cited by the corps for “unacceptable” maintenance deficiencies in a February 2007 review that was part of a post-Hurricane Katrina crackdown. Only 45 have had necessary repairs, according to data provided in response to a USA TODAY request. The remaining unrepaired levees are spread across 18 states and Puerto Rico—most in California and Washington.
People living behind the unrepaired levees “have every right to be concerned,” said Tammy Conforti, head of the corps’ levee safety program. “If (people) depend on that for flood risk reduction,” she said of each unrepaired levee, “… those deficiencies need to be corrected.”
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina I heard people from both sides of the political spectrum talk about not rebuilding New Orleans and not upgrading the levees. It made me wonder if they realized that millions upon millions of folks need levee in dozens of states to keep their homes and businesses from flooding.
Sometimes, well OK a lot of the time the sheer ignorance of our population stuns me.
