New Orleans on September 9, 2005. Crews worked on areas where there had been breaks in the levee in order to avoid additional flooding. (Photo by Jocelyn Augustino, courtesy of FEMA)
Four years after Katrina, the
levees around New Orleans are
still being constructed. But
a report by the National Academy
of Sciences says the city shouldn’t
think of the levees as a cure-all.
Mark Brush has more:
Transcript
Four years after Katrina, the
levees around New Orleans are
still being constructed. But
a report by the National Academy
of Sciences says the city shouldn’t
think of the levees as a cure-all.
Mark Brush has more:
Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. A big reason it was so bad is because the levees holding back the water crumbled.
There’s a big effort to build up the levee system, but the National Academy of Sciences says the city should not solely rely on levees to protect it.
Jeff Jacobs headed up the report for the National Academy.
“There is no levee system that can provide absolute protection. There’s always the danger of over-topping. And there’s always a possibility of levee failure. And that holds true for the best maintained and the best inspected levee systems in the world.”
The New Orleans area has a particular problem. The ground can sink over time. That’s not good for levees.
The Academy recommends that people relocate to safer areas. Or, if people are going to stay, that homes be elevated – so that the first floor of a home is higher than the floodwater.
For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.