Abstract
The authors hope to correct any premature conclusions about the role of the pre-Katrina Orleans Levee Board (OLB) in the failure of the outfall drainage canals in New Orleans during the 2005 hurricane – conclusions that appear to have been based on inaccurate information and/or assumptions. With regard to the 17th Street and London Avenue Canals, the authors have not uncovered any information that would suggest that the OLB behaved irresponsibly in its duties. What is evident from the project record is that the Army Corps of Engineers recommended raising the canal floodwalls for the 17th Street Canal, but recommended gated structures at the mouths of the Orleans and London Avenue Canals because the latter plan was less expensive. The OLB convinced Congress to pass legislation that required the Corps to raise the floodwalls for all three canals. Furthermore, the Corps, in a separate attempt to limit project costs, initiated a sheet pile load test (E-99 Study), but misinterpreted the results and wrongly concluded that sheet piles needed to be driven to depths of only 17 feet (1 foot = 0.3048 meters) instead of between 31 and 46 feet. That decision saved approximately US$100 million, but significantly reduced overall engineering reliability.
Highlights
On 29 August 2005, a horrified world watched an American city drown in what seemed to be a natural disaster, but is recognized as primarily a civil engineering disaster (Christian, 2010)
The storyline was that the Corps had originally proposed gated structures at the mouths of the 17th Street and London Avenue Canals to prevent storm surge from entering the city, but the Corps had been blocked by the Orleans Levee Board (OLB), which forced the Corps to initiate the ‘ fallback plan’ (Schwartz, 2006)
The authors of this paper find it ironic that the Corps initiated a series of sheet pile wall load tests, but misinterpreted the results, drawing conclusions that severely limited the ability of the 17th Street and London Avenue drainage canal walls to perform as assumed
Summary
On 29 August 2005, a horrified world watched an American city drown in what seemed to be a natural disaster, but is recognized as primarily a civil engineering disaster (Christian, 2010). The storyline was that the Corps had originally proposed gated structures at the mouths of the 17th Street and London Avenue Canals (and the Orleans Avenue Canal) to prevent storm surge from entering the city, but the Corps had been blocked by the Orleans Levee Board (OLB), which forced the Corps to initiate the ‘ fallback plan’ (Schwartz, 2006) This presumption of wrongdoing by the OLB was repeated by high-level Corps officials for several years thereafter. A major general with the Corps, speaking before an environmental coalition in December 2007, appeared to characterize the local citizenry as obstructionists to the Corps’ proposed plans in the past when he stated, ‘we proposed gates (for Lake Pontchartrain), and local citizens said no, fearing flooding (from) rainfall’ (Grissett, 2007) In this environment, an erroneous conclusion was drawn by one of the authors, namely that the Corps had been forced to build what it considered an inappropriate and inferior system of flood protection (Rogers, 2008).
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