Hurricane Katrina

Heather Tat

Intro to Civil Engineering

1.        What Happened and Why:

The Performance Evaluation of the New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Protection System report investigates the New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Protection System managed by the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force (IPET). In particular, IPET was initiated to ascertain how the protection system functioned during the event of Hurricane Katrina. The paper delineates three hurricane protection projects that have taken place in the New Orleans area: Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity, the West Bank Project, and the New Orleans to Venice Project. The report seeks to first comprehend the ability of the protection system to react to the hurricane, and then to further utilize the information gained in an effort to develop a more effective and durable protection system.

        In researching the history of natural threats occurring near New Orleans, it was found that much of the area lies close to or below sea level. Thus, for much of the area’s history, issues of flood management have persisted. Furthermore, it was recognized that historically, the greatest natural threat to the New Orleans region has been from tropical storms including storm surges, waves, and rainfall. On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina began as a Category 5 storm with wind speeds of up to 175 miles per hour until it was about 170 miles from landfall. Once the hurricane struck land, the storm was at a Category 3 (I-20). Hurricane Katrina brought with it extremely hazardous wind, surge, and wave conditions on the east side of the hurricane protection system and it’s severity was much greater than expected when building the system. As a result, overtopping of levees and erosion around the water infrastructure occurred. This allowed for greater water velocities down the back sides of levees. The increased water velocity further separated the walls from levee fill soil allowing for water to enter and crack the levees and other infrastructure, leading to further flooding. The overtopping occurred for hours, destroying gauge instruments, public infrastructure, homes, and taking lives.

        Consequently, the New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana region experienced 4.5 to 5.6 billion dollars in public infrastructure damages and total losses that sum up to nearly twenty five billion dollars. Furthermore, from the storm event there were approximately 1600 fatalities with 400 individuals either missing or presumed dead. Of those casualties, the poor, elderly, disabled, and other groups least likely able to care for themselves in a disaster were at greater risk. Moreover, property and public infrastructure and services were also greatly impacted. Approximately 78% of property in the area was lost, and schools and hospitals were very slow to open.

Overall, IPET found that the New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Protection System failed to perform as a uniform system. It was found that “the system’s performance was compromised by the incompleteness of the system, the inconsistency in levels of protection, and the lack of redundancy,” (I-3). Furthermore, Hurricane Katrina greatly surpassed the design criteria. However, the performance of the system failed to even reach the initial design intent. The risk prior to Hurricane Katrina was significant, in part because New Orleans is mostly below sea level, in part because the hurricane protection system had not been completed, in part because it had not been tested, and in part because portions were just not up to the test (I-39). Thus, more efficient systems performance in planning and design methodologies is critical in preventing reoccurrence. All in all, Hurricane Katrina was truly a disaster from which the United States must seek and apply lessons learned to further protect society and its infrastructure.