New Orleans Renewal - Levees Rebuilt - as part of the news series by GeoBeats.
The levees in New Orleans that were decimated by the effects of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, are finally in place.
The 113 mile long construction made up of levees, flood walls and pumps cost a reported 14 and a half billion dollars.
There are two fifty foot lift gates which allow boat access to the waterways and can be shut to block the water from a nearby lake, and 95 foot navigation gate with two sides weighing 220 tons each is in place to seal off a canal in case of hurricane conditions.
Hurricane Katrina, which caused 81 billion dollars of damage, and almost two thousand deaths, proved the old system of levees was insufficient.
Initial construction on the project started in 2006 and engineers have vastly improved on the reconstructed walls to make them more resilient and effective against the inevitable storms that occur during hurricane season.
Allowing the immense project to move forward as quickly as possible, Congress voted to give all the funding in a lump sum rather than giving the money incrementally. Senior project manager Kevin G. Wagner told the New York Times, “It’s truly amazing, starting in 2009, to be where we are today.”
