Bad floodwalls ruined N Orleans

2005-09-21 13:55

Washington - Poorly designed and built floodwalls, and not an unusually high storm surge, was responsible for the collapse of sections of the barrier designed to keep water out of New Orleans, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

The United States Army Corps of Engineers, responsible for building and maintaining the earthen levees and concrete floodwalls surrounding the below-sea-level city, said that Hurricane Katrina simply overwhelmed the defenses.

Katrina was a powerful category-four hurricane, and the barriers were designed to handle a storm no greater than category three, Corps officials have said.

The collapse of the floodwalls was caused by unusually high storm surges that topped the walls, according to Corps officials.

Not so, scientists and engineers at Louisiana State University's Hurricane Centre told the Post.

"We are absolutely convinced that those floodwalls were never overtopped," Ivor van Heerden, the Hurricane Centre's deputy director, told the Post.

Van Heerden told the daily it was too early to say whether the floodwalls buckled because of poor design, weak construction or some combination of the two.

The Corps, which has both military and civilian employees, is tasked with, among other things, designing, building and operating navigation and flood control projects. It is responsible for the levee and floodwall system in New Orleans.

- AFP