The Future of New Orleans Levee Board - Research Proposal Example

Type levees in use around downtown New Orleans and the Industrial Canal, and were obtained from Army Corps of Engineers Field Engineering Manuals, specifically "Design and Construction of Levees", "Retaining and Flood Walls", and "Design of Sheet Pile Walls", all available at: Generally, the failed sections of the earthen levee around St. Bernard and east Orleans Parishes do not appear to have included sheet piling or other core construction. In a very few instances, evidence of a sheet pile core is now exposed and in general, these occurrences tend to be present where older pre-existing canals and natural waterways cut across the levees intended location, probably due to recognition that otherwise seepage and percolation would be more of a problem at these locations.

As a result of its elevation near sea level, the Lake Pontchartrain Basin is quite vulnerable to tropical storms and hurricanes. Hurricanes are categorized by their wind speed in miles per hour (mph). Hurricanes have affected the Louisiana coastline with a frequency that peaks in September. Hurricanes with significant monetary or human loss are memorialized by retiring their name. In addition to its separation from the coast, the topography of the land in the city of New Orleans is adverse. The city is surrounded by a river levee system 25 feet high along its southern boundary, and by hurricane protection levees about 15 feet high along the remaining boundaries.

Most of the land in the city is below sea level, with much of the northern half of the city more than 5 feet below sea level. About one half of the population of the city can’t and won’t evacuate during a hurricane. Many people, about 200,000, do not have automobiles or access to an automobile. There are an additional 20,000 special needs people that cannot be easily moved. Finally, there several hundred thousand people that will not evacuate because of the difficulty of actually evaluating and finding suitable shelters.