There’s confidence the levee system that protects New Orleans can withstand Hurricane Ida’s life-threatening storm surge. U-S Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson Matt Roe says after Katrina the federal government spent 14.5 billion dollars on a system designed to reduce the damage from powerful hurricanes.
“The pre-Katrina system had more than 330 miles of levees and floodwalls, the post-Katrina system they added closures, and the system is 133-miles and a perimeter, so it has those interior floodwalls and levees as a second line of defense,” said Roe.
Roe says inside the ring of levees, they have a system of canals and pumps to remove water. He says the 130-mile ring built can withstand a storm surge of about 30 feet.
“Levees have been armored, splash pads have been added to the backsides of floodwalls, transition points have been armored, so even in the event of overtopping this system is still very robust and resilient,” said Roe.
Roe says the levee system that protects the metro New Orleans area was built to protect against a 100-year level of storm surge, which is a surge that has a one-percent chance of happening.
“Part of the modeling that was done, they looked at a variety of storms across many different tracks and designed to that one-percent elevation kind of as needed around the area,” said Roe.
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