Levee warnings grimly true

[steve2470]

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2005/09/01/1197052-sun.html

DAVID CRARY, AP 2005-09-01 03:09:01






Even before hurricane Katrina struck, experts were warning that the network of earthen, steel and concrete barriers that protected New Orleans was inadequate and they proved tragically correct.

On Tuesday, a day after the storm barrelled past, sections of two levees broke, spilling water into the streets and inundating an estimated 80 per cent of the city, much of which lies below sea level.

In all, the New Orleans district contains 560 kilometres of hurricane levees, mostly along Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River on the south, part of an even larger network constructed over many decades along the Mississippi by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The earliest levees were erected soon after the city's founding in 1718; the system has been expanded and strengthened ever since.


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