New Orleans Levees
For years now the discussions have arose about the levee systems in America and how some are not safe and need to be replaced. This problem has been focused on the levee system in New Orleans. Many engineers and other people have asked the question whether or not the present levee system in New Orleans could withstand a huge wave or a direct hit from a powerful hurricane. These questions were answered when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as a Category 3 hurricane which isn't even the most powerful. After the hurricane hit the levee system failed and there were many breaches in the system, which lead to the flooding of most of the city. My question is what could have been done to stop this disaster from happening and what now can be done now and in the future in New Orleans and other Mississippi River floodplains to stop serious flooding from occurring. There are many people out there with good ideas and they are never even looked upon. The government needs to stop looking at the financial concerns and it needs to start looking at the burden of its citizens and they need to fix the problem. Before and after the Hurricane people said they knew the disaster was going to eventually happen. They knew bad things were coming and nothing was done to prevent the tragedy. In the Civil Engineering Magazine, models have been made in the 1990's and a while before that that, if a category 4 or 5 hurricane hit New Orleans there would be a catastrophic flood and the city would be devastated. The magazine says that the flood could reach heights of 25 feet. "With Hurricane Katrina, some parts of New Orleans saw up to 20 feet of water" (12a). With all this information being known a while back, why wasn't anything being done to change and make New Orleans secure from all the risks from hurricanes? The answer to this is poor leaders and poor administrators in New Orleans and Louisiana. Plenty of hurricanes in the past have hit New Orleans. And plenty of them have