Levee Repairs May Endanger French Quarter

Even as the government repairs hurricane-damaged levees, New Orleans' French Quarter faces a greater chance of flooding that it did before Hurricane Katrina. In fact, experts say new, stronger levees could funnel storm water into the Industrial Canal's cul-de-sac, overwhelming the waterway's 12-foot-high concrete flood walls.

These barriers are all that stand between Bourbon Street, Creole bungalows, St. Louis Cathedral and other beloved city sites and a hurricane's storm surge.

"A system is much like a chain," said Robert Bea, a lead investigator of an independent National Science Foundation team that studied Katrina's levee failures. "We have strengthened some of the lengths, and those areas are now better protected. When the chain is challenged by high water again, it will break at those weak links, and they are now next to some of the oldest neighborhoods, including the French Quarter, Marigny and all of those areas west of the cul-de-sac."

Army Corps of Engineers officials knew reparing New Orleans' levees would put the French Quarter at greater risk; one commander even termed it the system's "Achilles' heel." But lacking sufficient time and funds to entirely rebuild flood walls, the corps opted to reinforce the city's existing barriers.

Although lower-lying neighborhoods may bear first the brunt of the any flooding, Army engineers are considering adding steel plates to raise and armor the walls, block storm surge with sunken barges and install flood gates. No plan is in place, though, to increase protection before this year's hurricane season, and that leaves residents and travellers uneasy.

"We've had people in the past saying Jackson Square would be inundated with 26 feet of water and only the steeple of the cathedral would be sticking up," said corps consultant and former corps engineer Cecil Soileau. "And I don't think that's a realistic situation."

Source: Associated Press