Investigations of levee failures during Hurricane Katrina

Common card · No. 324302

After Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005, seven major investigations were conducted by civil engineers and other experts in an attempt to identify the cause of the flooding. Specifically, the investigators searched for the underlying reasons for the failure of protective system of levees and floodwalls encircling the city of New Orleans and the region. This system was called the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project (LPVHPP). All concurred that the primary cause of the failure was inadequate design and construction of the LPVHPP by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (Army Corps). There were over 50 failures of the federally authorized LPVHPP (levees and flood walls protecting New Orleans, Louisiana, and two suburbs) while Hurricane Katrina passed to the east as a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson scale. The failures caused flooding in 80% of New Orleans, a small portion of Jefferson Parish and nearly all of St. Bernard Parish. Responsibility for...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Organizational author: University of California at Berkeley, National Science Foundation, American Society of Civil Engineers. Personal author: Raymond B Seed., CC0