The Breach

This chapter focuses on a press conference organized by Women of the Storm on the occasion of a visit by John McCain and Lindsey Graham. It documents in detail the scene of the press conference, which took place at the 17th Street Canal breach in Lakeview. The chapter also narrates a chance encounter between Women of the Storm and schoolgirls from the Academy of the Sacred Heart School. The chapter concludes by outlining some of the educational outreach that Women of the Storm members participated in and suggests that models of civic activism and philanthropy were being shared across generations.

Interaction between the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Orleans Levee Board preceding the drainage canal wall failures and catastrophic flooding of New Orleans in 2005

The authors hope to correct any premature conclusions about the role of the pre-Katrina Orleans Levee Board (OLB) in the failure of the outfall drainage canals in New Orleans during the 2005 hurricane – conclusions that appear to have been based on inaccurate information and/or assumptions. With regard to the 17th Street and London Avenue Canals, the authors have not uncovered any information that would suggest that the OLB behaved irresponsibly in its duties. What is evident from the project record is that the Army Corps of Engineers recommended raising the canal floodwalls for the 17th Street Canal, but recommended gated structures at the mouths of the Orleans and London Avenue Canals because the latter plan was less expensive. The OLB convinced Congress to pass legislation that required the Corps to raise the floodwalls for all three canals. Furthermore, the Corps, in a separate attempt to limit project costs, initiated a sheet pile load test (E-99 Study), but misinterpreted the results and wrongly concluded that sheet piles needed to be driven to depths of only 17 feet (1 foot = 0.3048 meters) instead of between 31 and 46 feet. That decision saved approximately US$100 million, but significantly reduced overall engineering reliability.

Failure analysis of the breached levee at the 17th Street Canal in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina

The breached levee system at the 17th Street Canal has been independently studied by conducting total and effective stress analyses. Performance of the levee system during the hurricane duration was investigated with special attention focused on the formation of a gap between the levee fills and the floodwall, and on the localized shear strain in the lacustrine clay layer. In contrast to the total stress analyses conducted by the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force (IPET) and the Independent Levee Investigation Team (ILIT), the effective stress analysis presented in this paper considered the soil – pore water interaction, and demonstrated evidences of initiation and mobilization of the localized shear strain.