Katrina Risk Mangement
New Orleans Levee Improvement after Hurricane Katrina
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Course Project
Elizabeth Sarmento
Project Risk Management
May 28, 2013
Table of Contents
Table of Contents 2 New Orleans: A Perilous Future 3 Fault Tree One 6 Figure 1.1 6 Fault Tree Two 8 Figure 1.2 8
Conclusion 8
A bibliography 9
Introduction
New Orleans: A Perilous Future
The levees and floodwalls protecting New Orleans from hurricane’s and floods were designed to withstand a category 3 hurricane. When making landfall on August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina was designated a category 4 hurricane; later it was downgraded to a severe category 3. Hurricane Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in US history, was also a warning shot. Located in one of the lowest spots in the US, the Big Easy is already as much as 17 feet below sea level in places, and it continues to sink, by up to an inch a year. Upstream dams and levees built to tame Mississippi River floods and ease shipping have starved the delta downstream of sediments and nutrients, causing wetlands that once buffered the city against storm-driven seas to sink beneath the waves. Louisiana has lost 1,900 square miles of coastal lands since the 1930s; Katrina and Hurricane Rita together took out 217 square miles, putting the city that much closer to the open Gulf. Most ominous of all, global warming is raising the Gulf faster than at any time since the last ice age thawed. Sea level could rise several feet over the next century. Even before then, hurricanes may draw ever more energy from warming seas and grow stronger and more frequent.
The levees and floodwalls developed by the USACE (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) in the 1970s and 1980s reduced the risk of flood damage and provided economic development opportunities. At the time the USACE designed the system, its analysts believed that it protected New Orleans against 100-year flood (that is, a flood of such magnitude
-------------------------------------------------
Course Project
Elizabeth Sarmento
Project Risk Management
May 28, 2013
Table of Contents
Table of Contents 2 New Orleans: A Perilous Future 3 Fault Tree One 6 Figure 1.1 6 Fault Tree Two 8 Figure 1.2 8
Conclusion 8
A bibliography 9
Introduction
New Orleans: A Perilous Future
The levees and floodwalls protecting New Orleans from hurricane’s and floods were designed to withstand a category 3 hurricane. When making landfall on August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina was designated a category 4 hurricane; later it was downgraded to a severe category 3. Hurricane Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in US history, was also a warning shot. Located in one of the lowest spots in the US, the Big Easy is already as much as 17 feet below sea level in places, and it continues to sink, by up to an inch a year. Upstream dams and levees built to tame Mississippi River floods and ease shipping have starved the delta downstream of sediments and nutrients, causing wetlands that once buffered the city against storm-driven seas to sink beneath the waves. Louisiana has lost 1,900 square miles of coastal lands since the 1930s; Katrina and Hurricane Rita together took out 217 square miles, putting the city that much closer to the open Gulf. Most ominous of all, global warming is raising the Gulf faster than at any time since the last ice age thawed. Sea level could rise several feet over the next century. Even before then, hurricanes may draw ever more energy from warming seas and grow stronger and more frequent.
The levees and floodwalls developed by the USACE (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) in the 1970s and 1980s reduced the risk of flood damage and provided economic development opportunities. At the time the USACE designed the system, its analysts believed that it protected New Orleans against 100-year flood (that is, a flood of such magnitude