Hurricane georges
Hurricane georgesHurricane Georges
A very massive group of levees may be all that
is in the way of lower lying New
Orleans and destruction with a visit from Hurricane
Georges. Without the levee system
and concrete flood walls Georges could have catastrophic
effects in New Orleans. But
with this man-made hurricane protection system protecting
the city people. New
Orleans is spared the casualties and damage past storms
have wrought. The levee system
is important because the city is like a saucer 6 feet below
sea level and is surrounded by
lakes, swamps, marshes and the Mississippi River. The fact
is, we are living in a large,
shallow bowl with a levee around it,'' said Oliver Houck, a
Tulane University law
professor whose major is water resources. The New Orleans
area and location have
allowed hurricanes and floods to prey on its residents
since as early as 1718. A year after
New Orleans was laid out, a low levee had to be
constructed. As the city grew, the need
for a better levee system has been a lasting issue. The
levees were built taller and
stronger, but hurricanes in 1915 and 1947 flooded the city
killing about 200 and 47
people. The current hurricane protection system was
approved by Congress in 1965 after
Hurricane Betsy killed 81 people in southern Louisiana.
Hundreds of millions of dollars
has produced what may be the world's most elaborate flood
protection system, said Jim
Addison, chief of public affairs for the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers' New Orleans
District, which builds and monitors the levees. The levees
along the south shore of Lake
Pontchartrain and other key areas are designed to protect
the city from a fast-moving
hurricane of Georges power. The levees work together with
channels that shift flood
waters to strong pumping stations. Then water is sent back
into the lake. But Georges is
moving slowly, meaning up to 25 inches of rain could fall
on New Orleans and the wind
could push the lake over the levees.
Hurricane Georges caused an estimated $1 billion
in insured property damage in
four Gulf Coast states. This made it the costliest
hurricane in the United States this year.,
The cost is nearly three times as much as that of Hurricane
Bonnie, which cost insurers in
the North and South Carolina and Virginia $360 million
earlier this year. And Georges
cost dominates the $25 million in damage from this year's
Hurricane Earl, which edged
the Florida coast, Georgia and South Carolina .But Georges
cost is not close to the $15.5
billion in insured losses from Hurricane Andrew, which hit
south Florida, Louisiana and
Texas in 1992....
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