Construction Owners & Builders Law Blog

The design of the levees that failed in New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina flooding "was a disaster waiting to happen" according to a draft report by Team Louisiana reports several prominent news publications. Link Link Link Link

Team Louisiana consists of six LSU professors and three independent engineers.

Here's how the New York Times (free subscription required) summed up the Team's report:

The Louisiana team's investigation of the levee breaches shows that the sheet piles, the interlocking sheets of steel that are driven into soil to anchor the levees and prevent a flow of water underneath them, were too shallow to prevent that flow. Tests by the Louisiana group found that sheet piles reached only 10 feet below sea level in some spots, far less than would protect the city. Corps documents dating from the time of construction show that the design was for a depth of 17½ feet, but even that, the investigators say, would have been too shallow. By comparison, in spots where the levees are now being repaired, the Corps of Engineers is calling for sheet piles to be driven to a depth of 51 to 65 feet.

The Times-Picayune named names:

That miscalculation was so obvious and fundamental, investigators said, they "could not fathom" how the design team of engineers from the corps, local firm Eustis Engineering and the national firm Modjeski and Masters could have missed what is being termed the costliest engineering mistake in American history.

One investigator was quoted by the Times-Picayune as saying:

"This is the largest civil engineering disaster in the history of the United States. Nothing has come close to the $300 billion in damages and half-million people out of their homes and the lives lost,".... "Nothing this big has ever happened before in civil engineering."

Stay tuned, you ain't heard the last about this construction debacle.