[StBernard] Corps: St. Bernard Parish levees could be 29 feet high

[Westley Annis]

Corps: St. Bernard Parish levees could be 29 feet high
2/15/2008, 10:49 a.m. CST
The Associated Press    

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A 29-foot-high levee along the eastern border of St.
Bernard Parish - 11 feet higher than the current levees - may be needed to
protect the parish from the storm surge of a "100-year hurricane," according
to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

But some parts of the levees in western New Orleans and East Jefferson are
already high enough to defend against such a hurricane - one with a 1
percent chance of hitting in any given year - according to tentative
elevation estimates released Thursday.

Along Lake Pontchartrain, the heights considered in the mid-1960s to be
proof against a 200- to 300-year hurricane are enough for 100-year flood
protection, the Corps said. Those levees range from 16.5 feet in Kenner and
Metairie to as much as 19 feet in New Orleans.

Current heights for the entire system were not immediately available
Thursday, but should be next week, said Steven Wright, corps senior program
manager for strategic communications.

The map only shows where elevations are expected to be high, and a lower but
broader levee, breakwaters or other designs might provide equivalent
protection, said Nancy Powell, New Orleans district chief of the corps'
hydraulics and hydrologic branch.

The numbers at least give residents, businesses and government agencies
their first official look at how much levees and floodwalls might have to
change to provide better defense by 2011, the date Congress and the White
House have set for completing the 100-year projects.

They also will be used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which
sets standards that levee systems must meet to qualify for the federal flood
insurance program. FEMA and the corps will use them to outline flood zones
within the levees, and new, permanent rules for how high new and renovated
buildings must be built.

Officials say it is not yet clear which sections of the new levee system
will require rock, concrete or geotextile fabric "armor" to protect their
inner sides from erosion caused by surge and wave overtopping during a
hurricane.

The Bush administration has included $460 million for armoring in the $5.7
billion it has included in its fiscal year 2009 budget request to complete
construction of the 100-year levee system by 2011. The corps already has
about $170 million set aside from earlier appropriations for armoring.

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