Anyone Rebuilding Katrina's Damage?

[Ashereng]

Well, it's been about a year since Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi.

I was wondering how many, if any, of you have worked on a project related to rebuilding the damage caused by Katrina, and if you would like to share what the projects were.

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[DaveVikingPE]

I was involved in emergencry response and some of the subsequent damage assesments. I saw the levees with my own eyes and know a lot of folks who are somehow involved.

It's a huge undertaking and, of course, the biggest hurdles are related to money, not engineering. CH2MHill, Shaw, Flour, and Bechtel are all heavily involved.

 

[0707]

i suppose someone built a big casino there. But according to the midea, people houses and old city more or less the same

luis

 

[Zapster]

It would be interesting if someone from the USACE would make a comment here; however, I believe that they are in a “cover-their-a**” mode. Hence, engineers directly under the supervision of the USACE, working on the levee system, would have been directed from the top, not to make any comments outside the official channels (official story) about existing design and repairs of the levees. So I am very skeptical about anything stated by the USACE, because of personal experience with USACE’s past performance in my State. If problems were involved with a substandard USACE design, do you believe it would be a difficult path for the truth to come out? Yes!

 

[HVACctrl]

I've done several commercial building, school and government facility reconstruction projects. I have also worked on a pumping station/moveable floodwall dealing with a drainage canal.

Most of my work was HVAC or HVAC controls related. The drainage canal project dealt with a fuel supply system.

Some of the work is dealing with replacing what got destroyed, some, the more proactive stuff, deals not only with replacing, but redesigning to insure a future catastrophe of this kind will not cause the same rsults.

Nothing overly exciting though. Just more work than in the past. Its too bad the construction industry in this area couldn't have been as busy without such a catastrophe. Its sad to rhink that ni maybe 5 years its likely to be just as stagnant is it was befoe the storm.

Ed

http://www.engineerboards.com

 

[jimaitken]

We are chasing some ACOE work for levee upgrades. The interesting part is that the work needs to be complete by 2010, 3 yrs for design and construction. It will all performed through design build contracts and other "non-traditional" contract delivery ,methods.

I have some freinds and colleagues who were involved in building, bridge and levee inspection right after the storm and they had some interesting stories and incredible photos. One good friend was involved with inspecting the Pontchartrain Bridge and getting the one of the two bridges serviceble. Look at the Katrina PDF. Its pretty interesting.

http://www.acec-mi.org/Template1.asp?id=182

It is tragic that the work is necessary in the first place, for numerous reasons, natural & man-made.

 

[ozmosis]

Just out of interest, if another hurricane of similar magnitude or higher to Katrina was to hit New Orleans again this year or next or the year after even, what would happen to the levees? Presumably the current levees are simply 'shored-up' until they can be rebuilt properly.

 

[unclesyd]

There was a lot of information coming out that the water undercut the I walls due to a peat layer, but now they are favoring a layer of clay or beach sand below the bottom of the sheet piling.

Here are two sites that have a lot of information on levee failures.

http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=1418&setappvar=page(1)

https://www.asce.org/static/hurricane/whitehouse.cfm

 

[oldfieldguy]

My previous employer was heavily involved in remediation of electrical power issues in the New Orleans area after Katrina.

We built entire utility substations and fixed problems with multiple commercial and industrial clients.

We helped get some of those famous New Orleans floodwater pumping stations back on line.

The technicians lived in temporary lodging set up in rented warehouses.

I managed the office in the CENTER of Hurricane Rita's swath, and we lived in the office on generator power for three weeks following, in the midst of a small town heavily damaged by storm winds.

Our little local office of four technicians expanded to over 30 working in southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana for a mad three weeks or so.

We repaired industrial substations damaged by wind and water. Winds blew roofs off and blew doors in, and driven rain soaked the equipment.

This area lost EVERY BIT of utility transmission and distribution network from 500 kV on down. We had industrial facilities in total shutdown after Rita, plants that5 had been continuously running since 1944 in some cases...

Fun stuff, yeah...

old field guy

 

[JohnNabors]

I work for a manufacturer of large, mostly diesel-driven water pumps. We have an emergency respose team that has responded to Katrina, the 2004 hurricanes here in Florida, 9/11, and various other crises. Here is an exerpt from an article from a trade magazine.

Thompson Pump Activates Team to Aid in Hurricane Relief Effort

Sep 12, 2005 10:50 AM


Port Orange, Fla.-based Thompson Pump last week mobilized its emergency response team to provide pumping equipment, supplies and manpower to Gulf Coast areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Thompson’s Baton Rouge, La.; Jackson, Miss.; and Pensacola, Fla., branch locations are operational and facilitating the relief effort. Initial concentration is focused on flooding relief in the New Orleans and coastal Mississippi areas, but other operations will include getting hospitals, wastewater treatment plants, water plants, power generation facilities and refineries up and running. Thompson Pump is a 30-year veteran in disaster relief having facilitated cleanup efforts with the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the World Trade Center collapse, several flooded areas in the Midwest and hurricane damaged areas in the Southeast.



John Nabors

"Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain." - Friedrich von Schiller

 

[unclesyd]

Just saw a news item from NO that the dewatering pumps lost another battle with yesterday rain. It looks like they need more of portable pumps.