Tough Jobs, Long Hours and Lonely Sites: Levee Reconstruction Grinds On
In their efforts to bring the levees back to pre-Katrina standards by June 1, contractors fight the clock, labor and material shortages and rising costs, but most of all, the thing that wrecked them last hurricane season: Mother Nature.
"Every now and then Mother Nature teaches us we don't know what strong is," says James Drinkwater, standing at the Sunrise Pumping station, in Buras, La., in lower Plaquemines Parish. One couldn�t ask for more visual evidence than at this particular location. Not only was a 200-ft I-wall section of the federal hurricane protection levee completely washed away, but a huge scour hole reached at least 20 yards inland to undermine half of Louisiana Hwy. 23, the main thoroughfare running north and south through the parish.