While the flood fight and cleanup continues in the upper Midwest, national experts are pointing to the disaster as yet another gloomy warning that the nation’s infrastructure is sorely in need of some serious upgrades. “Katrina, I-35 and now these levees are examplesof how, when infrastructure is not accurately designed and maintained, it can result in the kind of catastrophe we are seeing now,” says David Mongan, president of the American Society of Civil Engineers. “We need to examine risk of failure in a very different way than we have in the past,” he adds. “We need to identify risk more effectively to the public, governments, legislators and public- works officials, so when they make a decision to fund or not to fund they understand the consequences.”
From southern Wisconsin to Missouri, taxpayers and infrastructure owners are doing the math. By June 23, unusually high water on the Mississippi River and its tributaries had overtopped 32 levees. Of those, 26 were agricultural levees, meaning they are designed, built and operated by non-federal agencies. Six others were federal levees. One of those and several non-federal levees breached. The resulting floods from overtopping and breaches flooded thousands of homes and businesses and millions of acres of farmland. Highways and rail lines were cut, especially in Iowa, where, in two cases, railroad bridges were swept away.