In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, California politicians and flood control agencies are crying out for billions of dollars to reinforce 1,600 miles of levees and modifications to a key dam that protects the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and Southern California’s water system. "This is a wakeup call, I think, for every state in the country, to not postpone things," says Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R). "If we know there is vulnerability, let us fix it now." Future Past. A Delta levees remain at risk after a June 2004 break caused $100 million in damage. remains at risk. The vulnerability of what
Asobering new reality has emerged in sodden New Orleans as floodwaters recede and a tireless recovery effort shows gains. The damage to the region’s flood defenses is worse than previously believed, say officials of the Army Corps of Engineers, stretching for miles in badly damaged St. Bernard Parish and leaving the region especially vulnerable to new storms. St. Bernard’s 13 miles of 17 to 17.5-ft-high earthen outer levees along the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet were breached in several places, including one measuring several thousand feet. That sent a torrent into the neighborhood that produced "complete destruction" and swept houses from
As the floodwater levels continue to drop in the Greater New Orleans area, concern is rising about Katrina's environmental consequences. Search and rescue efforts are evolving into the grim task of corpse recovery, identification and disposal. Much of the city remains a ghost town, as police and military authorities maintain a dusk-to-dawn curfew. Heavy equipment operators are pushing heaps of rubble-the current Louisiana Dept. of Environmental Quality estimate is 22 million tons-into piles for eventual disposal. LaDEQ officials are now selecting sites. Crews are spraying standing water with pesticides to suppress mosquitoes. The most immediate threat is from the polluted
Heads were rolling at the top of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but that did not keep it from calling up its civilian troops to assess and repair Hurricane Katrina’s mess and help its thousands of victims. To shore up his image in the affected area and across the U.S., President Bush replaced embattled FEMA Director Michael D. Brown, under fire as inexperienced, with R. David Paulison, a 30-year veteran of fire and emergency services. The management shift hardly interrupted the parade of activated task orders or new contracts let by FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers for critical
Fueled by aging and inadequate facilities, the "baby boom echo," immigration and relocation, the K-12 construction market is providing a steady stream of work for contractors and design firms. In the first half of this year, construction started on $15.6 billion worth of school facilities in the U.S., a 4% increase over same period last year. Top 10 in K-12 Starts Through June ($ Millions) 2004 2005 % Chg. 1 Texas 1,592.4 1,946.1 22% 2 California 2,722.3 1,657.6 -39% 3 Florida 700.0 901.6 29% 4 New York 722.2 814.5 13% 5 New Jersey 949.8 737.9 -22% 6 Ohio 635.5
The Clark County School District is building at a breakneck pace to keep up with runaway growth in the Las Vegas Valley. The county has the nation’s fifth largest school district with 295,650 students and is adding 15,000 more each year. The district’s 10-year, $3.5-billion bond program is backed by hotel and property taxes. Since its approval by voters in 1998, development on the Strip and skyrocketing land values have helped boost funding levels to $4 billion. Although the program initially called for 88 new schools and numerous upgrades, it has delivered 90 schools and $361-million in improvements to date.
Maikish For Charles Maikish, recently drafted by New York State to coordinate $21 billion worth of public and private investment in less than a square mile of densely packed lower Manhattan, it’s almost déja vu all over again. Maikish, as director of the World Trade Center during the Feb. 26, 1993 terrorist attack, led that fix. But he is even more connected to the WTC than that. In 1968, Maikish started as a field engineer on the slurry wall. And from 1975-85, he worked as a port authority lawyer. One of his jobs was to defend construction claims against the
Restoring New Orleans’ drinking-water supply could be a year-long chore, says a water system expert whose company is familiar with the city’s water and wastewater systems. MWH Global, Denver, has worked extensively on New Orleans’ Sewage & Water Board’s wastewater system, with peak flow of up to 230 million gallons per day, for 25 years, says Mark Swatek, president of MWH’s municipal division. The city’s main drinking water plant "is generally OK," he says, but the power is down. "It hasn’t been as significantly damaged as other elements," he says. But the water-supply system is almost entirely under water. It
It takes two to three days for mold to begin growing in a flooded building. It can take years to get rid of it. For most houses and buildings damaged by Hurricane Katrina, it already is too late to stop the mold invasion, say sources. And the longer there is no power in New Orleans to dry out buildings, the worse the situation will get. That means many buildings will have to be stripped to the bone to rid them of mold. "It is too late already," says consulting engineer Joseph Lstiburek, a principal with Building Science Corp., Westford, Mass.
The Netherlands and the U.K. have spent huge amounts of money for coastal flood protection that far exceeds what the U.S. had shielding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. In coming years, the two European nations plan to spend even more to cope with rising sea levels. Prompted by catastrophic floods on either side of the North Sea in 1953, both The Netherlands and the U.K. invested heavily in coastal defenses. A major storm surge had coincided with high spring tides to raise sea levels by nearly three meters. Sea dikes in the southwest of The Netherlands collapsed extensively, causing
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