Corps levee project won't fix weak spots

[Thom Little]

The commitment to rebuild New Orleans-area levees to pre-Katrina strength before the start of the next hurricane season in June doesn't include spots that weakened but didn't break during the storm.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineer's "Task Force Guardian" has been charged with rebuilding the destroyed or breached levees within the 300-mile system that includes Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, said Jim Taylor, chief public affairs officer for the task force.

"By June, we will have restored the system to the pre-Katrina level of protection," Taylor said.

That rebuilding will focus on about 40 miles of levees and floodwalls that failed or were breached during Hurricane Katrina, Taylor said. However, that doesn't include repairing the areas that may have been weakened but didn't fail during the storms, he said. That job will probably fall to another group in the corps -- and that work probably won't be completed by June 1, he said.


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