I-Walls

WWLTV: Corps using floodwall design that failed in Katrina?

NEW ORLEANS – One of the lessons the flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina taught New Orleans and the engineering community is that so-called I-walls – like the ones that failed along the London Ave., 17th St. and Industrial canals – are less stable and more prone to failure than upside down T-walls.

“In general, I think it’s safe to say that T-walls are a more substantial structure,” said Bob Turner, executive director of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Authority East.

Now, as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers scrambles to meet the June deadline for 100-year flood protection in this region’s levee system, construction crews are building a floodwall along Hayne Blvd. in eastern New Orleans.

And as they drive 45-foot steel sheet piles into the ground and build a floodwall, they are also doing something that some engineers and public officials did not expect and are clearly concerned about. The crews are building an I-wall on top of the levee.