{"id":119319,"date":"2025-08-29T21:24:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T21:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/119319\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T21:24:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T21:24:13","slug":"new-orleans-levees-sinking-14-billion-flood-system-faces-climate-change-sea-level-rise-and-budget-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/119319\/","title":{"rendered":"New Orleans levees sinking: $14 billion flood system faces climate change, sea level rise, and budget cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was originally published by Grist<\/a> and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk<\/a> collaboration. <\/p>\n

It has been 20 years since New Orleans\u2019 faulty levee system failed during Hurricane Katrina, causing a flood that claimed almost 1,400 lives and inflicted more than $150 billion in economic damage. The catastrophe was so bad that some doubted the city could continue to exist at all \u2014 the US House speaker at the time declared<\/a> that rebuilding New Orleans \u201cdoesn\u2019t make sense\u201d and that much of it \u201ccould be bulldozed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than just patch up the damage, which would have left one of the country\u2019s most iconic cities exposed to every future storm, the federal government doubled down on flood protection, building a new $14.4 billion levee system that ranks as one of the most sophisticated anywhere in the world.<\/p>\n

Over the course of a decade, the US Army Corps of Engineers rebuilt and expanded almost 200 miles of levees across three parishes. It outfitted every major channel and canal with a gate that could swing shut during surge events. On the east side of the city, where storm surge had overtopped its old levees, it built the Lake Borgne Surge Barrier<\/a>, a 2-mile wall that could stop as much as 26 feet of surge. On the three canals where it had built shoddy flood walls, it built new ones and massive pump stations<\/a> that can remove an Olympics-sized swimming pool of water from the city every 3.5 seconds. It also decommissioned the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet<\/a>, or \u201cMr. Go,\u201d a large shipping channel that had destroyed protective marshland around New Orleans and funneled Katrina\u2019s storm surge into the city.<\/p>\n

But for all the success of the new levee system, the future of New Orleans remains uncertain.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

A construction worker repairs the Lake Borgne Surge Barrier, which straddles the wetlands east of New Orleans. The Army Corps of Engineers built the structure to withstand as much as 26 feet of storm surge. Lee Celano\/AFP\/Getty Images via Grist<\/p>\n

The sea levels around the city are rising by about half an inch every year<\/a> as climate change warms the oceans and melts glaciers. The city itself is sinking even faster than that, with some sections of the levee system settling by almost 2 inches each year<\/a> \u2014 faster than the rate of change that the Corps projected when it built the system. This elevation change makes the new levee system less effective with each year, requiring constant repairs and expansions.<\/p>\n

Even landmark structures like the Lake Borgne barrier may lose a few feet off their protection capacity by the middle of the century. That would put them within a hair\u2019s breadth of being topped by storms such as Hurricane Michael, which delivered almost 20 feet of surge to Florida in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince 2005, several storms have made landfall on the Gulf Coast that far exceed the stated design capacity of the new \u2018risk reduction system,\u2019\u201d said Andy Horowitz, a historian at the University of Connecticut and the author of a book on Hurricane Katrina<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s just chance, or luck, that one of them didn\u2019t hit New Orleans. One day, inevitably, one will.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Corps maintains that the system is working as designed, but federal and state cuts could jeopardize the system\u2019s resilience even further. The Trump administration has already eliminated funding for the Corps and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for key resilience projects<\/a> and levee inspections<\/a>. Republican-controlled Louisiana is following suit. Protecting New Orleans through the end of the century, against climate-fueled hurricanes, will require the exact whole-of-government effort that the Trump administration is trying to end.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe system that we have is a good system,\u201d said Sandy Rosenthal, a citizen activist and the founder of the website Levees.org<\/a>. Rosenthal was responsible for exposing the Corps\u2019 original design errors<\/a> after Katrina. \u201cBut for the first time since the levees were completed, I\u2019m actually concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n

New Orleans has been an engineered city for centuries. Subsidence and wetlands loss have driven the city to sink below sea level, turning it into a kind of bowl between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. Even the French settlers of the early 18th century had to use levees to keep the city from flooding. Almost the entire perimeter of New Orleans is now lined with either earthen levees or concrete walls. When it rains, pumps carry water up and out of the bowl, the same way you would bail out a canoe.<\/p>\n

This levee system has had many iterations, but the one that existed at the time of Hurricane Katrina was the federal government\u2019s project. The Army Corps of Engineers, which is the nation\u2019s flood-protection agency, had built around 125 miles of barricades around the city over the second half of the 20th century.<\/p>\n

The best way to describe this system is the old Woody Allen quip about restaurants: \u201cThe food here is terrible, and the portions are too small.\u201d The Corps made serious engineering mistakes when it built flood walls along canals that funnel water away from the city\u2019s densest neighborhoods. But even the levees it built \u201ccorrectly\u201d in the eastern part of the city, closest to the Gulf of Mexico, were too small. In other parts, there were no defenses at all.<\/p>\n

When Katrina sent storm surge barreling toward New Orleans, the old system failed in at least six places. The wall of water rushed over the tops of the levees, and the canals that were supposed to channel water out of the city shattered, flooding neighborhoods with water and silt. FEMA bungled the emergency response and took several days to deliver critical supplies, turning the disaster into a true humanitarian crisis.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

A Chinook helicopter drops sandbags into a breach along the London Avenue canal in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. After the storm, the Army Corps of Engineers spent almost $1 billion to close the city\u2019s outfall canals and build stronger walls alongside them. Jerry Grayson\/Helifilms Australia PTY\/Getty Images via Grist<\/p>\n

Katrina itself was not all that powerful, especially compared to the Category 5 monsters that now strike the Gulf in most years, but it exposed every engineering flaw in the Corps\u2019 structure. The American Society of Civil Engineers called it \u201cthe worst engineering catastrophe in US history<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite some initial skepticism about the cost of the rebuild, the federal government\u2019s response was to throw money at the problem. In the decade after Katrina, Congress allocated more than $14 billion to the Army Corps of Engineers to protect the whole city against a hypothetical 100-year storm, or one that has a 1 percent chance of happening in a given year. It was classified as a repair project, rather than new construction, which meant the feds picked up the entire tab.<\/p>\n

The new Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System (HSDRRS) comprises a network of hundreds of discrete projects touching every corner of the city. It no longer purports to offer \u201churricane protection,\u201d as the previous system did, but rather \u201crisk reduction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new system that\u2019s in place now is the first time New Orleans has ever had a complete approach to dealing with water,\u201d said Ed Link, a civil engineer at the University of Maryland. Link helped lead the government-appointed task force that evaluated the Katrina levee failures. \u201cThe old system was not a system \u2014 we called it a \u2018system\u2019 in name only.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Corps completed the major pieces by 2012 and finished its final work by 2018, a remarkable turnaround time for an agency that often spends two or three decades on major capital projects. The system passed its earliest tests: New Orleans took 9 feet of storm surge from Hurricane Isaac in 2012 and took another direct hit from Category 5 Hurricane Ida in 2021. During these storms, things worked the way they were supposed to: The storm surge barriers kept out the waters of the Gulf, and the pump stations stopped rainwater from flooding the city. Rosenthal said Ida showed that the system \u201cpassed the ultimate test.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether it will always pass that test is another question. The federal government no longer maintains the system; that job is now the responsibility of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority.<\/p>\n

Though now in local hands, the authority still relies on the Corps for levee-inspection funding. The Trump administration has already cut its budget<\/a>, with Republicans in Congress proposing even further reductions<\/a>. The Corps said it doesn\u2019t have the money<\/a> to inspect New Orleans\u2019 levees this year or next. Much of the system\u2019s maintenance funding also comes from local governments, some of which have chafed at the cost of keeping the levees at the Corps\u2019 standards after Katrina.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

A pedestrian walks along the 17th Street Canal in 2007, near the levee wall that failed during Hurricane Katrina. The Army Corps of Engineers built a new levee system around New Orleans after the storm, but that system itself is sinking as land subsides. Chris Graythen\/Getty Images via Grist<\/p>\n

Louisiana\u2019s new Republican governor, Jeff Landry, has also attempted to take control of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority this year, giving himself more influence<\/a> over what had been an independent board and slashing funding for line items like cutting levee grass<\/a>. His moves to undo post-Katrina governance reforms caused three members to resign in March<\/a>. Landry has selected a new board chair, fired that chair<\/a>, and installed a new chair through what critics say may be illegal means<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If that wasn\u2019t enough, New Orleans is still sinking. The city pumps its drinking water from underground aquifers, and levees farther up the Mississippi River have blocked the sediment that once replenished the delta on which the city sits. In addition, the Gulf of Mexico itself is rising by a few millimeters a year due to global warming. With these two factors combined, the relative sea level rise in Louisiana is higher than almost anywhere in the world.<\/p>\n

The Corps was aware of climate change when it built the new system, but it was planning for a moving target. Congress gave the agency enough money to build a flood network that would protect against a \u201c100-year flood\u201d event, but the height required to protect against such an event changes each year as land subsides and the Gulf of Mexico rises. Because these rates are very hard to predict, and may be accelerating, the Corps has to inspect the levees at regular intervals and elevate the ones that are sinking fastest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 100-year criteria is no longer a valid way to design things, primarily because it changes all around now,\u201d Link said. \u201cWe added a certain amount of subsidence and a certain amount of sea level rise to our calculations, but we didn\u2019t put enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corps spokesperson Ricky Boyett said the agency is confident that the system will provide 100-year protection through 2057, provided it has the money to lift up the earthen levees every few years. It also said it is preparing to expand the system west toward Baton Rouge and studying how to extend that 100-year level of protection for New Orleans through at least 2073, even with further subsidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is always to stay ahead of it,\u201d Boyett said. The major concrete structures, like the surge barrier, were built with enough spare height to last through 2057, but only if sea levels rise as the Corps predicted \u2014 and new research from Tulane University suggests that these structures are sinking too.<\/p>\n

The Corps also readily admits that bigger storms are possible. The HSDRRS would reduce the damage from these storms, but would not stop them altogether. As for whether it will ever build a 200-year or 500-year system, one that would be robust enough to stop supersized storms such as Hurricane Ian or Hurricane Michael, the Corps can offer no guarantees. Such funding would depend on Congress, which tends to act after big disasters rather than before them.<\/p>\n

\"Al<\/a><\/p>\n

Al Naomi, a senior official with the Army Corps of Engineers, explains the New Orleans levee system at a public meeting. The Corps faced significant criticism for design flaws in its pre-Katrina levee network. Paul J. Richards\/AFP\/Getty Images via Grist<\/p>\n

Another problem is that levees are only supposed to be one part of a broader approach to resilience, and the federal and state governments are now neglecting the other parts of that approach. Landry, the Louisiana governor, just scrapped a $3 billion sediment diversion project<\/a> that would have created 30,000 acres of new hurricane-slowing wetlands, bowing to pressure from a vocal group of oyster fishermen. The city, meanwhile, has pursued a novel project to slow down subsidence by capturing rainwater<\/a>, but that project depends on funding from federal resilience programs that President Donald Trump is trying to cut.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not minimizing the importance of the hard levees and the other structures, but the natural stuff is as important, if not more important,\u201d said Charles Allen, a New Orleans activist who founded an organization to support the flooded Lower Ninth Ward after Katrina. He now serves as the Gulf Coast community engagement director at the National Audubon Society. \u201cWe can\u2019t just throw up something, turn our back, and say, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s gonna be fine.\u2019 \u2026 Now two decades have passed, and we are still fiddling.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the hard levees are all New Orleans has.<\/p>\n

Massive civil works projects like the HSDRRS may soon look like the product of a bygone era. The second Trump administration has purged the federal civil service and called for drastic reductions to government spending, and Trump has said he wants the states to take on a greater share of disaster preparedness costs. If that model continues past his presidency, it might threaten the Corps model of proposing large capital projects that depend on money from Congress, the projects that can extend a city\u2019s probable lifespan by a century or more.<\/p>\n

While the new system isn\u2019t perfect, it does demonstrate what the government can do if it tries, says Horowitz.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to think of the post-Katrina \u2018risk reduction system\u2019\u2026as the bare minimum, but subsequent events have reminded me that, of course, Congress could have done less,\u201d he said. \u201cIt could have done nothing, which has been its response to many crises since. It could even engage in action that makes matters worse.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[1687,192,1682,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-119319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-climate","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-natural-disasters","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}