The Army Corps of Engineers and West Bank levee officials are huddling this morning to launch plans for closing up more than 20 miles of ongoing construction projects along the unfinished hurricane barrier."What we're looking at is expectation of a hit," said David Bindewald, outgoing president of the West Bank levee board. "We're gearing up with that in mind."
While they're preparing for the worst, Bindewald later cautioned that Gustav remains more than 100 hours from landfall - a long time in the life of a hurricane.
The West Bank is in the thick of an unprecedented amount of levee and floodwall improvements, but it will continue to have some of the most vulnerable areas in metro New Orleans until the full system is complete. The West Bank largely lucked out during Hurricane Katrina, except for water that flooded homes because internal drainage pumps weren't operating. If that wasn't enough of a wake-up call, Hurricane Rita sounded a louder alarm.
Rita's storm surge barreled into the Harvey Canal and threatened to bubble under and over its inadequate stretch of private levees on the east bank, threatening tens of thousands of homes in Gretna, Harvey and Algiers.
Now hulking concrete floodwalls tower above Peters Road east of the Harvey Canal. They will eventually protect against 100-year hurricanes, but sit for the time being unconnected. While the protection isn't finished, two new features installed since Katrina should give West Bankers more confidence than they had during Rita.
A massive set of butterfly gates designed by the Army Corps of Engineers is ready to swing closed across the Harvey Canal at Lapalco Boulevard, protecting the northern half of the industrial waterway and leaving surge-fighting crews to watch just the southern end.
The West Bank levee board and some businesses have installed a robust line of wire cages filled with sand along that southern stretch, protecting against surges up to 8 feet above sea level.
Another breakthrough since Katrina sits across the Company Canal in Westwego. When the corps determined that floodwalls near the Westwego seafood market were so unstable that they could fall under any additional surge, crews rushed to install a barge gate that would keep tides from reaching the weak walls.
The mechanical gate swings across the canal and sinks into place. Crews tested the system as recently as last week, closing it and re-opening it in about four hours, Bindewald said.
Jerry Spohrer, a levee district administrator, said his crews, corps project managers and contractors would communicate daily to make sure they're prepared on every front for Gustav.
Ahead of the storm, the levee board has replenished its supply of 3,000-pound rock bags and started stockpiling sand and rock. He instructed Lafitte Mayor Tim Kerner to send Jefferson Parish a list of equipment it would need to fight flooding, with the levee board helping parish crews.
Tests of the Harvey Canal floodgate and the Company Canal barge gate were planned for no later than Friday.