Les Jones

News > New Orleans Floodwall Tests

Destructive physical examination of the 17th Street floodwalls finds that they were in fact built to specifications, yet still failed.

Initial testing by sonar had indicated the pilings were only driven to about 10 feet below sea level, even though the design called for the steel reinforcements to be driven down to 17.5 feet below sea level. The discrepancy fueled suspicion of wrongdoing in the building of the failed flood wall, attracting criminal investigators to the work site. The U.S. attorney, the state attorney general and the local district attorney all have launched investigations into the building and maintenance of the levees.

After pulling and measuring the pilings, officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers expressed a measure of relief, since the Corps was responsible for ensuring the construction matched the approved design when the flood wall was built in the early 1990s.

But if the flood wall was built to specifications, as the latest inspection indicated, the next question will be whether the design was faulty.