Army engineers pleased with New Orleans levee performance so far

A day after Hurricane Gustav slammed into New Orleans, specialists with the Army Corps of Engineers still were assessing damage to the levee system that protects the city, but they were cautiously optimistic.

New Orleans District Commander Col. Alvin B. Lee conducted a flyover on Tuesday and teams of engineers on the ground were inspecting the levees for any signs of failure or fatigue.

Amanda Jones, a spokeswoman in the agency's New Orleans district office, estimated it would take several days before engineers would be able to "check every inch" of the 350 miles of levees surrounding the area, but said initial assessments were positive.

"So far, everything has held up as expected," Jones said.

New Orleans, which essentially sits in a basin below sea level, is protected by a system of canals and levees, some of which are privately owned.

The Corps is three years and nearly $13 billion into a six-year construction program that will substantially improve flood protection for the city.

Hurricane Katrina in 2005 killed and injured thousands of people in the greater New Orleans area and rendered hundreds of thousands of people homeless when floodwaters overtopped some levees and seeped through others that had failed, eventually covering nearly 80 percent of the city. Army engineers completed the repair and restoration of 220 miles of floodwalls and levees in time for the 2006 hurricane season.

Those improvements, which were only the first step of the major overhaul, were substantial, Corps officials said. The Corps constructed new levees and floodwalls, reinforced and armored damaged floodwalls, repaired and improved pumping stations, and completed floodgates at three canals.

The Corps also led a major study involving 150 specialists from academia, government and industry to guide restoration efforts and the ongoing construction program.

Before Gustav had even exited Louisiana, at least three potential hurricanes appeared to be forming in the Atlantic Ocean, meteorologists reported, lending an air of urgency to the Corps' efforts.

Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, the commander who led the military response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, said the levees were repaired "in the finest fashion" following those storms. But the Louisiana native told CNN late Monday, "There's a limit to what you can do to protect yourself from flooding."

"I would not count on levees during a hurricane to save your life," Honore said. "Levees will give you early warning. If you're living behind a levee, you need to be prepared to evacuate at any time. That's Russel Honore's rule No. 1, if you live along the Mississippi River or on the Gulf Coast. Rule No. 2 is: It's going to flood."