Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Surge Barrier
Protecting New Orleans with the largest storm-wall in the country
IHNC Barrier
Shaw Environmental & Infrastructure Group
Built in the soft mud of Lake Borgne, a lagoon off the Louisiana coast, the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal surge barrier is the nation’s largest storm wall. It’s 1.8 miles long, made of 144-foot steel-reinforced concrete piles 12 stories deep, and extends 24 feet above the water at high tide. Shaw Group started construction in 2009 (while Tetra Tech INCA and Gerwick were still designing it) in order to deliver the IHNC barrier ahead of the 2011 hurricane season. Expected to protect New Orleans from a Katrina-size 100-year storm, the barrier should survive even if a larger storm manages to get over the top.
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I thought Katrina's biggest problem was water coming down river from the excessive rainfall...
jsbrads... I'm shocked. The river posed absolutely no problems for the City of New Orleans since with most storms the majority of the rain fell on the northeastern side of the eye and the eye made landfall on the MS gulf coast (east of New Orleans).
None of the river levees in New Orleans broke. it was the surge from the storm that was able to travel deep into the city via shipping and drainage canals that overtopped and broke through the levees. This surge barrier is at the far edge of the city and the intracoastral waterway to prevent that water from ever getting near the city.
It's still amazing to me how six years later there are so many simple, but massive misconceptions about the storm. I live in the city, but I've actually had people ask me about my family and when I said that they live in Bay St. Louis, MS I've had numerous people say "oh so they were fine, it was only New Orleans." I usually come close to punching them (Bay St Louis was nearly wiped off the face of the earth), but then I just give them credit for ignorance...
Water will always find a way and time is on it's side.
Well thats great popsci... but... what happens now to the migrating fish life that lays eggs in the marshes before riding the tides out to sea again? Or the turtles for that matter?
" Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein
@cgdubs834
I am glad you did not punch those people because then you would just be on the same level of ignorance if not lower than those people so congrats sir on being a better more enlightened man!! I also know it is fustrating when poeple do not simply educate them selves on something that is so obvious and so easy to find out the facts and information about. As I have always said ignorance is only bliss for the ignorant.
Can you see the barrier from land or a nearby highway (i.e. US11 or I-10)?
Pioneer10,
If you take Paris Road (highway 47) down past NASA, and go over the bridge towards Chalmette, you can see it. Better view, though, is on the way back from Chalmette. Just look to your right.