USACE Prevents $749 Million in Damage

Even though Hurricane Georges was a near-miss for New Orleans, projects built by the USACE and local sponsors prevented an estimated $749 million of damages from the storm in the region of Lake Pontchartrain alone. Economists of the USACE's New Orleans district base their estimates of flood damages prevented on property loss that would have occurred without USACE projects. The cumulative total for the years 1983-1998, is estimated at $9.7 billion for flood damages prevented by the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project, on which construction began in 1967, and is still years from completion. The project has 80 miles of levees and 17.9 miles of floodwalls. The average levee is 16 ft. above sea level. It is designed to protect the New Orleans area from hurricanes with the destructive force of Betsy, a fast-moving Category 3 storm, which ravaged the area in September 1965, leading to authorization of the project. "During Hurricane Georges, our project not only worked, it demonstrated its worthiness as a public investment in dollars, "said Col. Willam L. Conner, commander of the New Orleans District, USACE. "The $749 million of damages prevented by the project in 1998 alone exceed the expected total cost of $732 million upon completion in 2013."