Protecting New OrleansCritical surge barrier on New Orleans's eastern flank completed ahead of schedule
A 7,490 ft.-long storm-surge protection wall that is the central part of a roughly two-mile long surge barrier in New Orleans is being completed several months ahead of schedule; the placement of a significant portion of the barrier, well ahead of the start of the 2010 hurricane season, adds a welcome level of defense on the city’s eastern flank
Several months ahead of schedule and less than a year after driving the first 66-inch concrete cylinder pile, Shaw Environmental & Infrastructure Group is rapidly completing a 7,490 ft.-long storm-surge protection wall that is the central part of a roughly two-mile long surge barrier in New Orleans.
ENR’s Angelle Bergeron writes that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is pushing for speedy delivery of the $1.3 billion Lake Borgne Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Storm Surge Barrier to reinforce what is often called the Achilles heel of New Orleans’s hurricane and storm damage risk reduction system.
Shaw, of Baton Rouge, La., is responding with an aggressive effort. “Everybody is pleased with the progress,” says Ron Elmer, Corps IHNC project manager. “We get nothing but positive feedback, and we’re on schedule for the whole project to meet the June 1, 2011 date.”
The contract was awarded April 2008. “We drove the first vertical pile May 2009, and the last batter pile was driven April 10,” says Charlie Hess, senior vice president, Shaw Environmental and IHNC project manager. He called the performance “phenomenal…unprecedented” in terms of civil works.
Shaw’s subcontractors — Manson Construction Co. of Seattle, Washington and TMW, a joint venture of Traylor Bros. Inc. of Evansville, Indiana; Massman Construction Co. of St. Louis, Missouri, and Weeks Marine, Cranford, New Jersey — are expected to continue on finishing touches to the wall and on construction of other features of the surge barrier for several more months.
The barrier also includes a sector gate with a bypass barge gate, a navigable sector gate, and rock-reinforced T-wall-style floodwalls. Having the central portion in place ahead of schedule, however, is “clearly a major milestone” in the overall program, Hess says.
Bergeron quotes officials to say that, although it is difficult to determine the exact level of protection provided by the wall with other components not yet complete, significantly more protection is in place than when Hurricane Katrina’s surge barreled through this area in 2005, flooding eastern New Orleans, the lower ninth ward and St. Bernard Parish.
The wall is more than 90 percent in place, so it provides +26 ft. of protection except where the caps and parapet walls have yet to be installed, Elmer says.
Cofferdams are in place
