Case Study: 17th Street Canal Breach Closure Procedures
Publication: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 134, Issue 11
Abstract
On August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina resulted in several breaches in the levees and flood walls protecting New Orleans. Of the 20 breaches, the 17th Street Canal breach caused much of the city flooding. In this paper, the results of studies on a 1:50 scale hydraulic model of this breach based on the Froude similitude relationships are presented. It is assumed in the model that the bed is fixed and the levee below the flood wall remains intact during breach closure. This was the case in the 17th Street Canal breach. Because of the many uncertainties in the values of various variables, a range of conditions were run on the model in an attempt to bracket the results for the flooding depths and the initial failed attempts to close the breach. Then, various possible methods for breach closure were investigated utilizing the procedures developed for cofferdam closure for river diversion, e.g., toe dumping, transverse dumping, single- and multibarrier embankments, etc. Closures of the breach and the closure of the canal at the Old Hammond Highway Bridge were investigated. Results from the case study show that some of these methods could have been utilized for closing the Katrina breaches. However, special care should be exercised when extending them for breach closure at other sites.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant Nos. NSFCMS-0612207 and OISE-0730246) and by the Office of Vice President for Research, University of South Carolina. The writers thank the reviewers for their comments, which improved the quality of the presentation.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 134 • Issue 11 • November 2008
Pages: 1547 - 1558
Copyright
© 2008 ASCE.
History
Received: May 31, 2007
Accepted: Apr 17, 2008
Published online: Nov 1, 2008
Published in print: Nov 2008
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