Hurricane Katrina Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force

Hurricane Katrina devastated the New Orleans area in August 2005. Subsequent to this disaster, LTG Carl A. Strock, Chief of the Corps of Engineers, commissioned the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force (IPET) to determine the facts concerning the performance of the hurricane protection system. The IPET tackled a variety of questions relating to Katrina and a number of teams were assembled to address these questions. Each team was lead by a Corps of Engineers employee and a member of a non-Corps agency. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) was hired to provide an External Review Panel (ERP) of the IPET findings. The National Research Council was hired to provide overview comments on the IPET direction. The. draft final IPET report was released on 1 June 2006. The ASCE provided comments on this report in August 2006. Final NRC comments are due in the fall. The Final IPET report will be published subsequent to addressing ASCE and NRC comments. This paper will summarize the structure of the IPET organization and the findings of the IPET.