HARVEY, La. (AP) — The Army Corps of Engineers has broken ground on one of the last major pieces of the improved levee system it is building for the New Orleans area.
Crews are building a $1 billion floodgate and pump project to block hurricane surge from flooding the suburbs on the West Bank of the Mississippi River.
New Orleans lost 300,000 people in the months after Hurricane Katrina. But the West Bank quickly regained most of its pre-storm population of about 250,000 and is primed for more growth.
The West Bank was one of the only dry places in the city after Katrina struck. Experts say that's mainly because of the angle the storm took and that a different hurricane track could leave the West Bank swamped.
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