It’s the “Death of an American City,” an editorial proclaimed in The New York Times in December of 2005. The article continued:

Whether it is a conscious plan to let the city rot until no one is willing to move back or honest paralysis over difficult questions, the moment is upon us when a major American city will die, leaving nothing but a few shells for tourists to visit like a museum.

As we gratefully know, New Orleans didn’t fall. But it took serious dedication from many industries, particularly construction, to make sure that New Orleans didn’t just survive—it thrived.

Hurricane Katrina caused an unspeakable level of damage. It flooded about 80% of the city. Prisoners in the local jails were abandoned to drown as guards hunted down shelter. Bodies were left floating through the streets—thousands were collected and hundreds were too decomposed to be identified as they were recovered. Entire neighborhoods-worth of homes were drowned in the storm. Levees burst. Almost all major roads were severely damaged. Bridges collapsed. Even one of New Orleans’ most iconic symbols, the Superdome, suffered two massive holes in its supposedly waterproof ceiling.

There is no understating the destructive power of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans.

Amazingly, much of the city has recovered in force. The new charter school system is vastly outperforming New Orleans’s old public school system. It weathered the Great Recession better than other cities. It now has one of the highest entrepreneurship rates in the country.

Of course, there’s still work to be done. But, as it is Fat Tuesday and the ten-year-anniversary of Katrina, let’s take the time to celebrate—specifically the three major construction industry achievements: renovating the Superdome, fixing the drainage system, and rebuilding and removing wrecked homes. Many of these projects are still ongoing.

The Superdome

There was possibly no greater symbol of Hurricane Katrina’s destruction than the Superdome. And yet, there is no greater symbol of recovery than the Superdome’s renovation. As New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu points out, “That building is an iconic symbol for the people of New Orleans and will always reflect our willingness to get back off our knees and move forward.”

Repairs were not cheap. According to CBS News, reconstruction totaled $185 million—62% of which FEMA funded. But the city didn’t want to stop there. By early 2006—less than a year after Hurricane Katrina hit—city planners invested an additional $320 million in renovations (primarily through Brazos Urethane). Almost heroically, the New Orleans Saints defeated their long-time enemy, the Atlanta Falcons, in the Superdome the day it reopened.

The first phase included displacing the old press box; it added 15 private box suites and a press box on the 700 level.

The second phase added 3,100 new seats to the stadium and widened the Plaza Level concourse 233%, giving more space for restrooms, food stands, and food-service areas. The Plaza Level also got premium clubs, a private entry from the garage, along with TVs and new recreation areas.

The final phase of the Superdome upgrade included finishing the exterior renovations. Workers installed aluminum panels to the Dome’s outer walls and put in new “rainscreens” to limit future water damage. As a final touch, contractors returned the Dome’s roof to its original golden color.

Superdome manager Doug Thornton pointed out to ESPN that renovating the stadium cost half the amount of building a new structure. Following the construction, the New Orleans Saints’ owner, Tom Benson, proudly stated, “It’s got all the things we wanted. I haven’t seen a finer stadium in the country.”

The Superdome went on to host Super Bowl XLVII in 2013.

The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex

It’s important to remember that Hurricane Katrina, alone, did not overflow the city. It was, in fact, design failures in levees and floodwalls that allowed water from the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Pontchartrain to drown 80% of New Orleans’s land surface.

Following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the US Army Corps of Engineers constructed the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex, a $1 billion project designed to withstand the impact of a “100-year storm” (or a storm that has a 1% chance of occurring per year). It has the world’s largest interior draining pump and was greenified because it was constructed alongside a Section 404(c) wetland area.

Incredibly, the project was completed in less than three years, largely because of the smart use of materials (like relying on Fairbanks Nijhuis, industrial water-management engineers, and employing construction management consultants like Arcadis to keep the project on track).

The Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Lake Borgne Surge Barrier

The Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Lake Borgne Surge Barrier was a $1.1 billion-dollar project that stemmed from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The construction project management on this project was simply incredible—so much so that it was awarded a 2014 Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement. The project was built by the Army Corps of Engineers. Christopher Gilmore explains:

The standard corps organizational and operational processes in place at the time would have required 10 to 15 years to design, permit, and construct a project of this magnitude; the schedule allowed 4 years… This drove the Corps to streamline analysis and decision-making while maintaining strict accountability. It drove the design team to develop a solution that was adjustable to evolving design criteria and specifically tailored to support fast-track construction.

In terms of sheer scale, the IHNC Lake Borgne Surge Barrier has 1,271 concrete piles that are 66 inches by 144 feet, weighing 96 tons in addition to 288 foot-long steel piles situated behind them. The main floodgate is over a mile long. Construction once again was quick—it began in 2006 and ended in 2011. It crosses the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex.

More?

While New Orleans is still in recovery from Katrina, there have been fantastic achievements in civil engineering and construction in the ten years since the hurricane. Were there any successes that I missed? Did you work on any of these projects? Are there more projects that New Orleans should invest in? Leave your thoughts about construction achievements below!