Civil engineer to speak on failure of New Orleans levee system

Thursday, February 23, 2006, By News Staff

Civil engineer to speak on failure of New Orleans levee systemFebruary 23, 2006Cynthia J. Moritzcjmoritz@syr.edu

Between 5 and 10:30 a.m. on Aug. 29, 2005, Hurricana Katrina caused the biggest civil engineering failure in U.S. history — the collapse of the New Orleans levee system. Gordon P. Boutwell, a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Levee Assessment Team and co-author of the ASCE/ NSF (National Science Foundation) report on the New Orleans failure, will speak on “Failure in the New Orleans Levee System: Hurricane Katrina, 2005” March 9 from 5-6:30 p.m. in Room 369 of Link Hall.

The lecture is sponsored by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science. To arrange parking for the event, contact Mickey Hunter at (315) 443-2311 ormbhunter@syr.edu by March 3.

Boutwell, president of Soil Testing Engineers Inc. in Baton Rouge, La., and a consulting geotechnical engineer in Louisiana and Mississippi for more than 40 years, will describe the levee system and walk through the sequence of failure and flooding. He will also present ideas for better design of the levee system.