In southeast Louisiana, crews are laboring hard to build miles of new fortifications to defend the region against another Hurricane Katrina-like disaster. But as local flood-protection officials learned last month, understanding and applying the evolving science of storm-surge and flood risk modeling is an even tougher race. Photo: Angelle Bergeron Mathijs Van Ledden, president of Haskoning Inc., a New Orleans-based division of Dutch engineering firm Royal Haskoning and flood protection adviser to the Corps of Engineers, describes storm-surge studies in Louisiana dating from 2005. Related Links: Corps Expects July Start at Seabrook “What we know about storm surge is changing
Despite fears that it will take months to rebuild port facilities in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, that were wrecked by an earthquake on Jan. 12, construction and shipping industry representatives say the damage will not prevent them from pouring building materials and equipment into the country as soon as they are given the go-ahead by officials. Photo: USDOTMA The U.S. has mobilized six shallow-draft catamarans for immediate use. “The port being destroyed won’t be a hindrance...not if you have an experienced heavy-lift operator,” says Jerry Nagel, CEO of U.S. operations for Rickmers-Linie, Hamburg, Germany. “Most of the time we bring equipment to
Even while survivors struggle through the grim process of removing bodies and debris left by the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that rocked Haiti on Jan. 12, relief organizations are mustering materials and skills to help Haitians rebuild their lives and economy. Photo: courtesy of GMI Prefabricated school unit is demonstration for proposed PET structural panels manufacturing plant in Haiti. Related Links: Haiti Quake Assessment is Small Step Toward Recovery Wrecked Port is No Barrier to Aid The World Economic Forum’s Disaster Relief Network is one group mobilizing aid to work on hospitals and orphanages in the villages of Duverger and Dandann,
Despite projections that it will take months to rebuild the primary, deep-draft port in Port au Prince, Haiti, construction and shipping industry representatives are confident they can pour loads of building materials and heavy equipment into the earthquake-damaged country. Photos: Seaboard Marine, a subsidiary of Seaboard Corp. (www.seaboardcorp.com), Merriam, Kansas. Haitian recovery efforts may hinge on shallow-draft ships like these unloading supplies. “The port being destroyed won’t be a hindrance to getting equipment in there, not if you have an experienced heavy lift operator who knows what they are doing,” says Jerry Nagel, CEO of U.S. operations for Rickmers-Linie, Hamburg,
More than 400 contractors hungry for work packed into two standing-room-only sessions at a Jan. 13 industry day, hosted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers New Orleans District (NOD), in hopes of learning what it would take to get a piece of a $14.3-billion program to built levees, pump stations and other flood-resistant infrastructure. Photo: USACE Photo/Haskoning Inc., M. Kluyver New Orleans is one of the few regions where construction contracts are expected to be plentiful in 2010. Under the Greater New Orleans Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System program, NOD is offering fully funded federal contracts to
Turning 50 years of talk, stalled projects and storm wreckage into a $15-billion design and construction program that has rapidly built monumental storm-surge defenses around Greater New Orleans can only be achieved with smart, steady, determined and gutsy leadership.
The year 2009 marked the midpoint and high-water mark in a seven-year-long flood of work at the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, with $27.7 billion in construction on the military-programs side and $15.6 billion on the civil-works side.
Escalation of the war in Afghanistan and nuclear proliferation in Iran underscore the need for new Army training facilities such as the $17.6-million Combined Arms Collective Training Facility completed in April at Fort Hood, the U.S. Army’s training post in the Central Texas city of Killeen. Photo: Randy Cephus / USACE. Gold domes rising from Fort Hood’s replica of a Middle East village. Photo: Randy Cephus / USACE. The 45-acre, 32-building Combined Arms Collective Training Facility at Fort Hood. “Not too many other places have this type of urban training facility, which is a replica of a Middle East village,”
This winter, Rocky Mountain Power customers in Wyoming will begin reaping the low-cost electricity benefits of two new wind farms � High Plains and McFadden Ridge 1 in Albany and Carbon counties. Photo: Jackie Shumaker The delicate grace of the assembled windmills belies their massive girth. The 262.5-ft-tall hollow supporting towers are 15 ft in diameter. Each weighs in at 470,000 lb. Photo: Jackie Shumaker RES Americas used a 650-ton crawler crane to erect the wind towers. The cell weight, 85,000 lb., dictates the size of the crane. Photo: Jackie Shumakere The General Electric-manufactured 1.5-mw turbines feature three-bladed rotors that
Even some of the harshest critics of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are pleased by the swift rise of the $1.3-billion Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Lake Borgne Storm Surge Barrier. The 1.8-mile-long, 26-ft-high concrete and steel wall-and-gate structure going up at the confluence of the IHNC, the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) in New Orleans is designed to keep storm surge on Lake Borgne and the Gulf of Mexico away from the city’s eastern flank. Related Links: VIDEO: Heavy Lift Ballet: Finesse Surges Barrier Toward Finish Storm-Barrier Equipment Fleet Uneasy About Evacuation Plan Construction
