ABSTRACT
American history includes severe flooding in two major metropolitan areas: in New Orleans, due to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and in the greater New York area, due to 2012’s Hurricane Sandy. The levees in place in New Orleans were breached by Katrina’s unusually high surge. The levees on the lower Mississippi River actually funneled more water upstream, enhancing the surge size and exacerbating damage. Levees are built along rivers and low-lying coastlines and are intended to help prevent flooding by containing rising waters. Levees may fail due to gradual erosion or sudden rupture, allowing water to flood the surrounding land. When the water level is higher than the levee, sometimes referred to as “overtopping,” this will cause flooding, but is less disastrous as it generally does not damage the levee itself. In the United States, the primary response to a series of powerful hurricanes in the 1950s was to develop warning systems and protective measures, including surge prediction models.
