The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Louisville District held an outreach opportunity for levee sponsor officials from Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois and Ohio on Dec. 2-3 at the Sheraton Riverside Hotel, Jeffersonville, Ind.
The event was the first of its kind in the region. The activity was designed to educate and inform levee sponsors of the Corps’ levee safety program. Levee sponsors are traditionally governmental bodies comprised of local officials and engineers who oversee and operate levees and floodwalls.
“In light of this past summer’s Midwest flooding, aging infrastructure, and the current post-Katrina environment, the Corps has mobilized to support levee rehabilitation to minimize flood damages and communicate with sponsors the conditions of levees,” said Dan Frank, levee safety program manager.
“The Corps is now taking a risk-based approach to engineering solutions,” he said.
Agenda topics included rehabilitation of levees damaged during the June 2008 flood, the National Levee Database, Global Information Systems (GIS) and flood fighting techniques.
Guest speaker, Rick Murphy, P.E., Paducah city engineer, discussed a case scenario of how his community rallied to generate governmental partnerships to fix their aging levee system.