No Levee Is Flood-Proof — and Other Critical Information to Tell Citizens

Being located behind a levee can bring comfort to home and business owners who live in flood-prone areas, but as a recently released pamphlet from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) exemplifies: No levee is flood-proof.

The pamphlet, So, You Live Behind a Levee, outlines four essential facts for citizens to know about levees:

1. Flooding will happen.
2. No levee is flood-proof.
3. Risks associated with flooding vary.
4. Actions taken now will save lives and property.

Wayne Klopz, former president of the ASCE, said the Geo-Institute, one of the unit’s within the ASCE, thought it could do a great service for the general public by publishing information geared toward people who live in communities that have levees. He said events like the levees breaking in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and other levee breaks, including along the Mississippi River, exemplify that the general public doesn’t understand what levees are, how they got put there, and what the public can and can’t depend on them to do.

“The ASCE chose to take the lead, something we always try to do, which is to provide a service not just to our members, but to the general public on issues related to civil engineering and the work that civil engineers construct,” Klopz said.

Since 1988, the ASCE has released the Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, in which 15 categories of critical infrastructure — like dams, drinking water and bridges — are evaluated and graded. This year levees were added to the list, and the ASCE found that the nation has more than 100,000 miles of levees and 85 percent of them are privately owned. “There really is no centralized database on information about when they were built, how they were built, how they’re being maintained, all those sorts of things,” Klopz said. “So we believe that we have uncovered a fairly significant issue in the United States regarding people who have inhabited their homes or businesses behind the levee.”

He said state and local emergency management officials can use the pamphlet to educate citizens about what it means to have a levee near their property, what the risks are and what their responsibilities are. “I think that an emergency management professional could use this material very effectively in public outreach during times when the levees are put under stress from rising water or other things, which is what they’re there for. It’s a very effective communication tool,” Klopz said.

He added that emergency managers can acquire large quantities of the pamphlets from the ASCE to distribute to citizens.

“We’re trying to make sure that those people who are potentially affected by levees have all of the information they need to make informed decisions about how they live their lives,” Klopz said.

[Photo courtesy of FEMA/Dave Gatley.]