Performance Evaluation of the New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Protection System: Vol I - Executive Summary and Overview

This report is the result of an intense performance evaluation of the New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana hurricane protection system during Hurricane Katrina. It was conducted by the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force, a distinguished group of government, academic, and private sector scientists and engineers who dedicated themselves solely to this task from shortly after Katrina struck through the start of the next hurricane season. Created by the Chief of Engineers, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and peer reviewed literally on a weekly basis by an equally distinguished external review panel of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the group applied some of the most sophisticated capabilities available in civil engineering to understand what happened during Katrina and why. Their purpose was not just new knowledge, but application of that knowledge to the repair and reconstitution of protection in New Orleans as well as improvement to engineering practice and policies. The results of their work are largely already in the ground, having been transferred and applied prior to the completion of this report