{"id":7497,"date":"2019-07-18T21:48:08","date_gmt":"2019-07-19T02:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/?p=7497"},"modified":"2019-07-18T21:48:08","modified_gmt":"2019-07-19T02:48:08","slug":"as-flood-risks-rise-across-the-us-its-time-to-recognize-the-limits-of-levees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/?p=7497","title":{"rendered":"As Flood Risks Rise Across the US, It\u2019s Time to Recognize the Limits of Levees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>By Amahia Mallea, Associate Professor of History, Drake University<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"sep\">Posted on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/2019\/07\/as-flood-risks-rise-across-the-us-its-time-to-recognize-the-limits-of-levees.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Naked Capitalism<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/span> <time class=\"entry-date date updated\" datetime=\"%3$s\">July 17, 2019<\/time><\/p>\n<p>Originally published at<em> <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/as-flood-risks-increase-across-the-us-its-time-to-recognize-the-limits-of-levees-118326\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The Conversation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>New Orleans averted disaster this month when tropical storm Barry delivered <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/weather\/2019\/07\/14\/barrys-is-crawling-north-carrying-widespread-risk-flooding-rain-through-louisiana-mississippi\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">less rain in the Crescent City<\/a> than forecasters originally feared. But Barry\u2019s slog through Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee and Missouri is just the latest event in a year that has tested levees across the central U.S.<\/p>\n<p>Many U.S. cities rely on levees for protection from floods. There are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usace.army.mil\/National-Levee-Safety\/About-Levees\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">more than 100,000 miles of levees<\/a> nationwide, in all 50 states and one of every five counties. Most of them seriously need repair: Levees received a D on the American Society of Civil Engineers\u2019 2018 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.infrastructurereportcard.org\/cat-item\/levees\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">national infrastructure report card<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Levees shield farms and towns from flooding, but they also create risk. When rivers rise, they can\u2019t naturally spread out in the floodplain as they did in the pre-flood control era. Instead, they flow harder and faster and send more water downstream.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nakedcapitalism.com\/2019\/07\/as-flood-risks-rise-across-the-us-its-time-to-recognize-the-limits-of-levees.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the rest of this post on <em>Naked Capitalism<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_7499\" style=\"width: 827px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Nations-Levees-USACE-interactive.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7499\" class=\" wp-image-7499\" src=\"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Nations-Levees-USACE-interactive-1024x396.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"817\" height=\"316\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Nations-Levees-USACE-interactive-1024x396.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Nations-Levees-USACE-interactive-300x116.png 300w, https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Nations-Levees-USACE-interactive-768x297.png 768w, https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Nations-Levees-USACE-interactive.png 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 817px) 100vw, 817px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-7499\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Levees exist in one out of every five U.S. counties. <a href=\"https:\/\/levees.sec.usace.army.mil\/#\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">USACE<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; By Amahia Mallea, Associate Professor of History, Drake University Posted on Naked Capitalism,\u00a0 July 17, 2019 Originally published at The Conversation New Orleans averted disaster this month when tropical storm Barry delivered less rain in the Crescent City than forecasters originally feared. But Barry\u2019s slog through Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7497"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7502,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7497\/revisions\/7502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.savebuffalobayou.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}