Coastal flood risk reduction and water resources infrastructure that incorporates value engineering while mitigating flood risk

West Shore Lake Pontchartrain Pump Stations and Drainage Structures

During Hurricane Isaac, storm surge flooded thousands of homes in Louisiana and submerged I-10, delaying emergency response across the region for days. USACE initiated the West Shore Lake Pontchartrain Risk Reduction project to reduce future storm damage risk to more than 60,000 vulnerable people.

Our team is providing design services for a 100-year storm risk reduction system featuring levees, pump stations, flood walls and gates, environmental and drainage canals, a FEMA 361 operations safe house, and bypass drainage gates. We’re designing the stations to pump stormwater over surge levees and floodwalls and conducted a resiliency check by modeling a 500-year storm event to confirm the system could withstand overtopping and wave loads. Structures are being designed to withstand hurricane winds, while redundancy was built into the electrical and mechanical systems to avoid a single point of failure. Soft soils were challenging, so we have incorporated surcharge with wick drains, staged construction, and deep foundations to limit settlement. Seepage and stability are being analyzed to prevent water from destabilizing flood protection.

Our design is being expedited to meet USACE schedule and funding obligations. Ultimately, we were able to incorporate value engineering, money saving options into a design that effectively and economically reduces risk.