Link to site: March 7, 2006

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Highlights:
- Federal engineers in Vicksburg have begun tests to determine exactly what caused the levees to fail in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
- Engineers want to learn what part waves played in breaching a floodwall on the 17th Street Canal, where Hurricane Katrina's storm surge pushed water from Lake Pontchartrain and where water poured into the city after the storm hit

VICKSBURG, Miss. (AP) - Federal engineers in Vicksburg have begun tests to determine exactly what caused the levees to fail in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

Engineers on Sunday gathered to watch a centrifuge spin a tiny model of the 17th Street Canal.

Wayne Stroup, a spokesman for the Engineering Research and Development Center's Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory, said more tests may be conducted later this week on a 14,000-square-foot model about a third the size of a football field.

Engineers want to learn what part waves played in breaching a floodwall on the 17th Street Canal, where Hurricane Katrina's storm surge pushed water from Lake Pontchartrain and where water poured into the city after the storm hit on Aug. 29.

Stroup said the larger model will be flooded with water. Engineers will use data, along with that from the centrifuge and other tests, to draw conclusions.

The work is part of the Corps' Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force, which is investigating why levees and floodwalls in the New Orleans area failed during Katrina. The task force commissioned the work in Vicksburg under the auspices of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The centrifuge, similar to those used in astronaut training to test the effects of increasing gravity, is three stories below ground.

It was manufactured in France and installed at the federal research station in Vicksburg more than 10 years ago. It remains one of the largest in the world.