NEW ORLEANS — That large sinkhole on the levee that runs along the New Orleans lakefront has been repair for now.
Wednesday, heavy equipment and emergency contractors working for the Flood Protection Authority East started by excavating the sinkhole that suddenly appeared late last week.
The hole was roughly five feet in diameter at the surface and 10 feet deep.
Crews then filled in the hole with clay levee building material.
“Right now, we’re backfilling the hole, compacting it with a pneumatic plate compactor,” SLFPA-E Chief Engineer Chris Humphreys said. “We’re going to bring it up to alleviate the immediate risk.”
The Army Corps of Engineers, which built the levees, worked on the plan to repair the sinkhole.
“Our priority is to look at the why,” Army Corps spokesman Ricky Boyett said. “We want to know why this hole happened. Once we know that, that will determine best approach for correcting it to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”
Humphreys suspects an old utility pipe may have allowed underground material to escape and wash away, causing the sinkhole.
“We’re going to overbuild it a bit,” Humphreys said. “We’re going to survey it and monitor it and keep an eye on it and keep investigating the permanent solution.”
These levees are the last line of defense between New Orleans neighbors and potential flooding and storm surge on Lake Pontchartrain.
Boyett said it was important to take quick action, so we don’t have any problems with the structure during hurricane season.
“Our geotechnical engineers came out and they looked at not only the hole itself, but the levee and there are no stability issues with the levees, we’re confident that it will perform as designed,” Boyette said.
If there are any problems, the flood authority has giant sandbags and other flood fight materials available and on standby.
There will be new turf put down on top of the repaired section of levee. If a storm develops before the grass takes hold the Army Corps is prepared to armor it with rocks or other material.