March 13, 2021
After repeated floods, those who live and work near U.S. levee systems agree something has to change. Getting them to agree on what is tough.
With another year of devastating floods along Midwest rivers, those who live or work near them believe hard conversations are coming. The question is once again being asked, how do you protect everyone from rivers impossible to entirely control?
On the coasts, the looming issue is obvious. Experts warn rising sea levels due to climate change will fundamentally alter coastal communities worldwide.
But inland, it s more complicated. Yes, climate change has a major effect in making the wet seasons wetter and the dry seasons more drought-prone. But along major U.S. river systems, every river and levee policy change has a potential ripple effect to the people and property surrounding them.
March 7, 2021
Levees with unacceptable ratings are far more common than acceptable. And 73 systems with unacceptable ratings are considered high or very high risk.
The U.S. levee system once considered the second largest piece of the country s infrastructure rivaled only by the highway system is now nearly a century old and failing inspections far more often than it passes them. Only one in 25 federal levees are rated Acceptable.
Newsy s data analysis of the National Levee Database in the spring of 2020 focused on two things: the status of the overall infrastructure and finding the nation s most vulnerable levees.
In the federal portfolio of levees, the most common inspection rating is Minimally Acceptable (57.1%). It means at least one part of the levee doesn t meet standards, but should survive a flood. Unacceptable ratings (38.7%) meaning the levee isn t expected to perform as intended in a flood are far more common than Acceptable ratings (4.2%).