what it was before. reporter: nowhere is that more apparent than by air from up above you see the new, massive walls of concrete that now protect the city from future storms. it is the largest domestic project the corps has ever undertaken. it is 133 mile perimeter. levies have either been raised or strengthened. reporter: the u.s. army corps of engineers says katrina s highest storm surge in new orleans was about 15 feet high. these newly constructed walls are 32 feet in crucial places. lake born feed into the gulf of mexico. its surge barrier alone has the same amount of concrete as the hoover dam and eight eiffel towers worth of steel to reinforce it. during a hurricane event there are vertical lift gates over here that can be lowered and will close the canal off from the storm surge.
seeing soaking rainfall. two bands in particular. one that is just off to the west of mobile, alabama. and one that is hugging the louisiana/mississippi border. that s where the rain is heaviest and will continue to be most through the next 6 to 12 hours. going forward. getting to the end game. isaac will weaken. make a bit more in northwesterly progress, 24 hours. and swing, further northward, eastward. into the midwest. ohio valley. so missouri in particular going to see rainfall, some heavy rainfall, going a long way toward denting the drought. and localized flash flooding, too much of a good thing. thank you for the report, jim. appreciate that very much. one thing i think is important to point out. how many billions of dollars have gone into the area s improved storm protection system since katrina. i was reading this, there was a $1.1 billion lake borne surge barrier, the barrier protected eastern new orleans. if you remember the names, the areas were decimated during katrina.
one that is just off to the west of mobile, alabama. and one that is hugging the louisiana/mississippi border. that s where the rain is heaviest and will continue to be most through the next 6 to 12 hours. going forward. getting to the end game. isaac will continue to weaken. make a bit more in northwesterly progress in the next 24 hours here. and swing, further northward, eastward. into the midwest. ohio valley. so missouri in particular going to see rainfall, some heavy rainfall, going a long way toward denting the drought. and localized flash flooding, too much of a good thing. thank you for the report, jim. appreciate that very much. one thing i think is important to point out. how many billions of dollars have gone into the area s improved storm protection system since katrina. i was reading this, there was a $1.1 billion lake borne surge barrier. that barrier worked. it protected eastern new orleans, the low you are ninth ward. if you remember the names, the areas were decimate
mightily slowly. it is. it is moving slow and it will give us a lot of rain. but there will be a significant amount of surge. the surge barrier that we finished recently we closed that up and buttoned it down. isaac does not show anything else of the hundred year storm. we will see surges in that area in the 10 to 15 feet high level. the pumping stations have to get rid of the water. it has more of a plan now than it did before. used to be it would drain out, and now there would be a place for it to go. if you get into whether it is a hurricane evacuation operation or a flood flight like we had last spring it is a team sport, and we work closely not only with the city of new orleans and the state of louisiana, but it is the multi-tiered response when you
since katrina we have learned a lesson. we have a suite of 132 hurricanes coming in different intensities and different sizes. we put them into a model and that s how we come up with a design system like this. not one hurricane. a lot of hurricanes have had a projected track of what this one has to come in west of the city proper which is a worse case scenario for the city new orleans. everyone knows that thankfully not as strong as others have been but it s moving mighty slowly. it is. it s moving slow. it s going to give us a lot of rain. but there is also going to be a significant amount of surge. the surge barrier which we built recently finished recently, it closed buttoned that down and that can withstand the comments of 100 year storm. isaac does not show any characteristics of the 100 year storm. 26 feet high and we think we ll probably see surges out in that area in about the 10 or 15 feet high level. again, would we think we are