When extreme events are no longer rare: Lessons from Hurricane Ida

UC Berkeley professor Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos is part of a small team of engineers that visited southeast Louisiana last week to document the damage wrought on levees, power systems and other infrastructure by Hurricane Ida. (Photo by Hai Lin) When Hurricane Ida barreled into Louisiana late last month, bringing 10- to 15-foot storm surges and record-breaking winds, many wondered whether the New Orleans' levee system - newly rebuilt at a cost of approximately $14.5 billion - would be strong enough to prevent the catastrophic flooding that inundated the city following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The levees appear to have held - but three weeks later, many Louisiana residents remain without power. To learn more about the impact of Hurricane Ida - and how it compares to the impact of Hurricane Katrina 16 years ago - Berkeley News spoke with civil and environmental engineering professor Adda Athanasopoulos-Zekkos, who traveled to Louisiana last week as part of a team of engineers organized by the National Science Foundation's Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER) Association. The team spent three days crisscrossing the southeastern corner of Louisiana, collecting photographs, videos and other documentation of the hurricane's impact on the state's levee and power systems. They will return later in the month for a more thorough assessment. Athanasopoulos-Zekkos, who also visited Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina as part of an earlier GEER team, shared her observations from the recent visit and what she thinks these disasters can teach us about climate resilience.