LSU COE's Professor Radhey Sharma Plays a Key Role in the Louisiana Government Forensic Engineering Team

December 15, 2005

Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering Associate Professor and Geotechnical Engineering Group Coordinator Dr. Radhey Sharma was interviewed Tuesday, November 29th by New Orleans ABC26’s anchor/reporter Liz Reyes on the investigation of levee failures in New Orleans.

Dr. Sharma is a member of the Louisiana Government Forensic Engineering Team, led by Dr. Ivor van Heerden. The team, which is funded by the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, consists of six members and three independent consultants. Team’s mission is to collect and analyze data pertaining to the levee failures in Greater New Orleans. A fact-finding team, they are in their investigative stage, and while they have begun the analysis of the data, they admit to having a lot to learn from the convergence of variables. “It is not simply a perfect storm which brought down the levees,” Sharma commented.

Procuring authentic documents and records of design from the Corps of Engineers and other agencies, the group has been conducting tests in the levee-breached area, all while suggesting proper solutions to prevent such a catastrophe from reoccurring. Since the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet is accentuating the storm surge, they are also investigating a flood protection system to alleviate the problem. As this is a highly complicated situation, the team of experts is asking the public for patience as it is not “simply a matter of patching up a hole.” Instead, he said, “We need to access the entire system. We don’t want to go through this again.” While there were numerous levees that did not fail, the team is conducting “non-destructive” testing of piles in the levee breach areas to investigate the soil profiles and properties of the soils at failure sites so as to establish the causes of levee failures.

Proper access to levees for periodic inspections ensuring sufficient right of way adjacent to the levees, avoiding swimming pools at the toes of the levees, installing smart sensor-based monitoring system for levees’ performance were some of the issues that Dr. Sharma discussed in the interview.

Dr. Sharma emphasized that there is a complex organization that looks after planning, design, construction, maintenance of the levee system in New Orleans. It is difficult to pin point a specific agency responsible for disaster. In fact, whole organization responsible for the flood protection should be reassessed so that the multiplicity of the authorities and resulting confusion can be avoided.

Dr. Sharma and the team of experts plan to present their preliminary findings in a report in January 2006; however, he and the team are not only spearheading the rebuilding process, but they are also helping to keep morale high for the future of Louisiana. “We can rebuild. It’s just an issue of designing the proper protection system for our State,” which, he said, calls for a “commitment of resources and time.”