Jef NickersonInformation about Hurricane Sandy.
Ealier today, the city officially turned control of the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier over to the Army Corp of Engineers.
The transfer from city to federal control will save the city approximately half a million dollars a year in operating expenses. The Army Corp will also be spend $4 million on needed repairs, money that the city obviously does not have.
Providence Mayor David Cicilline
“This effort is a win-win for everyone because it puts the federal resources behind the maintenance and repair of the Hurricane Barrier and is an important cost savings measure for taxpayers,” said Mayor Cicilline.
Senator Jack Reed (D-RI)
“For nearly fifty years this system has protected city residents and local business, but after Hurricane Katrina hit in August of 2005, the federal government undertook a careful review of critical flood control systems around the country. Following that review, we determined that the Army Corps of Engineers should take management and financial responsibility for Fox Point Hurricane Barrier. This transfer of all future operation and maintenance of the system to the Army Corps will protect the downtown area and our state’s economy and will save Providence millions of dollars,” said Senator Reed.
All that is well and good, but frankly, I was there to take pictures. So here they are:
Inside
Outside
All photos by Jef Nickerson
Greater City Providence
Channel 12 has a story about the Barrier:
Wasn’t it the Corps. who failed to buildup and maintain the levees in New Orleans prior to Katrina in the first place? This concerns me. Then again, without proper amounts of [city] funds, I suppose we’re in a potentially safer situation now…?
Are those turbines for generating power inside? Or some sort of tidal flow regulator?
The pumps are used to pump out the river water on the downtown side of the barrier and dump that water into the bay, when the bay side water level is higher than the river or ground level downtown.
I didn’t get a tour wherein I could ask questions, I just sort of wandered about. Peter is right, and to Andy’s point, my understanding is the pumps in the hurricane barrier are the same pumps as in New Orleans and a lot of those failed when they got submerged (of course the levee breaches made them useless anyway). I assume some of that equipment is also power generators, if a hurricane knocks out power, you’d want to generate it on-site so the pumps don’t fail.
And again to Andy’s point, there is no doubt that the Army Corp., was among many agencies and governments that monumentally fucked up New Orleans. I think blaming the Corp. without also taking into account those other responsible parties is short sighted though. Being from the Cape I can say the Army Corp. does a top notch job operating and maintaining the Cape Cod Canal and everything associated with it.
The Corp. representative said at the press conference that the city had maintained the infrastructure properly, so the Corp. is not inheriting something that is broken.
Though, there are some that fear that the height of the barrier is not high enough to protect us from modern hurricanes and perhaps it would not be effective to save us from a repeat of 1938. Time for a Fields Point Hurricane Barrier perhaps?