Galveston, Texas — Oceanographer Bill Merrell will always remember the night time he spent trapped inside a constructing in Galveston, Texas, as Hurricane Ike slammed ashore in 2008. The storm induced $30 billion in injury.
“Ike was probably a 30-year storm,” Merrell, who works at Texas A&M University, informed CBS News. “There’s a lot worse storms out there.”
Merrell was reminded of the large flood gates he had seen within the Netherlands.
“These are gates you can see from space. These are movable objects you can see from space. These are huge!” he mentioned.
He sketched out a Texas model, which got here to be often called the “Ike Dike.” The preliminary response to the concept?
“Oh, ridicule. Craziest idea they ever heard,” Merrell mentioned.
That loopy thought could quickly stand guard at Galveston Bay, residence to the nation’s largest export harbor and the most important petrochemical advanced within the Western Hemisphere. It is an element of the Army Corps of Engineers’ $29 billion plan to defend a big half of the Texas Gulf Coast. It calls for large gates designed to fend off 22 ft of storm surge and 43 miles of sand dunes to defend towards hurricanes.
Kelly Burks-Copes, who works for the Army Corps, mentioned the plan could be the biggest infrastructure challenge within the nation and take up to 20 years to design and construct.
“If we want to live here on the coast then we have to provide a level of defense,” Burks-Copes informed CBS News. “The intent here is to keep the surge that comes with hurricanes out in the gulf and not let it into the bay.”
If Congress funds the challenge, the federal authorities will choose up 65% of the price, and Texas would pay the remaining.
State Sen. Larry Taylor mentioned there is not any time to waste with local weather change making storms extra intense.
“Building this one time is going to pay for itself over and over again,” Taylor informed CBS News. “It’s not a matter of if we have a storm, it’s when and how many, and here we have a chance for our government to be proactive instead of reactive.”
