One option to repair the breached 300-foot wide levee breach from Hurricane Katrina is to use an expandable dam. These dams are used around the globe now to hold back waters for a variety of reasons. In Tempe AZ there is one of these massive inflatable dams which was recently tested after the monsoon flooding, it held fine and kept the millions of gallons in place without any damage.

http://az.water.usgs.gov/2004flood/2004flood.htm

With new materials of inflatable substances and scientific engineering mankind has been able to over come nature. Water weighs 8.2 Lbs per gallon and it takes a whole lot of strength to hold it back. The storm surge from Hurricane Katrina weakened the levees and the over flowing lake was more weight than it could hold back. Venice in Italy is under constant threat of high tide and storm affects, they too have looked into a similar type strategy;

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1666

These dams are the only way that the Army Corp of Engineers will be able to complete this project. Other ideas our team had were to sink a barge in front of the breached area with cargo containers on top with said inside. But it was noted that in doing so the water might surge and take out other weakened areas, which were currently holding. The inflatable option seems to be being used more and more for flood control strategies. Of course these should have been readily deployable in the area before the storm surges.

http://www.ahwatukee.com/afn/sports/articles/031224e.html

New Orleans has about 350-miles of levees in the system and is 12-feet below the water level. The Army Corp of Engineering will potentially use this inflatable dam system as part of their over all strategy to restore security in the levee system to start on the re-enforcement while pumping out the New Orleans Soup Bowl. Think on this.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/