For millions of Americans living in flood-prone places, all that stands between the waters of mayhem and safety is a pile of dirt.
Earthen berms, dikes and levees identical to those overtopped and breached in scores of places along swollen Midwest rivers in recent weeks make up the vast majority of flood-protection efforts across the United States.
Well before record floods overwhelmed many levees in the Mississippi River watershed, government officials had raised concern about the ability of such structures to protect property and lives.
But a review by Scripps Howard News Service of levee oversight and funding at the state and national levels suggests the new focus still may not be sufficient to overcome decades of neglect.
Among the findings:
No one at any level of government knows where all the levees are, much less the condition of thousands of the structures. By some estimates, there may be 20,000 to 30,000 levees scattered across the country, but no one is sure.
Maintenance of levees, even those operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is years and billions of dollars behind schedule.
Fewer than half the states have any agency responsible for levee safety, and only 10 have a statewide listing of flood-control works.
“The levees are already bad, and they are going to get worse,” said Mike Parker, a former civilian head of the Corps of Engineers and now a lobbyist in Washington. “This is not a joke. We know this is going to happen. The levees were built in the first place because there were (flooding) problems.”
