Upgrading to a 200 year flood protection level is good news, but since New Orleans had a 250 year level of flood protection when it flooded, one would like to see the ultimate goal adopted for Sacramento of a 500 year level of flood protection, which the Auburn Dam would create.
Massive levee upgrade is near
Some families will be uprooted as vulnerable flood shield is built up.
By Matt Weiser - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Wednesday, October 3, 2007
The biggest levee construction effort in modern Sacramento history is set to begin in the Natomas basin at the confluence of two mighty rivers.
Thousands of people will be inconvenienced and a busy highway altered as work begins next summer on a massive new levee.
The three-year project is designed to protect the basin's 70,000 residents from a 200-year flood along the Sacramento River, which joins the American River at Natomas.
And some people, like Burton and Kathryn Lauppe, may lose their homes.
The farming couple, both 82, have been told they must sell or move their home next year to make way for the big, new levee. It will extend 300 feet farther inland and 3 feet higher than the current levee.
Hundreds of Garden Highway residents who enjoy a private paradise at river's edge will share the next three summers with a parade of giant trucks hauling dirt. So much dirt has to be moved -- nearly 5 million cubic yards -- that a semi-truck will roll along Garden Highway about every 30 seconds, six days a week.
