Twenty years ago, Hurricane Katrina, a Category 3 storm, struck the Gulf Coast, making landfall near the Louisiana-Mississippi border and causing irreparable and fatal damage to New Orleans. The tragedy was not purely caused by storm surge and strong winds; the catastrophic structural failure of the city's levees was also responsible.

Dam and levee infrastructure remains a part of everyday life in the U.S. The American Society of Civil Engineers and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers work to ensure that what happened in New Orleans does not happen again.

Here are some of the ways dams and levees contribute to society and the challenges that come with building and maintaining them.

What are dams and levees?

Dams are man-made structures that run through or across bodies of water and have w

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