Building barriers: Researchers look at $7B 10K

During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, an unmoored barge rammed through a breached levee, landing in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward—where it crushed homes and cars across several blocks, according to American Society of Civil Engineers reports.

Now, a team of local environmental lawyers, builders and economists collaborating through a research hub at Rice University called the Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters, or SSPEED Center, said their biggest fear is a similar disaster happening in the Bay Area.

The SSPEED Center team has plans to build up to a 10,000-acre island in the middle of the bay, titled the Galveston Bay Park Plan, to mitigate the impact of hurricanes and other storms and help protect Houston’s vital petrochemical and shipping industries.

With ot