In 1965, heavy flooding caused by Hurricane Betsy brought concerns regarding flooding from hurricanes to the forefront. That year, Congress gave the US Army Corps of Engineers sole authority for the design and construction of the flood protection in the New Orleans metropolitan area in the Pontchartrain Hurricane Protection Project. The local municipalities were charged with maintenance once the projects were completed.

When authorized, this mandate was projected to take 13 years to complete. When Katrina made landfall in 2005, the project was between 60-90% complete with a projected date of completion estimated for 2015, nearly 50 years after it first gained authorization. To put that in perspective, the construction of the Panama Canal, generally considered to be one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, took 10 years.