Texas Hurricane Dike Project Gets Support

A group of Southeast Texas government officials and business leaders has formed an alliance embracing construction of a nearly 60-mile-long barrier of covered concrete dunes and water gates along the upper Texas coastline to ease damage from hurricane storm surges.

The Bay Area Coastal Protection Alliance said Wednesday the levees and flood gates designed by a professor at Texas A&M University at Galveston and dubbed the “Ike dike” would be modeled after a similar project constructed about 25 years ago in The Netherlands.

Ike refers to the devastating September 2008 hurricane that socked Southeast Texas, killing about 50 people and causing $35 billion in damage. It’s Texas’ costliest storm.

Cost estimates for the dike are as high as $6 billion, with supporters hoping 85 percent be covered by the federal government.