Industrial Canal

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Industrial Canal is the common term for the Inner Harbor Navigational Canal (IHNC), a 5.5 mile (9 km) waterway in New Orleans, Louisiana.

View of the Industrial Canal. The skysrapers of the New Orleans Central Business District are visible in the distance at the upper right. At upper left, under the blue bridge framework, the Canal continues towards the Mississippi River. At front left is the junction with the Intercoastal Waterway which in turn connects to the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet.

The Canal connects the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain, with an intersection with the Intracoastal Waterway and to the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO), near the middle of the Canal.

The canal constitutes the boundary of the city's Bywater neighborhood on the upriver side of the Canal and the Lower 9th Ward below.

The Industrial Canal was dredged in the 1920s to provide a direct navigable water connection, with locks, between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. Ships go through canal locks due to the level differences between the lake and the river.

Levee breeches in the canal resulted in catetrophic flooding of the Lower 9th Ward during Hurricane Betsy in 1965, and again in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita.

See also

• Effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans