When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans last August, few people expected the devastation that ensued.

But then the levees broke, flooding almost all of the city, costing lives and causing billions of dollars worth of damage.

Now experts are trying to determine how to rebuild and strengthen the levee system to prevent another Hurricane Katrina from destroying the city, much of which lies below sea level.

And a Bermudian is contributing some ideas on how to do it.

Dr. Pauulu Kamarakafego (Roosevelt Brown) is best known in Bermuda as the leader of Bermuda?s successful Universal Adult Suffrage Movement in the 1960s.

But by profession he is an ecological engineer and a long-time consultant to the United Nations on development issues.

Dr. Kamarakafego said he was on a lecture tour during late October and early November of last year when he was approached by members of the New Orleans Levee Commission and members of the Federal and State Government looking into how to strengthen New Orleans levee system.

?I was in California at San Francisco State University when during one of the open meetings I was approached,? he recalled. ?The State of Louisiana and the Federal Government, as it is one of their properties, had selected a commission of people to look at how the levees could be repaired.

?They were in Amsterdam before they came out to California. Two of the commissioners and some people from the private sector said they were having an ecological engineer who was coming to do a talk and they told them, ?I think if you ask him about how to deal with the levees he will tell you?.

?So, they came and asked how would I deal with and repair these levees. I gave them some suggestions and they said that they needed to have a private session with me.

?So, when I went over there were about eight people ? they were all from New Orleans and I told them how I would fix the levees and how I would repair them.

?I said that when I get back to Bermuda I would send my sketches, but they kept calling me on the phone so finally on December 20, I put this on AutoCad with my cousin who is an architect. I had done the sketches and I e-mailed it to them. They then said come back and we will look at the funding, but we would like you to be the consultant on the project.

?I told them that I am not writing any proposals, but I will do consultancy if you get the funding straight.?

Dr. Kamarakafego major proposal was for New Orleans to construct a system similar to the Amsterdam Delta Project in Holland. Amsterdam, which like much of Holland is low-lying or below sea level, was severely damaged by flooding in the 1950s.

?It is guaranteed that a hurricane will come,? he said. ?You can?t say that it is not going to come, it is definitely going to come, but how you prepare for it is a different matter.

?Make the walls a minimum of 40 feet, to allow for a category five hurricane, not a three. The present levee is 18 feet which could deal with a Category three hurricane.

?Design a convex and concave wall outside of the existing levee and create a wall that has aesthetic and commercial use value for billboards, murals etc.

?I put in that they can not only fix it, but it can also be a revenue earner.?

He suggested that the energy could be also harnessed by collecting the ?grey water?.

?You know how water runs on the road when it rains, you can collect it and use it,? he said. ?I?m saying this water can be pumped by pipe into the surrounding states that have drought, whether it is Texas, Georgia, Mississippi or whatever.

?When you irrigate other states, they pay for the water. Right now, water for California, comes from Colorado and it isn?t rocket science ? oil from Siberia is pumped all the way to Turkey on relay stations.

?The energy you need now is what is called low-head turbines to produce the force of the water going through. It turns the wheel like regular turbines, but the length of the levees, for instance the hydro is a dam, and they put one here one there, but you don?t have to dam it up if you have the low head turbines and they can be behind one another and it will get the electricity for the city.

?Everything that I have talked about can pay for itself and that is the reason that they accepted it.?

Looking at the ecological impact of the silts, Dr. Kamarakafego suggested three twelve foot diameter water pipes for and to various irrigation sites.

?In addition to the irrigation sites deemed appropriate, this important nutritive silt bi-product can de directed to targeted areas in the Delta regions to improve the ecological balance with regards to shrimp harvesting, fish spawning activities in the mangroves, etc,? he added.

?It is a big area, it is longer than Bermuda and they do shrimping, but before the silt would get there so fast that the ecological balance was not there all the time.?

As a way of decorating the levees, he suggested that space could be used for advertising or artwork.

?It is a long distance and you don?t want to look at concrete, you can put up billboards as well as murals.

?This is why they took the proposal.?

Dr. Kamarakafego said the storm surges in Holland killed more than 1,800 people in 1953.

?The Americans ask what is it going to cost? But in 1953 Holland had a big flood, the sea came in and it killed a thousand people, and they said, ?it will never happen to us again?.

?They started fixing it then and they finished it in 2004. How much did it cost them? It cost billions of dollars, but they said they didn?t (care) what it cost, as long as it never happened again.

?Now the Americans ask, how much will it cost. But can you put a price on life?

?The Dutch people said they can sleep now. It is fixed in such a way with all the engineering that nothing can really go wrong for 10,000 years.?

Dr. Kamarakafego said he rarely worked with Americans because he felt they were arrogant and did not look at the experiences of other countries.

?That is what I was telling them in the meeting and they would laugh, but I asked them how come other countries have disasters like hurricanes and floods etc. etc. and where you are in the Gulf Stream, Cuba gets battered to hell, but hardly anyone gets killed.

?You know why, when the Cubans put up a structure, a school, hospital or whatever they put it up as a shelter and they make damned sure it is a shelter, and where the Americans fell down is greed and inefficiency.

?You know the dome where they play all the games (the New Orleans Super Dome), how is the roof going to coming off, but if you are cheap as hell what do you expect.

?But it is not only in America, several countries around the world, even in Bermuda, on the question of natural disasters, in India the monsoon comes every year and it floods.

Now my question is why don?t you do anything about it when it is not raining?

?Hurricanes come every year, but why isn?t something done when there is no hurricane? In the USA tornadoes come, and they mash up those boxy little places, but fortunately for Bermuda we build our houses very strong.

Because if Hurricane Fabian set on Florida, it would have been finished after the entire 18 hours.

?You can?t stop the sea. The most efficient way to deal with the coast line is when the wave hits it is in a circular motion. If you understand physics you will understand that you cannot stop the water; but you can design it in such a way that it comes and it goes. So, that is why those people have said, OK?.?