Katrina

Part 3 of a special three-part series

A levee wall in New Orleans Public Domain Ph

NEW ORLEANS -- Hurricane Katrina exposed a myriad of shortcomings pertaining to the New Orleans levees and their ability to do what they were intended to. The tragic event revealed poor design as well as inconsistent construction and maintenance that were never properly tested and could not have been thought durable enough to protect the city by those in the know, namely the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Corps' own post-Katrina report, released in 2006, admitted to its vast shortcomings and overall failure, noting elements of the storm protection system that could have never been expected to work in such conditions. The levees were constructed of differing materials, sometimes adequate, other times far from so. There were faulty floodgates that didn't close, leaky sewer lines, and pumps that weren't capable of handling such massive surges. Because proper maintenance and testing of these elements was not done, the city faced a major hurricane under very misleading assumptions about what should be expected to happen.

Much initial focus was placed on residents not leaving the city when storm warnings were issued or even when a mandatory evacuation was ordered. However, as we continued to study the events that contributed to the catastrophe that followed the storm, it became clear that much of the damage and peril was the result of failed flood systems that could and should have been capable of handling such a storm.

Flooding in Venice, LA after Hurricane Katrina Public Domain Photo

It wasn't the initial storm surge that caused most of that damage, but the failure of the levee system and other backups that would have prevented the flood damage that continued long after the storm had passed. Residents weren't necessarily wrong to figure they could withstand the storm, they were just misled to believe that the federally owned and operated storm systems could do their part during and afterward. There were people who knew that a storm like Katrina would almost certainly overwhelm the levee system -- the everyday people of New Orleans unfortunately were not among them.

After Katrina, congress allocated $15 billion to rebuild the levee system and the Army Corps of Engineers says that the work will be completed by June of next year. Much more stringent standards have been used and current reinforcement is said to be able to handle a storm that in any given year has only a 1% chance of making landfall. This has been dubbed the "hundred year" defense, though that seems misleading as it refers to a statistical prediction that such a storm only hits once every hundred years –  not the life expectancy of the system as the name seems to imply.

Still, most watchdogs including Levees.org, a citizen activist group, have given them high marks on reconstruction despite their critical assessment of Corps' pre-Katrina role. The new system does assume that massive storm surges could fall over the levees, however, replacement pump systems would be capable of alleviating flooding within days of such a storm.

The question for many people outside of New Orleans and the gulf region is whether such expenses are justified, considering the precarious location of the city, rising sea levels and the imminent expenses of future storms. To this, I can only offer my humble opinion. New Orleans is a cultural blessing to our nation. It is one of the great cities of the world – unique in every conception of the term. We have taken billions upon billions of dollars in natural resources from its shores, eroded the barrier islands that protect it, and returned a pitiful portion of our bounty to the people who make their home in this land. Ensuring they can continue to do so, seems like little to give back.  

Many Americans are unaware that Louisiana produces around 24% of domestic oil (inshore and offshore), though because most of it is technically in federal rather than state waters, the vast majority of wealth from leases goes to Washington, unlike other oil rich states such as Texas or Alaska. Federal revenues from the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) south of Louisiana amounted to over $11 billion in 2008, while the state’s share totaled only $45 million.

So, while they bear the brunt of the ecological risk (risk clearly demonstrated with the recent oil spill), they see comparatively little reward and are left with insufficient resources to protect and rebuild their vulnerable communities. The people of New Orleans are not asking for a blank check against the threat of natural disaster. They would simply like to see the federal government fix the damage caused by the inexcusable failure of a system it was paid by taxpayers to maintain and to do their part in ensuring such failures are not repeated. That seems fair enough to me.

 

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Katrina – Five Years After: What Have We Fixed?

Katrina – Five Years After: Making it Right