The Floods: New Orleans, God, and Nature Can No Longer be Blamed

Everyday for the past week there has been another tragedy to report in the heartland.

Overnight the Mississippi River washed over fertile farmlands near St. Louis and worries emerged that it would take years for the land to be reclaimed. Five additional levees are under threat of breach today, Thursday, according to the St. Louis District of the Army Corps of Engineers.

The floods in six states have killed two dozen people, injured 148 and forced at least 35,000 out of their homes, Federal Emergency Management Agency Director David Paulison said Wednesday.

As tragic flooding is playing out in the Mississippi River Basin, it is becoming clear that what happened in New Orleans was not an act of God, or of Mother Nature. Nor can it be blamed on the people who have lived on the Delta since the Acadian Diaspora, or other low-lying areas in the United States. What happened in New Orleans, and what is happening today in the heartland, is the result of a massive infrastructure failure, lax federal engineering, and the siphoning of tax resources into the war economy.

"Ever since Katrina, the citizens of New Orleans have been blamed because some parts of the city are below sea level," says HJ Bosworth, Research Director for Levees.Org in New Orleans. "What happened in New Orleans could happen anywhere, but this problem had not been addressed until the recent Midwest flooding," Bosworth said.

Congressional Caucus Briefing

With thousands of miles of levee systems stretching across the United States, a whopping 43 percent of the US population lives in counties with levees, according to a briefing provided yesterday to by the Association of Flood Plain Managers. The briefing was given to members of the Congressional Hazards Caucus late Thursday afternoon. 122 levees were declared deficient by the Army Corps of Engineers in 2006.

Responsibility for the design and construction of the most critical levees in America belongs, by law, to the US Army Corps of Engineers.

To illustrate this point, Levees.org points out there are 3,786 flood gauges in America spread fairly evenly throughout the country.

Sandbagging Begins in Louisiana

Watchful eyes are now looking downstream on the Mississippi River as sandbagging has begun along the Morganza Spillway in Central Louisiana. Louisiana. Governor Bobby Jindal called out the National Guard for the first time to assist nervous farmers in the area. If the Mississippi starts to flood, the floodway (release site) would be used to divert water from the Mississippi, into the Spillway and finally into the Atchafalaya Basin.

Bosworth said that as of yesterday, reports from the Amy Corps of Engineering did not indicate trouble for New Orleans.

"The river was 6 feet higher two months ago and we were not that concerned since the levees here are 22.5 feet above the Gulf. Since the lower Mississippi river has been fairly dry, the overall effect of the flooding up there is not expected to be that great here. We will know in about two weeks for sure," Bosworth said. He added that the Corps had been wrong before.

However, real time flood gauge readings and extrapolations on the NOAA Weather site show the possibility that the Mississippi will reach "action stage" of 30 feet on June 24 in Baton Rouge.

When told about the latest extrapolations, Bosworth said the high water was coming sooner than expected, but that so far he was not concerned, since there were still options available to relieve the flow volumes.

Another Call for an 8/29 Commission

Yesterday, the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East, the body governing levees along the east bank of the Mississippi River, passed a resolution calling on Congress to establish the "8/29 Commission." The resolution was first proposed by the grassroots organization levees.org in 2006, one year after Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters devastated New Orleans. Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (D) drafted legislation which would create the independent commission to investigate the reasons behind catastrophic levee failures in New Orleans that killed over 1200 people. To this date, Republicans have blocked the bill and it is languishing in committee.

Authority Secretary John Barry, the author of Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, proposed the resolution.

"I'm really asking that they take a comprehensive look at the entire Mississippi River system, the entire Mississippi valley, from New York State to Idaho," Barry said. "They should look, for instance, at the dams on the upper Missouri River in detail, because they have a real impact on the amount of sediment that's carried in the river, which has a real impact on the erosion of wetlands in Louisiana."

Sandy Rosenthal, Director of Levees.org, charged, "Civil engineers have the knowledge and the tools to predict flooding. This flooding is in most cases mere feet higher than usual. This is not flooding of biblical proportions yet tens of billions of property and livelihoods are lost."

Rosenthal says that the current flooding reflects "exactly what happened in New Orleans three years ago."

Another Leak

Meanwhile, deep in the neighborhoods of New Orleans, residents are still cautiously eying the Army Corps-termed "little wet spot" that appeared in the 17th Street Canal levee in May. Water can be seen leaking through new sheet piling and mortar is crumbling. This is a new levee that was built after Katrina.

Follow Georgianne Nienaber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/nienaber

Comments

[Indiana]

Wouldn't it be karmic if some of these Senators who've been blocking an 8/29 Commission are from states now experiencing flooding due to levee failures?

[Bienville]

Perhaps. But not satisfying.

[ricnelson]

Years ago there was an ad on TV for Fram oil filters, ending with the phrase - "pay me (a little) now, or pay me (a lot) later". Since 1977, Congress has dramtically reduced spending on civil works, including waterways projects for the corps. By diverting funding away from adequately building and maintaining infrastructure, 30 years of congressional policy has set us up to "pay later" in human life, suffering and massive financial outlay when bridges, tunnels, and waterways fail. - which they are doing with increased (and predictable) regularity. If you view waterways as important, an 8/29 Commission is the only hope of exposing the complicit role congress plays in underfunding the corps to do the proper job it is chartered to do while adequately protecting the society it is supposed to be serving.

[kidcurioso]

Just keep watching the news--there will be more levee failures. Why? Because the root causes have not been completely determined. Because questions have been avoided. Because multiple attempts to find answers have been thwarted. Because...fill in your answer.

New Orleans is a WAKE UP CALL! Anywhere there is a levee, there is disaster-potential. We need the 8/29 Investigation--and we need it now. How many more cities and farms must our nation lose...?

[backhandpath]

Thank you, Ms Nienaber, for staying on top of this.
It would seem that the Bush administration used this disaster to have passed their War Funding with Disaster Aid...plus a few changes to the status of troops amendment.
Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine in action?
We are not share croppers. We are American Citizens.
We do not live in Burma...yet.
We paid for this failing flood control infrastructure that is failing across our nation.
Our Nation.
We deserve better.
Thank you for highlighting the 8/29 Commission and levee.org.

[Georgianne Nienaber - Huffpost Blogger]

If this posts twice, I apologize. Something blew up when I tried to submit at first.

Hello Seawolf. I fell in love with South Louisiana when I began looking at post Katrina issues and have seen firsthand the suffering you have all been through. I say that because I am originally from the Midwest. You will find the good, big hearted people up that way and as I have returned with stories and photos and give talks when invited, I find people are doubly horrified to discover that the suffering has not ended three years post Katrina. The mainstream media dropped the ball by not keeping on top of “yesterday’s news” before it was obvious it was about to become “today’s news.” There are many in “my” states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota who stand in solidarity with New Orleans. This I can promise.

[HoppinHill]

I live in New Orleans, and always worried that once another terrible American disaster happens, then New Orleans would be completely forgotten forever.....

In my weirdest dreams, I never could have imagined that the next great disaster to befall American citizens - the Midwest Flooding - would be the exact same thing that happened in New Orleans, flooding due to levee engineering failure.

[BobLablah]

Many experts are now saying that levees are the problem, well built or not, because they funnel the water through a smaller channel, creating worse problems during heavy rains.

The root cause is obvious - people living in areas they should not be living.

[Georgianne Nienaber - Huffpost Blogger]

I am quoting myself...but read this sentence again and see what you think:

To illustrate this point, Levees.org points out there are 3,786 flood gauges in America spread fairly evenly throughout the country.

But, thank you for being engaged with this issue.

[seawolf77]

The Army Corps of Goofballs is what it is. All you heart of the heartland midwesteners who sneered at the good people of New Orleans for having been corrupt and imcompetent and immoral and complacent and worse, hope you realize that wet is wet, whether you are on your knees praying or on Bourbon Street partying. Acts of God happen to all people. It makes me sick listening to the self righteous Christians, there bony crooked fingers waving in my face, and all the time thnking wait till it happens to you. Well now it has. And you got lied too as well. Your levees were as bad as any in Louisiana, as any in The Big Easy. So in the immortal words of Stanley Kolwaski "HA HA HA HA HA!!!! "

[Georgianne Nienaber - Huffpost Blogger]

Hello Seawolf. I have seen first hand what you folks have gone through and have fallen in love with South Louisiana so much I intend to be living there and writing a good part of the year. I say that because I am originally from the Midwest and you will find that most folks up that way have a very real concern about what happened during and after Katrina and were horrified by what they saw. I think what has happened is that the mainstream media dropped the ball entirely and did not do their homework on "yesterday's news" which was about to become "today's news." When I began writing about NOLA a year ago, people could not believe how little progress had been made. Now, they are doubly shocked.