How Does a Hurricane Wreck a Sewer System?

That's the question that comes to mind when you read Leslie Eaton's NYT piece on the former leader of St. Bernard Parish, Junior Rodriguez. On the plus side, it's probably the first MSM look at Da Parish, a standing rebuke to the media meme that "Katrina" mainly hurt black folks. It's also nice to see the little details Eaton picks up, like Benny Grunch and Wop Salad and the temporary battle for the post of Parish President between Junior and, well, Junior Jr. But, starting from the headline and continuing repeatedly through the article is the hoariest mass-media error of the "Katrina" story: the notion that a hurricane did all this. It reaches absurdity at this graf:

But the sewer system has not been rebuilt, whole neighborhoods remain abandoned, and rows of white FEMA trailers still cover acres.

How does a hurricane wreck a sewer system? It doesn't. What happened to St. Bernard Parish is what happened to New Orleans, the failure of a system of levees and floodwalls that resulted in more than half a hundred breaches, driving a foot-high (or higher, in some areas) wall of water through the table-flat Parish.

Did Leslie Eaton ever wonder why the nearby Mississippi Gulf Coast, which did indeed get whacked by a hurricane, didn't have to rebuild its sewer system? If not, she continues to miss, along with most of her colleagues, the story of what Dr. Bob Bea of UC Berkeley calls the "greatest man-made engineering disaster" in the history of the country.

Comments

[1will]

As for rebuilding New Orleans and expecting a different future.
The definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over yet expecting different results.

[showme54]

If not for people like you that remind the public of NOLA's levee destruction and the recovery situations in NOLA and Brad Pitt on the rebuilding of homes in the Ninth Ward and the few reports I have read of Edwards' statements...seems there are few who have bothered to champion against the wall of indifference by speaking out or by calling out the errors and omission of facts by critics or the few media reports that make it to the MSM. Thanks.

However, I do believe I read that Katrina did destroy and/or damage sewer and water systems in the Mississippi communities affected. Like most info about MS and other LA communities hit by Katrina and Rita, it is little and far between.

[antispin]

From the article:
"He [Junior] even helped persuade Washington to close a shipping canal that he had complained for decades was destroying the wetlands that protected the parish from hurricanes."

I guess they don't want to mention what the shipping canal at issue was (MRGO): http://www.ccmrgo.org/ or who built and maintained it (US Corps of Engineers.)

...or how much Junior helped in comparison to groups like CCMRGO or Tommoso G. Tommaseo, on e of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit to close MRGO, who was mentioned in the last paragraph of the article. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/30/AR2005103000838.html

Also see http://www.stormsurge.lsu.edu/paperarticles/TheAdvocate_oct09.pdf

[WigWamWag]

1. If you really want to make some real improvement run for an office such as mayor.

2. Perhaps work with the city planning / engineering / projects and systems departments to seek viable workable solutions.

3. Take some classes on city planning, finances and infrastructural services. If you choose to go the educational route try out of state colleges since some Louisiana colleges have a shady history and political corruption there has been rampant.

4. In order to get control of the construction and building processes you need to know the process of how to handle the reins. It is much more than the novelty of riding a fringe covered surrey / carriage around the French Quarter and hustling tourists.
HARRY SUGGESTS: If you really want to give people some advice they might be likely to take, you might want to offer some that isn't tainted by ignorance and condescension.

[wrabbitt]

Is New Orleans a viable justification of federal funds to rebuild a man made Disaster scenario? It will happen again,everybody involved has said this,so why are we going to throw more money away? Some say it works only against the poor black familys . Well, if we rebuild and it happens again then some will say it targeted the blacks,and we should not have put them in harms way! I don't see it a black/white issue, When it happens again, and it WILL, do we continue to rebuild again,and again? or do we cut our losses and give it back to nature? People can live any where, but a city built below sea level is asking for natures wrath a second time, or third, or forth, We are supposed to learn from our mistakes. are we not? we have been given a second chance to correct a mistake, lets not make it worse. When 100 foot walls are needed will that be enough? or will Atlantis,LA vanish beneath the surge of the next KATRINA?

[dubephnx]

There are two major engineering failings going on in the areas destroyed by hurricane Katrina, the popular one about the levees, and the silent one about the 200,000-plus building frame failures, that developed more than 80% of the problems from Katrina! Remember, the homes and buildings flooded by the levee breaches survived the hurricane! The levees were successful in one of their protection purposes, and that is that they diverted the hurricane winds over much of the City!
When you see the "rebuilders" mandating that new homes be elevated 5-7 feet above the ground, you are placing the residents of these new homes in more danger than they were in during Katrina! As difficult as it was to rescue Citizens from their rooftops, at least those people had rooftops!
Placing the new buildings in the path of the winds from the next hurricane is insane! It's a crime! These new homes will dislodge off their elevated foundations just like the 200,000 that dislodged from their ground-level foundations! When you compare the kinds and amounts of damages incurred by these people between hurricanes Betsy and Camille, and Katrina and Rita, you'll see that these people had a harder time in 2005, than in 1965 & 1969! Are the Builders, Architects, and Engineers following the leader? Playing "See problem, increase problem"? Say What!? Where is the concerns about weak building frames? Where is the anger that over 200,000 buildings were wipe off the face of the planet before the floods happened? Where is the "Call to arms" about resolving these tragic failings? Why aren't you and I hearing about hurricane-proof homes and buildings? Why are these "Professionals" denying you and I safer, more protective, and securer homes!? What gives? You and I would return our cars if after each speed-bump we drive over caused our car doors to fall off! Why doesn't this logic apply to our homes?


Randy Lee Dube
Tor-Eggs-Tor Design Solutions
http://[e-mail] , or by websearch at http://TOR-EGGS-TOR DESIGN SOLUTIONS with CLOSED-NETS.

[Donald Wolberg]

There are geological factors, mostly natural but many mhuman induced that leaves the question of New Orleans as a viable city open to question. These are inescapable and likely cannot be modified in ways that will please politicians or residents. The city has dewatered and shifted the flow of sediment for too long. Of course a core area or areas can be stabilized but the place is a natural and unnatural disaster that does involve addressing the economic impact to the rest of the Nation. Should a resident of Peoria need to pay the costs for the mistakes of the past is a question worth exploring, especially since no matter how much that Peoria resident is taxed, the outcome for New Orleans will be the same. A minimalist and as "natural" approach to restoring what can be restored and stabilizing the core areas seems prudent. New Orleans is not and never has been the Netherlands (a model all too often used for comparisons), and it really is the result of forces peculiar to the river and sediment and storm systems that created it.

[Yat1954]

The sanitary sewer system and the storm sewers got broken, because of the weight of the floodwaters pressing down on the lines. I know this because my brother-in-law and his wife are both reporters and were also Chalmette residents. (insert shameless plug for WDSU here) My brother-in-law in particular did extensive reporting about the devastation in St. Bernard.

Their home was flooded, and then inundated by oil when the storage tank at Murphy ruptured.

As for sewage treatment plants being susceptible to wind damage, nothing could be further from the truth. I used to work for the Lafayette Utilities System, and the structures are massive and built low to the ground. Wind isn't a factor.

[littleblackcat]

It does seem prudent to rebuild NO in a slightly different spot and return the natural delta to just that, NATURAL. You have to consider the facts that the political bigwigs of this country are secretly buying property overseas or in South America. They think they will be protected there, especially if they bring their garbage (blackwater) with them to be armed bodygaurds. The thing they don't think about is nations south of our borders do not think much of us and they still rule by the laws that seem pratical to THEM, rather than the ideals of their interloping northern "neighbors". It would seem that bush would be very rightly served if local bandits observed, learned, and put into place the weaponry needed to take out bush & family, cheney & cronies, and blackwater. Wholesale slaughter and a command to take whatever remained of their personal cabal and go back home, Paraguay or any other South American country needs bushit and his ilk like it needs a dose of dysentery and DOES NOT WANT THEM. One can only wish.

[CSE]

It's good that you point out MSM stories that bring NO and surrounding areas into the light.

I don't really see why you felt the need to use the language in the lead caption and bend it around to the title of your post though. It was just a statement of fact that had no reference to what destroyed the sewer system - and there was really no mention of what sewer system needed to be rebuilt nor the extent of the sewer system that was apparently inoperable (in relation to those who were choosing to move back to the Parish). Nor was there a mention of why whatever sewer system wasn't being rebuilt.

As for those areas in the Gulf Coast that were inundated - even for a short time - it is highly probable that their sewer systems (plural) were in need of extensive repair and you just aren't aware of it.

[PatA]

I wish that you people who log on here to be rude and hateful about New Orleans had to live there, right now, for six months. As a plus, you would not be allowed back into public housing and would be in one of those toxic FEMA trailers that cost the taxpayers millions of dollars!!

Try that one on for size!

We were put on this earth as stewards and you can be just as damaging by blowing off your mouth as you would be littering. Any way you look at it, you're littering!!

[tedeger]

A long time ago, Nikolai Prokopovich and I wrote a long piece critiquing the "Protections" given New Orleans, and advising that the city, a large part of which is below sea level, was vulnerable. As I understand it, there were plans to update the lake levees,but the Corps of Engineers were denied the money to do the job that was already on the drawing board, because GWB needed the money to fight his illegal war. So he was the primary one responsible for the devastation of the Big Easy - well, he, geography, and the stupidity of people who build in floodplains and then destroy Natural protections.

[FOXYLADY]

WHY FIX SOMETHING THAT WILL ONLY BE "BROKEN" AGAIN........THE AREA WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE POPULATED........TO REBUILD IN MOST OF THE AREA IS INSANE AND A WASTE OF MATERIALS, MANPOWER AND MONEY.........
HARRY SEZ: THANKS FOR THE CAP LOCK. PLEASE FINISH YOUR THOUGHT BY TELLING US WHO OR WHAT 'MEANS" AREAS TO BE POPULARED.

[ljsfolly]

The "fixed" levees will go down just like the ones that should have been fixed long ago. Unfortunately when a piss poor job is done and people slap each other on the backs and say well done we spent as much money as we could to fix them and who cares if they will hold the next time. Lovely thoughts out of those appointed by the chimp to do jobs on no bid contracts. The trial of many not our government to rebuild the city goes on. The government has left the city with little to show for the set up speech by chimp after he finally made it there. Remember when he told those fine people that the feds would not abandon them then did. After all chimp thought like his fear stories we would just believe whatever he said and then go on our way without any more thought to the total destruction of a whole region. With the climate changes and the oceans rising due to the poles melting we might not have a long time to be worried about this as the levees for sure cannot hold when the ocean is high enough to cover whole regions. Heck of a job chimp man...

[janmB]

The insanity of it all is we send contractors and security for them--- to another country half way around the world that our forces destroyed in an illegal invasion and yet one of our major seaports here at home remains shamefully neglected.
The insanity of it all is we are providing FREE healthcare for that country but our own PREZ denied CHILDREN in this country healthcare cause its too expensive---and his base agrees.
When History records this---future generations are going to think we were all growing POPPIES for dope-crops like Afghanistan.