Still Fiddling While New Orleans Drowns

The fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is upon us, and New Orleans continues to slowly rebound, with a smaller footprint than before but abundant community spirit. But, alarmingly, its long-term predicament remains unchanged, and the opportunity the nation had to confront it has been mostly squandered.

I refer, of course, to the challenge of protecting the city and surrounding coastlines from hurricanes. Three centuries of experience have proven time after time this is a deadly serious risk. And time after time, various government agencies - from New Orleans's earliest colonial administrations to the Obama White House - have responded in a haphazard fashion, doing just enough to make people feel safe again, but not enough to prevent the next big disaster.

Barge in Lower 9th Ward, December 2005

The Katrina disaster was deeply ironic. Turns out America, the nation that tamed rivers and the continent, won World War II and emerged as the globe's lone superpower, couldn't build a floodwall. America, the nation of the mass media and instantaneous communication, couldn't figure out where the New Orleans Convention Center was, or deliver food and water a few blocks to the thousands of people gathered there. Post-K, there was reason to believe these outrages might force a reassessment of how the nation handles not just emergency response - what you do after disaster strikes - but prevention. The rapidly-eroding Louisiana coast seems like an outlier, but this is deceptive - climate change is going to raise the risks not just for coastlines (higher sea levels and - possibly - stronger storms) but for any area where rapid environmental shifts take place and communities built for yesterday's conditions suddenly find themselves under water, consumed by fire or afflicted by drought or other problems. New Orleans is, in this sense, an important test case.

But no such reassessment took place. Instead, the same institution that screwed this up the first time - the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was put in charge of the effort to protect New Orleans and the surrounding coastline. This was crazy and irresponsible, and the results were predictable. The Corps is building a $14 billion stopgap levee system, an upgrade to the old one that is certainly better than what was there before, but not nearly enough to protect the city from a Category 5 hurricane storm surge.

The Corps has been studying the options for bigger and better protection, and how to integrate it with efforts to restore the rapidly-eroding marshlands of south Louisiana, for four years. This is an ambitious project, and (in my view) an essential one. It should have been fast-tracked. It should have gotten some stimulus money. Instead it bogged down. . But there's nobody really calling the shots at the upper levels of government. It's not a national priority. President Obama says it is, and is creating a task force that may cut through some of the seemingly hopeless skein of red tape. So, we'll see. But given the fiscal and political pressures on the Obama administration and the severe bureaucratic inertia holding this thing back (which results from basic power arrangements between Congress, the Corps, and successive administrations) I'm skeptical.

This is human nature, you might say, the way government institutions work. We're always preparing for the last disaster. We don't anticipate the "black swans." But that's no longer an adequate excuse given what's at stake - not just a unique American city and cultural treasure, but the shape and structure of the American community in an era of change. Do shrug off these challenges - about which we know a great deal - and consign the vulnerable parts of the country to a slow attrition by disaster? Or do we learn from history, and science, and our own mistakes?

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Comments

[LizM]

It seems that the overriding lesson learned here is that we don’t learn lessons very well.

I will never understand how a great American city, with all of its cultural and historical richness and economic importance, can be allowed to die as it is slowly, but surely, devoured by the Gulf of Mexico.

New Orleans and south Louisiana is a test case, indeed. And, judging from how America and its leaders have acted to save it, the rest of us have a lot to worry about.

[GentleScotty]

New Orleans was a glittering island in the midst of a squalid black sea of despair. But is it worth rebuilding? Hardly, it seems..

[Bienville]

Such vivd imagery that is almost pungent. But does it resemble reality? Hardly, it seems.

[j.gold]

Y'all don't feel we are worth fixing and well that's fine with me but we don't want to be part of America anymore. Not after they way you treat us. So you can just let us go and be our own country. Were don't even want the top part of Louisiana past the "foot" y'all can keep that part, bunch of bible thumpers up there.

BUT don't expect to have gas prices stay the same because we'll be jacking the price and keeping the profits of our oil and gas. A tariff will be placed on all goods coming through our ports, so expect prices to rise on things those big ships bring in. No more good oysters or shrimp, we keeping that for ourselves, we don't feel like sharing anymore. Stop listening to rock n roll, funk, and jazz because it started here, we want it back now. Tell robert plant we want royalties for all the stealing done of our sounds. What does he know about breaking levees? Emeril, I want my grandmas recipes back and go back to Massachusetts if you won't pay! Y'all happy to steal from us so you can pretend like ya got culture.

And lastly, stop coming here and puking and pissing on my streets cause you can't handle your liquor!

New Orleans, black, white, Hispanic, Asian we all would be rich as Saudi's without you.

If first you don't secede, try, try again!

[Lorianne]

Do it, Don't be part of America.

And below some of your compatriots are claiming the oil companies created much damage to the Delta and exacerbated the damage to NO. So are you going to get rid of the oil companies too?

[doctorj2u]

In 4 years of fighting for the survival of the city, somehow your posts are the most disturbing. You are to be pitied to take joy in trying to demoralize your fellow citizens, because that is all to be gained from them. I've dealt with all kinds since the storm; the fanatics, the true believers, the racists, even the global warmers. I think maybe that is what it is. You are the one person that has taken up the worst from both sides of the arguement. That is pretty amazing. Sad, pitiful, but truly amazing.

[j.gold]

Yes, F the oil companies. Huey P. told them to shove it and we need to too. They have raped us. We need to control it now! But the biggest part is that instead of us only getting money from oil 5 miles off shore we will be able to have claim to much more. According to the feds it is only Louisiana for 5 miles off the coast, Texas gets 10 miles out. How is that fair? We sued the feds and lost in the 1960's. I think the courts were rigged.

Long live the Republic of Louisiana!

[LeftLeanWing]

That's gonna take a lotta Gumbo.

[Indiana]

Everyone who says New Orleans should not be rebuilt and her people should move is clueless. She's their home and besides that is of trememdous economic and cultural importance to this country. It's time the Obama Administration, instead of merely spouting empty words as though it were a 3rd Bush Administration, got on the stick about helping bring New Orleans back.

[doctorj2u]

Bye all. I guess we will hear from you all again at the 5 year anniverary of Katrina. In the meantime, we will be doing what we have done for the last four years. We will be rebuilding our homes, lives and culture, without much help from our own government,.

[mbaty]

I think the lesson of Katrina is that, when it comes down to it, we need each other. Katrina happened at a time when we were already overextended as a nation, and it made us snap back and focus on our own country, rather than imaginary threats overseas. Compassion and generosity suddenly became more valuable than fighting some relatively imaginary threat from an "other." Our interconnectedness became highlighted, while petty differences didn't seem so big anymore.

[doctorj2u]

You are so right. We have learned that through hard experience. Thank you.

[Mecheng]

Several students and alumni of my alma mater and I were in New Orleans to perform Katrina relief work. Make no mistake about it--the primary reasons for the disasterous aftermath were an incompetent Governor and an incompetent and corrupt Mayor whose administration ordered canal pumps to be turned off at a most critical time. Both are liberal Democrats who have refused to accept responsibility for anything.

Contrast New Orleans to the record flooding that occurred last year in Iowa-no complaining, no blaming Bush, no pleas for handouts, and no race card by Iowans. They just pulled together and did the cleanup themselves.

[doctorj2u]

Wrong again. You just are not listening to those areas. I know. My 80 year old mother lives a block from the beach in Mississippi. And I jut responded to a flood victim from Cedar Rapid in an earlier posting.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marian-wright-edelman/katrinas-children---still_b_271216.html
Try reaching out to these areas. They will appreciate the help.

[Scribe57]

Nagin and Blanco built the levees that failed?

[doctorj2u]

I know, they come up with the wildest things, don't they. I gues they volunteered in Slidell.

[Bienville]

Where do you get your information? You really have no facts at all do you?

No one in New Orleans told you that nonsense about the pumps, I can assure you. Turning the pumps off can in no way contribute to levee failures. If anything, leaving the pumps could increase stress on the levees.

In the actual event - not some fantasy event that ocurred only in your mind - the pumps were finally shut off after the levees failed and the water rose enough to flood the electrical transformers that supply their power. You see, the pumps were designed and built in an age before 60-cycle power was the industry standard. They run on 25-cycle power and rely on transformers that convert the 60-cycle grid power to 25 cycles. Without the transformers, the pumps shut down no matter what. (No , I don't know why the transformers sites are vulnerable to flooding. It seems short-sighted and foolish to me, too.)

And, the governor just has no authority over any pumps whatsoever.

Really? Nagin a liberal? Are you sure? He was just re-elected on the basis of being less liberal than Mitch Landrieu.

Just a few days ago, an article appeared here in which Iowans were complaining about not receiving as much attention ans New Orleans. If they aren't getting the help they need and deserve they has as much right to complain as anyone else. But you'r ejust wrng about them not complaining.

[j.gold]

it is obvious you arn't from here and no nothing about the flood.

And by the was our mayor didn't turn off any pumps, that happened in Jefferson parish which is mostly republican.

I would still take Blanco any day over the creep we have now.

[bayside]

Katrina cover ups for junk pumps ..USA today did a story on this tuesday..
Today is the 4-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and while there are a number of stories marking it, few cover the huge news that 1) the hydraulic pumps don't work, 2) hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted, 3) and the Army Corps of Engineers is deliberately telling people the pumps work
The Army Corps has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on junk pumps--made by MWI (a David Eller/Jeb Bush creature). Even worse, the Army Corps is out there telling everyone that the pumps have been "battle-tested" and work just fine.Gen. Walsh says the pumps are to last 5 to seven years. Congress paid over a half billion dollars for a 50 year pump.The smoking gun documents are buried many clicks deep on the U.S. Office of Special Counsel website, http://(the fifth report from the bottom

[Bienville]

Just to be clear, the MWI pumps didn't exist prior to Katrina.

The pumps in use 4 years ago are about 100 years old and were designed and built by A. Baldwin Wood, City Engineer of New Orleans. The City's pumps were cleaned up, put back into service and are working today.

The Corps' pumps are part of their thing. They built gates at the exits of New Orleans' drainage canals to prevent storm surges from busting their crappy levees. They need the MWI pumps to get rainwater out of the canals if they close the gates and the City pumps the streets dry.

The USA story is not new. The Corps bought at least two sets of pumps from MWI. The first set didn't work - even while still brand-new right from the box. Then they bought more new pumps from the same Friends of Jeb.

[Elyriaohio]

If I remember correctly the new pumps were not even evaluated for the project.
It was later disclosed that the Government copied the pump's specs. verbatim (even the typos)
into the bidding requirements.

Heck of a job W!

[Moonlighter]

Well all you fiddlers out there don't let New Orleans drown again. Come on and check out The Human Levee Music Project http://www.humanlevee.com

Also, has there been any consolidation in how the levee system is run? Currently it is managed in piecemeal fashion by municipal, ward, parish, state, and federal entities. How about one Levee Authority to be responsible for the whole system? That would decrease finger-pointing and shirking of responsibilities.

[bighat]

doctor2 u thinks the feds are in charge of all things. In fact in a comment down the list he wrote that if anyone messed with the levees govt troops would be called down upon them.

But the is a democrat and likes scare tactics but he still wrote it

[doctorj2u]

Actually I am a Republican that voted for Bush twice. And the officials of St. Bernard Parish were told they would be turned away at gunpoint when they tried to fix a federal levee themelves.

[bighat]

We will get to NO when we get to it. The dems are in charge and we are busy with wars to run, trees to trim, toilets to purchased, and sex studies to be performed with the stimulus money not to mention running a car company.

So NO, call up Holland, get them to come down and draw up some plans for your levees or whatever you choose to call them in the future and then pay the Dutch to build them

America has helped many people in the past maybe they will do it out of their own generosity.

Should you need money hit up corporations and movie stars. Rename streets and avenues after them.

Get 20 million from Bill Clinton and rename the French quarter either Bill's place or Clinton quarter.

10 million from Alec Baldwin, to put toilets on the streets with the bars. Call these restrooms
Pizz on Al. $1 charge to use them A sure money maker whether they are used or not

Whole Foods would donate but the democrats are trying to put them out of business

We could

Auction the naming rights in the stadium

. Sell the Internet rights.

This is one auction I would want to watch.

Be sure and find a way to add a way so those of us who paid the internet fee to watch could add to the bids if we consider it necessary.

[doctorj2u]

President Bush already tried your method of recovery. He came into a destroyed community with sub-levees and his answer for help was - TAX CREDITS! Just what a populace that just had their lives destroyed wants to hear.

[bighat]

nice reply to an article you did not read

[Home412AD]

The only explanation for the continued brouhaha over New Orleans is the inability of 85 percent of the population to perform Grade 8 arithmetic. New Orleans cost more than it ever returned in revenue before Katrina. Spending any money now on the dump in the middle of a swamp would be a criminally irresponsible waste of the taxpayers' money. Few observers seem to have noticed that every level of the government, from D.C. to the local parishes, are only going through the motions, paying lip service to brainless voters incapable of Grade 8 arithmetic, while staunchly doing nothing, and definitely not wasting any more money on a stinking dump in the middle of a rotting swamp.

The only people spending money on New Orleans are the charities. Non-profit corporations are notorious for idealistic, impractical executives who don't have the slightest grasp of arithmetic, money, accounting, finance, or economics. Let them waste their money on New Orleans. It's all tax-deductible. They certainly won't accomplish anything important. Non-profit corporations are also infamous for their lack of achievement in the world, compared to profit-making companies.

The gigantic number of people who cannot see the facts in front of their eyes is amazing, too. Look at what is happening in New Orleans. What do you see? Nothing, of course, because no level of government in the US is stupid enough, or corrupt enough, to waste the taxpayers' money on a useless, worthless dump in a swamp.

[luckybear]

That seems a little harsh for the people who had to live through the storm. But I agree with your sentiment. Some things aren't worth saving. The cost is too great. Detroit is dying too. Government can help people relocate. New Orleans means little in the scheme of things and spending unlimited amounts of money is not worth it. Sorry folks spending $200 billion to make the area "hurricane proof" isn't worth it. The same goes for people who continue to build their houses next to rivers. Nature is telling you to move.

If politicians hadn't been stuffing cash in freezers maybe they wouldn't have screwed up the environment while providing jobs that people demand in the oil and gas industries. You received the jobs but ruined the wetlands and thus increased the flooding problem.

Use the money to relocate people or more people will lose their lives. You can't make that area hurricane proof (don't tell me Norway could) unless you spend hundreds of billions. Let Louisiana spend the money in a recession if they want hurricane proof cities built in swamps.

[philistine]

Are you aware that the Port of New Orleans is one of the world's largest ports? Are you aware that the City of New Orleans hosts thousands of Federal jobs, is home to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, is - even post-Katrina - the largest metropolitan area on the Gulf Coast? Are you aware of how much of the petrochemical industry operates in the New Orleans area? Do you realize how much U.S. seafood production comes from coastal Louisiana, including the areas surrounding New Orleans?

You and many others greatly undervalue New Orleans. Pity.

[j.gold]

You arn't listening. It wasn't the Hurricane it was the sub-standard levees and coastal erosion due to oil companies.

I saw the city before the flood and after the hurricane, I know what damaged my city.

Go fill your tank with gas and think of me.

[Indiana]

Anybody who would call New Orleans a "useless, worthless dump in a swamp" to me seems incapable of 8th grade geography. New Orleans should be rebuilt, preserved,and protected. And the government should be helping her rebuild, and this includes upgrading the levees, instead of sitting on its hands.

[Home412AD]

Sure. Go for it. Just answer one simple question. How much will it cost?

[Lorianne]

We should not be upgrading the levees.

They should never have been built in the first place and are the cause of the coastal degradation which threatens New Orleans in hurricanes.

[j.gold]

Home412AD-

1/3 of Americas oil comes from Louisiana, most of it's natural gas, seafood, culture and most things imported to the East coast come through our port.

Next time you fill up you car, use natural gas, eat shrimp or buy you tighty whiteys at Wal Mart remember that you are doing it by stepping on the back of a New Orleanian.

thanks for your support.

[GentleScotty]

"Tighty whiteys'?

[kwijibo]

Never in the history of our country have we had as much advance warning as with Hurricane Katrina. Virtually all of the forecasters predicted just where it would hit, within about 100 miles and how strong it would be when it got here.

The people, the citizens and the local governments got an unprecedented level of warning with plenty of time to seek higher ground and to evacuate.

The great human tragedy is that more people did not participate in saving themselves and their loved ones before the storm hit or even in the first few hours after the storm cleared but before the levees broke.

It's hard to overcome someone else's indifference toward living or their apathy in getting out of the way of the storm. It's intensely frustrating to see one's fellow human beings intentionally subject themselves to that when they live in a region that knows quite well how destructive these storms are and were told how destructive Katrina was going to be before she was anywhere near New Orleans.

That should be our lesson on this fourth anniversary.

[Scribe57]

Actually, the track kept shifting west. We didn't have all that much warning. I'm also curious as to why people should have evacuated after the storm hit but before the levees broke.

[doctorj2u]

Never before in the history of the world did 90% of an urban area evacuate in 48 hour. And you call it a failure?

[j.gold]

kwijibo - read up on poverty. It's hard to save yourself when you have no money and no car.

[whitebeach]

You're wrong on nearly every count.

Just over 48 hours out, the National Weather Service was predicting landfall near the Alabama-Florida border.

Also, the evacuation of New Orleans and the lower parishes, as well as much of the Mississippi coast, was the greatest human exodus in U.S. history up to that time. Given that all these areas had survived countless hurricanes over three centuries, it's remarkable how great a percentage of the population evacuated for this one.

You also asume that "indifference toward living" and "apathy" are the only reasons anyone stayed behind. This is truly ignorant. Please try to allow the notion to penetrate your prejudices that many of those who stayed either had no choice or simply made a wrong choice. Possibly many remembered their experience with earlier hurricanes and decided it made more sense to ride it out at home than to take their chances on the roads. (Of course, many who stayed survived just fine, so it wasn't exactly the wrong choice for them.)

In short, your post is nothing but more of the fact-free, blame-the-victims stuff we've heard ever since four years ago.

[den1953]

I believe when the hurricane hit there was a lack of concern from the Government because they were to concerned with Iraq like 9/11 Bush took his eye off the ball after the devastation was realized and who was affected there was a judgment not to help those districts because they were poor. I also believe LA at the time was run by Democrats and was less of a priority for Bush and it worked because look who they have as GOV now yes a Republican and guess what the poor suffered because of it.

[bighat]

NO kind words for the democratic congress who could have authorized funds

[GentleScotty]

Anybody who still lives in or around New Orleans deserves no respect or consideration. Katrina's lesson is to not forgive stupidity.

[Scribe57]

Though, ironically, it seems to have brought out a lot of stupidity. For example, look into a mirror.

[Indiana]

And you call yourself "Gentle"?

[maxfax]

" Instead, the same institution that screwed this up the first time - the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was put in charge of the effort to protect New Orleans and the surrounding coastline. This was crazy and irresponsi­ble.."

That's the irony and it doesn't stop there about the same institution. From this report earlier in the year

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1236835375293840.xml&coll=1&thispage=1

To this most recent report that boggles the mind.

http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/wwl082609cbcorps.11cf5ddfc.html

It was no secret these temp pumps, which took considerable time to get them to operate, were manufactured by a company in which Bush's brother had an interest.

[mikefina]

Moderator, let's try this again.

The question might not be "should we rebuild NOLA where it is, because of the threat of hurricane", it could be "should we rebuild NOLA because of what it was, a desperately poor, violent and politically corrupt city that wouldn't justify the enormous expense to rebuild and repair".

There are many cities in the old industrial states that have fallen into such decline that there is no serious effort to rebuild them. Likewise, cities contaminated by toxins, blighted by crime and deserted by commerce are also left to fail. Heck, huge swaths of the farm belt, and the former Dust Bowl states have been abandoned. So why invest billions in a city that had extraordinarily high rates of concentrated urban poverty, nation-leading homicide rates, crumbling infrastructure (not including the levees), a deficient educational infrastructure and embarrassing corruption at all levels of government.

The citizens still in NOLA, and those dispersed by the deluge, ought to be supported in a more cost-efficient and productive way, than just left in place, high and dry.

[Scribe57]

So we can spend a trillion to save Iraq, but when it comes to an American city, we suddenly have to be "cost efficient and productive"?

Where exactly do you live? Cause I'd like to weigh in on whether your home is cost effective enough, rich enough, and non corrupt enough to continue existing.

[mikefina]

Do you have a substantive rebuttal or comment? You would have to believe I support our activity in Iraq for your post to make sense--and you don't have a basis for that belief.

Moreover, the question isn't can it continue to exist, the question is should enormous sums be spent to rebuild what USED to exist.

[Lorianne]

If the federal government didn't have trillions to spend in Iraq, we wouldn't be in Iraq.
Stop sending them so much money.

[doctorj2u]

Moderator, let's try this again.
Can not we protect New Orleans for what it is; a beautiful historic city with one of the most orinal pure cultures in the world. Oh, and should I add full of tax paying US citizens that have PAID for the right of protection. Sheesh!

[mikefina]

There is no question that NOLA has an interesting cultural history. The question is must we protect it indefinitely, at the cost of OTHER initiatives with which it competes for Federal resources.

[wheatsavage]

Well we wiped out every semblance of the rich, cultural history of our Native Americans. The reservations throughout the west have been poor, neglected and underserved for 100 years. Nobody gives a crap about them.