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New Orleans is Sinking into Same Levee Mistakes

citizen

NEW ORLEANS – It looks like history is repeating itself in the Big Easy: People have forgotten what happened after the last hurricane, four decades ago, that caused catastrophic flooding and again believe the federal government is constructing a levee system that will protect them.

Health care worker Geneva Stanford, 76, says she's glad to be home in the Lower Ninth Ward. She believes a rebuilt floodwall about 200 feet from her house will protect her. In a yearlong review of levee work, The Associated Press tracked a pattern of public misperception, political jockeying and legal fighting, along with economic and engineering miscalculations, that threaten to make New Orleans the scene of another devastating flood.

Interviews with a variety of officials confirmed that many have not learned from mistakes made after Hurricane Betsy in 1965, which set the stage for Hurricane Katrina.

"People forget, but they cannot afford to forget," said Windell Curole, a Louisiana hurricane and levee expert. "If you believe you can't flood, that's when you increase the risk of flooding. In New Orleans, I don't think they talk about the risk."

Geneva Stanford, a 76-year-old health care worker, is a believer. She lives in prefabricated house in the Lower Ninth Ward, 200 feet from a rebuilt floodwall that Katrina broke.

"This wall here wasn't there when we had the flood," Ms. Stanford said. She said she believes the new wall will protect her.

A recent University of New Orleans survey found concern about levee safety was dropping, replaced by crime, incompetent leadership and corruption.

For the foreseeable future, New Orleans will be surrounded by levees unable to protect against another storm like Katrina.

When the Army Corps of Engineers finishes $14.8 billion in post-Katrina work, the city will have what are defined as 100-year levees.

Under that standard, experts say that every house being rebuilt in New Orleans has a 26 percent chance of flooding again over a 30-year mortgage; and every child born in New Orleans would have nearly a 60 percent chance of seeing a major flood in his or her life.

[ij]Faulty work[/i]

Levees tend to get built after devastating hurricanes: It's happening now and it happened after Betsy flooded much of the same low ground that Katrina invaded.

Between Betsy and Katrina, about 22,000 homes were built in eastern New Orleans.

"We were under the illusion that what we had done would prevent another Betsy from flooding the area," said Philip Ciaccio, a former longtime politician from eastern New Orleans, a reclaimed swamp. "Hopefully the experts know what they're doing this time."

The corps says its work is making the city safer, but there are doubts.

Records show the corps has installed faulty drainage pumps, used outdated measurements, issued incorrect data, unearthed critical flaws, made conflicting statements about flood risk and flunked reviews by the National Research Council.

A critical analysis of what it would take to build 500-year levees was supposed to be done last December but remains unfinished.

The corps says the work is on budget and will be done by 2011.

"The progress I see each time I visit is really remarkable. The region has a better hurricane and storm damage reduction system in place than ever before in its history – and it will continue to get better," Lt. Gen. Robert Van Antwerp, the corps chief, wrote on his blog in April.


Echo of the past

Betsy was eerily similar to Katrina. The levees broke. Water reached rooftops and people clung to trees for survival.

In Betsy's aftermath, President Lyndon B. Johnson – like President Bush – pledged to rebuild New Orleans and make it safe from hurricanes. By 1976, though, the Government Accountability Office found the completion date for the work had slipped from 1978 to 1991. Costs had soared to $352 million. By 1982, the GAO said the work would not get done by 2008.

Katrina's storm surge laid bare the incomplete and inadequate work after Betsy.

"All the human instincts post-Katrina are the same [as] post-Betsy," said Oliver Houck, a longtime New Orleans resident who participated in many of the rebuilding conflicts since Betsy.

Cain Burdeau, The Associated Press


 
Aug 24, 08 12:54 pm
evilplatypus

"Between Betsy and Katrina, about 22,000 homes were built in eastern New Orleans."

Lets say the typical shotgun house is 900 SF @ $115/SF to produce - 22,000 x $103,500 = $2.28 Billion to rebuild every house ground up.

New Levees, around part of the city which still give it a 20% chance of flooding = $14.8 Billion


It sounds twisted but the cheap wood frame construction is easier to just rebuild, and more cost effective than semi stable levees in a swamp - is it moraly right? I dont know. Depends on whos paying for it. The port and downtown are the economic engine of the region and must be shored up first. Its like that for any city - only most dont have to balance hurricanes and flooding on such a scale to garbe collection and school funding.

Aug 24, 08 1:19 pm  · 
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trace™

yup, saw a documentary on it about year ago and how ridiculous the funding was (i.e. the gov.'t basically f*ing everyone).

Very sad that we have a war that costs 341 million per day

Aug 24, 08 3:43 pm  · 
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evilplatypus

I like the house on stilts concept - I mean let the lower 9th return to soggy marshland and have a system of swamp boat transportation and raised macadam roads for cars - it could be really cool and unique, sort of like old school bayou backroads but inside a city - it would also relieve some of the pressure on the levee system - Im assuming here afterall im not a civil engineer.

The issues with a wet bottom urban area I guess would include snakes, sewer contamination, gators and humidity. Im sure however it could be done.

The other big issue facing NOLA - is the Lake higher than it has to be? Cant they relieve it?

Aug 24, 08 4:02 pm  · 
 · 
citizen

My take on this is not about lack of funding to allow settlement in the wrong place, but about the lack of wisdom which allows it to continue.

Aug 24, 08 4:24 pm  · 
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evilplatypus

I think it comes down to a seemingly inhumane but nessessary cost/benefit analysis. Does the city need the 9th to continue? This is the working poor who staff the bars, restauraunts, mail trucks, factories, delivery vehicals etc. Maybe a natural landscape inhabited by rich folks would be appealing in 50 years when it all grows in. Like a nature reserve in the city. High tax base. The working poor would be able to swap neighborhoods then to higher ground. Whatever happens it will be slow. Cities evolve. Tampering too much with that gives us - well whatever you call most contemporary semi-urban landscapes.

It almost seems like the most interesting areas are by accident and evolution - Like lower manhatten, central Boston, - layered and leftover spaces that get new lives rather than being wiped clean

Aug 24, 08 4:35 pm  · 
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cayne1

Sadly a continued lack of leadership in this country.
It seems that both the executive and legislative branches of our Federal government have continually dropped the ball both domestically and internationally. NOLA, Iraq, allowing predatory lenders to run fast and loose for too long, etc....will we ever see past the short term gains to a long term solution for anything?

Aug 25, 08 7:43 am  · 
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citizen

You need to read the entire story. This is also very much about local government and its many failures, long before the federal government got involved.

Of the several lessons on display, a key one is: don't build below sea level.

Aug 25, 08 9:34 am  · 
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chupacabra

tell that to galveston.

Aug 25, 08 9:38 am  · 
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chupacabra

and actually sea level is not the issue...it is being below sea level and within a seasonal storm path. Holland has large amounts of its country under sea level and they do fine with it...they also invest in infrastructure to deal with that reality...something we have chosen not to do.

I do agree though...the local government around NO is a joke and has been historically.

Aug 25, 08 9:41 am  · 
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liberty bell

Wow, I'm liking the new positive-platypus! Interesting long-term view you are taking.

Aug 25, 08 9:50 am  · 
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Apurimac

Boo, bring back evilP!

Aug 25, 08 10:31 am  · 
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evilplatypus

evil's doctor said He had high blood preasure so He's becoming more positive and less stressed

Aug 25, 08 10:52 am  · 
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cayne1

I was going to mention the failings of the local NO gov't., it's obvious they have played a role in the faulty systems in place. I didn't however, because the main responsibility falls to the feds based on the takeover of the levee system by the Army Corps of Engineers after the last previous big flood before Katrina.
Once the feds stepped in and used the ACE to rebuild the levees (just as they are now) they became responsible.
In the past the ACE has done good work all over the place, but I wonder if they just failed to take a larger look at the problem to arrive at a better solution, or if p-p is right that it's just a cost benefit analysis that doesn't care about the low income residents of the areas that will flood.
Sad either way.

Aug 25, 08 1:21 pm  · 
 · 
citizen

As long as we're talking about going from here forward... isn't this the time to say "no more" to billion$ spent for urban development in precisely the wrong place?

A minor fraction of this amount could resettle those families still remaining in harm's way. This terrain should be allowed to revert to what its practical use: a floodplain.

Aug 25, 08 1:31 pm  · 
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ether

good for you, ep (i'm still calling you ep because well..pp just doesn't cut it) and imagine the tourist draw opportunities of having a floating/pier community/city?

Aug 25, 08 1:36 pm  · 
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evilplatypus

Its Positve -P now. At least this week.

Aug 25, 08 3:28 pm  · 
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Apurimac

pp, you should copyright that idea before somebody uses it as a thesis.

Aug 25, 08 5:26 pm  · 
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