Hurricane preparedness for New Orleans

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses.

Hurricane Katrina 2005 Atlantic hurricane season

Timeline Economic effects Damage to infrastructure Political effects Criticism of gov't response Social effects Effects by region Effects on Mississippi Effects on New Orleans N.O. hurricane preparedness Superdome—Astrodome Civil disturbances Infrastructure repairs Disaster relief International response Canadian response Dutch response French response Mexican response Russian response Singaporean response Swedish response Alternative theories Historical context Commons: Katrina images Wikinews: Katrina stories Wikisource: NOAA warning bulletin Wikisource: USACE on "unwatering" N.O.

Hurricane and flood preparedness in New Orleans has been an issue since the city's early settlement because of the city's location. New Orleans was built on a delta marsh, with many sections of the area below the level of neighboring water bodies.

There were many predictions of hurricane risk in New Orleans before the strike of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005[1]. The city lies under sea level, and its levee system was designed for hurricanes no more intense than category 3. Its natural defenses, the surrounding marshland and the barrier islands are dwindling. There have been various plans to mitigate or prevent such an event from being catastrophic, but none were carried out at the time of Katrina and the city had to rely on evacuation in case of a category 5 storm. No provisions were made to evacuate those who could not evacuate themselves.

Contents 1 Assessments 1.1 LSU model 2 Publicity and predictions 2.1 2001 2.2 2002 2.3 2003 2.4 2004 2.5 2005 3 Preparing the levees for a Category 4+ hurricane 4 Louisiana's sinking coast 5 Political controversy 5.1 Wetlands loss 5.2 Levee funding issues 6 See also 7 External links

Assessments

In early 2001, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency of the U.S. government, listed a major hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three most serious threats to the nation. The other two were a terrorist attack in New York City and a large earthquake hitting San Francisco.

In 2004, an Army Corps of Engineers report noted that a Category 5 hurricane directly striking New Orleans was a one in 500 year event (PDF format document).

National Geographic ran a feature in October 2004 [2].

The January 25, 2005, Louisiana Sea Grant forum (part of an LSU college program) discussed the results of several simulations of strong hurricanes hitting New Orleans. The presentations and animations from the forum are accessible to the public at the forum's website.

LSU model

The Corps of Engineers, along with the Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute at Louisiana State University (LSU), and the authorities in Jefferson Parish have modeled the effects and aftermath of a Category 5 strike on New Orleans. The model predicted an unprecedented disaster, with extensive loss of life and property. The problem is that this area is like a bowl, surrounded by levees which are strongest along the outer Mississippi and primarily intended to contain river flooding. When a hurricane drives water into Lake Pontchartrain, the weaker levees bordering Pontchartrain and canals leading to it are overwhelmed. Water then flows into the below-sea-level city, accompanied by water overflowing the levees along the Mississippi on the south side of the city center.

In September 2002, American RadioWorks aired a documentary, Hurricane Risk for New Orleans, describing the modeling efforts at LSU, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Jefferson Parish Emergency Management Center, the results, and possible long-term solutions. The official budget was highlighted as being far below requirements and is already being considered for increase. There has been criticism of the funding for hurricane preparedness of New Orleans.

Publicity and predictions

Numerous articles, reports, and documentaries attempted to publicize the risk.

2001

• September 2001. Popular Mechanics ran a story called New Orleans Is Sinking discussing what might happen if a severe hurricane landed on New Orleans.

• October 2001. Scientific American published an article by Mark Fischetti called Drowning New Orleans. This article begins, "A major hurricane could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands. Human activities along the Mississippi River have dramatically increased the risk, and now only massive reengineering of southeastern Louisiana can save the city… New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen."

• December 2001. The Houston Chronicle published a story, Keeping its head above water: New Orleans faces doomsday scenario which predicted that a severe hurricane striking New Orleans "would strand 250,000 people or more, and probably kill one of 10 left behind as the city drowned under 20 feet of water. Thousands of refugees could land in Houston."

2002

Walter Williams, the creator of Mr. Bill, did a serious short feature called "New Orleans: The Natural History", in which an expert said a direct hit by a hurricane could damage the city for six months [3]. A summary for the documentary noted:

What few people realize is that the very forces that created New Orleans now threaten its very existence. The eco-system is incredibly fragile and volatile, and if no action is taken, the city could be wiped out in the next hurricane or gradually swept into the sea from the current course of things.

• June 2002. The New Orleans Times-Picayune published an award-winning five-part series called Washing Away by John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein. It covered various scenarios, including a Category 5 hurricane hitting the city from the south. The series also explored the various environmental changes that have increased the area's vulnerability. One article in the series concluded

Hundreds of thousands would be left homeless, and it would take months to dry out the area and begin to make it livable. But there wouldn't be much for residents to come home to. The local economy would be in ruins.

2003

• June 2003: An article entitled The Creeping Storm from Civil Engineering Magazine included the following quote:

The design of the original levees, which dates to the 1960s, was based on rudimentary storm modeling that, it is now realized, might underestimate the threat of a potential hurricane. Even if the modeling was adequate, however, the levees were designed to withstand only forces associated with a fast-moving hurricane that, according to the National Weather Service’s Saffir-Simpson scale, would be placed in category 3. If a lingering category 3 storm — or a stronger storm, say, category 4 or 5 — were to hit the city, much of New Orleans could find itself under more than 20 ft (6 m) of water.

2004

• October 2004. The National Geographic Magazine published a feature titled Gone With the Water. The article's primary focus is on the destruction of the Mississippi delta's wetlands and the effects that this has on the region's ability to withstand a hurricane, in addition to ecological and social impacts. The article begins with a haunting hypothetical worst-case scenario. [4]

• November 2004. The Natural Hazards Observer carried an article entitled What if Hurricane Ivan Had Not Missed New Orleans?, which suggested "The potential for such extensive flooding and the resulting damage is the result of a levee system that is unable to keep up with the increasing flood threats from a rapidly eroding coastline and thus unable to protect the ever-subsiding landscape." [5]

2005

• January 2005. The PBS science show Nova aired an episode on the hurricane threat to New Orleans, including interviews with New Orleans officials and scientists involved in the LSU study. The episode is available for online viewing here.

• May 2005. The American Prospect carried "Thinking Big About Hurricanes". That article described the likely aftermath of a major storm surge. "Soon the geographical "bowl" of the Crescent City would fill up with the waters of the lake, leaving those unable to evacuate with little option but to cluster on rooftops — terrain they would have to share with hungry rats, fire ants, nutria, snakes, and perhaps alligators. The water itself would become a festering stew of sewage, gasoline, refinery chemicals, and debris."

• June 2005. The FX docudrama Oil Storm depicted a category 4 hurricane hitting New Orleans and forcing residents to evacuate and hide out in the Superdome. The docudrama went on to speculate about a national economic meltdown caused by the decreased oil supply.

Preparing the levees for a Category 4+ hurricane

While no detailed proposals had yet been made to augment the New Orleans levee system to be capable of withstanding a category 4+ hurricane, in October 2004, senior U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi submitted a proposal to Congress requesting four million dollars to fund a preliminary study for such a plan. Congress tabled the proposal, never addressing it on the floor, citing budgetary concerns resulting from the Iraq War. Naomi's off-hand estimate was that this project would require approximately $1 billion dollars and would take 20 years. Naomi had stated, "It's possible to protect New Orleans from a Category 5 hurricane.... we've got to start. To do nothing is tantamount to negligence." [6] . Whether or not such additional funding might have been capable of preventing the extensive flooding in New Orleans caused by Katrina, is a matter that has yet to be determined.

From 2001 through 2005, the Bush administration battled with Congress to cut a total of approximately 67% from the budgetary requests from the Army Corps of Engineers for levee augmentation projects in the New Orleans area, but ultimately settled with Congress on a mere 50% cut in these budgetary requests [7]. In February 2004, Naomi stated that: "I've got at least six levee construction contracts (in the New Orleans area where funding has been cut) that need to be done to raise the levee protection back to where it should be (because of settling). Right now I owe my contractors about $5 million. And we're going to have to pay them interest [8]." How many levee repair projects Naomi may have felt were underfunded as of Katrina's impact in 2005 is yet uncertain [9].

Even as the Bush administration was cutting the Army Corps of Engineers budget, many were criticizing the administration for not cutting the budget more. The New York Times, in particular, published several editorials criticizing the large size of the $17 billion Corps budget, and called for the Senate to cut "pork" in S. 728, which would have provided $512 million in funding for hurricane protection projects in southern Louisiana.[10]

Louisiana's sinking coast

When the Army Corps of Engineers started systematically leveeing the river in the 19th century, it cut off the region's main source of silt, the raw material of delta-building. The weight of large buildings and infrastructure and the leaching of water, oil and gas from beneath the surface across the region have also contributed to the problem. Following the great floods of 1927, the Mississippi River was surrounded by a series of levees meant to protect the city from such floods. In 1965, New Orleans was hit by Hurricane Betsy. This storm caused tremendous amount of flooding in the New Orleans area. The federal government began a levee-building program to protect New Orleans from a Category 3 hurricane (which was the same strength as Betsy.) These series of levees were only completed recently.

However, an unintended consequence of the levees was that natural silt deposits from the Mississippi River were unable to replenish the delta, causing the costal wetlands of Louisiana to wash away and the city of New Orleans to sink even deeper. The Mississippi River delta is subsiding faster than any other place in the nation. And while the land is sinking, sea level has been rising. In the past 100 years, land subsidence and sea-level rise have added several feet to all storm surges. That extra height puts affected areas under deeper water; it also means flooding from weaker storms and from the outer edges of powerful storms spreads over wider areas. The marshes that ring New Orleans have sunk the quickest.

The problem with the wetlands was further worsened by salt water intrusion caused by the canals dug by the oil companies and private individuals in this marshland. This erosion of the wetlands not only caused Louisiana to lose 24 square miles per year of land annually and 1,900 square miles of land since the 1930s, but it also destroyed Louisiana’s first line of defense against hurricanes.

Hurricanes draw their strength from the sea, so they quickly weaken and begin to dissipate when they make landfall. Hurricanes moving over fragmenting marshes toward the New Orleans area can retain more strength, and their winds and large waves pack more speed and destructive power. Scientists working for the state Department of Natural Resources measured some of these effects during Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Andrew's surge height dropped from 9.3 feet at Cocodrie to 3.3 feet at the Houma Navigation Canal 23 miles to the north. For every mile of the marsh-and-water landscape it traversed, it lost 3.1 inches of height, sparing some homes farther north from more flooding. Currently Louisiana has 30% of the total coastal marsh and accounts for 90% of the coastal marsh loss in the lower 48 states. The engineering of the river has basically brought the Gulf of Mexico right to the doorstep of New Orleans, making it more vulnerable to hurricanes.

The combination of sinking land and rising seas has put the Mississippi River delta as much as 3 feet lower relative to sea level than it was a century ago, and the process continues. That means hurricane floods driven inland from the Gulf have risen by corresponding amounts. Storms that once would not have had much impact can now be devastating events, and flooding penetrates to places where it rarely occurred before. The problem also is slowly eroding levee protection, cutting off evacuation routes sooner and putting dozens of communities and valuable infrastructure at risk of being wiped off the map.

Political controversy

Main article: Political effects of Hurricane Katrina

Blame for lack of preparedeness is being leveled at the federal, state, and local governments. New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin has been criticized for not following the city's evacuation plan which called for the use of school buses to transport disadvantaged and elderly citizens out of the city[11]. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco was also criticized for not deploying the Louisiana National Guard sooner. President Bush has been criticized for failures on the federal level as well as with his leadership role.

Wetlands loss

State and federal officials have recently pushed a $14 billion plan to rebuild wetlands over the next 30 years, to be funded by oil and gas royalties, called Coast 2050[12]. Louisiana will receive $540 million under the energy bill enacted in August 2005. More money for this program is likely to come with aid from Hurricane Katrina.

Wetlands have the capacity to absorb storm surges at the rate of 1 foot per 2.7 miles of wetlands[13]. However, due to the systemic, long-term nature of wetlands loss[14], and due to the fact that it will take decades to remediate wetlands loss[15], it is not possible to pinpoint blame on any specific Congress, legislature, president, or governor.

Levee funding issues

When interpreting levee funding issues, it is important to note that the levees have been considered to be underfunded for decades. Much uncertainty exists as to the exact impact of recent drastic funding cuts to levee augmentation projects under the Bush administration, and as to how much of the current disaster may be the result of recent funding cuts, vs: previous funding cuts. Most experts seem to agree that the recent funding cuts under the Bush administration have at least agravatted the current crises. [16] A commonly held belief expressed by both New Orleans officials and by the New Orleans Picayune newspaper is the claim that the funding that would have gone to the levees was diverted to the Iraq war effort.

According to professor Joseph Suhayda, an emeritus engineering professor at Louisiana State University who has worked for the Army Corps of Engineers, "The fact that.. (the levees) weren't that high was a result of lack of funding," noting that part of the levee at the 17th Street Canal--where one of the breaches occurred--was 4 feet lower than the rest. "I think they could have significantly reduced the impact if they had those projects funded. If you need to spend $20 million and you spend $4 or $5 million, something's got to give."[17] Exactly how the Bush administration budget cuts compared with historical budget cuts for levee funding, and the exact impact of recent funding cuts on the recent failure of the levees has yet to be determined, and may be more fully illuminated by the pending Katrina Commission.

In Feb. of 2004 Al Naomi, the Army Corps of Engineers senior project manager in New Orleans stated that "I've got at least six levee construction contracts that need to be done to raise the levee protection back to where it should be (because of settling). Right now I owe my contractors about $5 million. And we're going to have to pay them interest [18]." A copy of the most recent comprehensive formal evaluation by the Army Corps of Engineers of the state of the levees has yet to be made public. [19]. However, no evidence has come forward that these previously identified, inadequate levee areas were the source of the breaches.

In October of 2004 Naomi was reported by the New Orleans Inquirer as saying, "It's possible to protect New Orleans from a Category 5 hurricane.... we've got to start. To do nothing is tantamount to negligence [20]." Exactly why Naomi’s plea for increased funding for levee augmentation was ignored by both congress and by the Bush administration has yet to be determined. Also, whether or not such increased funding would have been likely to have prevented the Katrina disaster, remains to be determined. Perhaps such things will be made more clear by a future Katrina Commission, as recently proposed by former President Clinton. However, the currently proposed category 5 levee system will take at least $2.5 billion and two decades to complete[21][22].

Starting in 2003, federal spending on the SELA was substantially reduced. At least nine pre-Katrina articles in the New Orleans Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars. [23] Lt. General Carl Strock, chief of engineers at the Corps of Engineers, said that “at the time that these levees were designed and constructed, it was felt that that was an adequate level given the probability of an event like this occurring". Strock also said that he did not believed that funding levels contributed to the disaster, commenting that "[t]he intensity of this storm simply exceeded the design capacity of this levee." Strock also told reporters that the Corps of Engineers "had a 200- or 300-year level of protection. That means that an event that we were protecting from might be exceeded every 200 or 300 years" [24].

In early 2004, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness. On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us." Later in June, 2004, Naomi requested $2 million for urgent work repairing levees from a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority. Naomi needed to request the funds locally because the federal government had cut back on funding for needed projects. According to the Times-Picayune on June 18, 2004, Naomi said, "The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement...The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them." Construction work was underway on the Hammond Highway bridge near the 17th Street Canal breach. [25]

See also

• Hurricane Katrina
• Effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans
• Damage to infrastructure by Hurricane Katrina
• Hurricane Pam
• Prevention (hazards)

External links

• 
• State of Louisiana Emergency Operations Plan
• City of New Orleans Hurricane Preparedness Plan

News reports in chronological order

• "Drowning New Orleans", Scientific American, October 2001
• On the Line: Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Disasters: Lessons from the East Coast and New Orleans, Natural Hazards Center, March 2002
• Washing Away New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 2002
• The Creeping Storm, Civil Engineering Magazine, June 2003
• Gone with the Water, National Geographic, October 2004
• Disasters Waiting to Happen: What if Hurricane Ivan Had Not Missed New Orleans?, Natural Hazards Center, November 2004
• "Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen? Times-Picayune Had Repeatedly Raised Federal Spending Issues", Will Bunch, Editor and Publisher, 31 August 2005
• Feds' Disaster Planning Shifts Away From Preparedness", Newhouse News Service, 31 August 2005
• "Funding cuts led way to lesser levees", Chicago Tribune, 31 August 2005

• What Went Wrong: Storm Exposed Disarray at the Top, Washington Post, 4 September 2005