Are We Ready For The Next Katrina?
The following post was originally published on August 30, 2007.
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In January of 2003, I sat in Joe Kelley’s seminar at the University of Maine as he foretold the devastation that was to come to New Orleans. I’d never heard this chilling story before and listened intently as he explained that as far back as when The Big Easy flooded in the 1920′s, scientists realized that the Mississippi Delta would continue to change its course (rivers have a habit of doing that you see). I began to understand that over time, the already vulnerable city faced increasing threat and felt dizzy amid the whirlwind of so many alarming facts and figures.
The levees are inadequate… Louisiana loses 25-35 square miles of land each year to the ocean… Coastal wetlands (natural buffers to storm surges) are disappearing…. Many parts of the city are below sea level… Which by the way, is rising… Residents are supposed to keep axes in their attics… and on and on…
What?! This surely couldn’t be true. If the situation were really that bad, no one would stay. Did the federal government know? Did residents realize? Maybe the scientists were a bunch of alarmists… (Hey wait, isn’t that what they’re claiming now with regard to global warming?! Michael Crichton take note!)
But Professor Joe Kelley is a nationally renowned marine geologist who’s scientific expertise on the Louisiana coastline has long been sought by private and government organizations. Surely he knew what he was talking about, not to mention he even used to be a professor at the University of New Orleans. So evidently, there was something to all this coastal geology.
In 1984, Joe wrote ‘Living With the Louisiana Shore‘ predicting much of what has come to pass. Obviously, for more reasons than Orwell, we should have paid better attention to what we were warned about that year. The science and history of hurricanes in Louisiana sounded terrifying and it was obvious to me – and everyone in the room – that New Orleans didn’t stand a chance.
Pre-Katrina, Kelley was asked to participate in a National Academy of Science Panel when the Bayou State wanted to request federal funds to address it’s obvious levee problem. The panel recommended $14 billion from the federal government over 50 years to save the Delta, but the Bush Administration ultimately decided it couldn’t commit Congress to 50 years of funding.
Then came the August Category 3 hurricane that ravaged the city.
Exactly two years ago today I saw Joe Kelley at the local market in Old Town, Maine. “Joe,” I said. “You told us. We knew this was coming.” He’s looked tired. He looked so sad. He could only shake his head.
Hundreds of lives lost. Families torn apart. Homes and memories gone forever. And as I stared speechless at him, my thoughts in repetitive sequence like a skipping phonograph, ‘But we knew Joe. You told them. They knew. And did nothing…‘
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Just published in PLoS ONE:
Business Return in New Orleans: Decision Making Amid Post-Katrina Uncertainty
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Links to this Post
- New Orleans: Then and Now | The Intersection | Discover Magazine | August 28, 2009
“What?! This surely couldn’t be true. If the situation were really that bad, no one would stay. Did the federal government know? Did residents realize? Maybe the scientists were a bunch of alarmists… (Hey wait, isn’t that what they’re claiming now with regard to global warming?! Michael Crichton take note!)”
You do know that Michael Crichton is dead right?
I think people tend to put their blinders on when it comes to something that would inconvenience them such as having to relocate or go to great expense.
Yes, this post was composed in 2007.
There are a number of issues here – for example:
1. people like to say “that can’t happen here”, “that’s not happening”, and “that’s never happened before” – most if not all of which are wrong
2. if you rant on about an infrequent event for long enough, it may happen. I wouldn’t go for “The sculpture on Mount Rushmore will collapse!” because that’s not likely to happen in my lifetime, but I’m getting tired of the “large meteorite can swat us, let’s put all our money into tracking near earth objects” story. So how do you convince the public of something when they can’t imagine that there is evidence there to support the claim? It’s funny though how the public would trust a Jeanne Dixon more than any scientist – why is that so?
Speaking as a Louisiana ex-pat, growing up in Baton Rouge the question every hurricane season was not if NOLA was going to get drowned, but when. We all knew it was a city in danger, especially as our coastal marshes (which chew up a lot of storm energy) faded into history. Many citizen groups tried to do something, but in the corrupt world of Louisiana politics, no one had enough money to buy off the right levee boards to make sure levees were maintained 9which by federal law is a local responsibility, even when the Corps of Engineers builds the original levee). No one in Congress wanted to fund the levee construction fully at any time either – good enough was always the rule, not the exception. And the federal government, which contributed to the problem of coastal erosion by leveeing the Mississippi all the way to the mouth at Venice, still refuses to pay the bill to fix the marsh and delta system that used to protect my second home.
So if you live elsewhere in the U.S. – thanks for helping with the clean-up, and for rebulding houses, and for standing up (however briefly) for funding to try to save the Big Easy. But stop condescending to us that we were ignorant and put our heads in the sand – the whole nation still has its head in the sand about conditions in NOLA, and on the Gulf Coast.