Katrina and the Web of Responsibility

Anonymous

The NYT created quite a stir with Sunday’s editorial, “Death of an American City.” Strong medicine, but on point. The NYT’s basic message is the lack of leadership by all concerned, but especially on the federal level. Nola citizens still do not know whether the federal government will pay for an improved levee system, whether it is “true” Category 3 protection or the best possible Category 5.

This may be a decisive week for New Orleans. Congress will end its session by the weekend and by then we should know whether they have voted money for levee improvements or not. Because many Nola residents view improved levee protection as an absolute precondition for their return to the area, Congress’s action (or failure to act) could be decisive for the effort to rebuild the city.

It’s pretty clear there are many in DC who think the cost of better levees is just too much. But from a Nola perspective, things look a bit different. What Nola citizens are being told was well summarized by a headline in our local paper, The Times-Picayune , on December 8: “100 days after Katrina, the evidence is clear that the great flood was a man-made disaster.” Article continues: “Evidence shows that the six levee breaches along three canals and the overtopping at the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet can be traced to human error.” Design flaws, poor engineering and bad construction materials all played a part. It appears that the city never had "true" Category 3 hurricane protection, as was always said. Further, this lesser degree of protection was fatally undermined by human error and negligence all coming from the Army Corps of Engineers. And further, had the existing levee system been done properly to a Category 3 level, the city would not have flooded.

So locals have reason to believe that Katrina was a man-made disaster, man-made, that is, at the federal level. The idea that the feds would escape responsibility, or, as a price for rebuilding, insist that the city be changed significantly, is thus especially infuriating. From the Nola perspective, it's the feds fault. They have to make good for what they have done. On the other hand, locals do understand that the old system of multiple levee boards has to go and there is a major grassroots effort going on now to make that happen at the next state legislative session.

In addition, from a local perspective, corruption is being used by the feds as a dodge to refuse to help. After all, the main money the state is interested in is for the levee system. That would be federal money given to a federal agency, the Corps, not the state or local government. If the feds think corruption is a problem in the Corps, they should solve it. But using local corruption as an excuse not to rebuild the levee system properly is a non sequitur.

Many experts think the best protection for New Orleans is not the levee system by itself, but restoring the wetlands that absorb the force of giant storms like Katrina. There’s already a plan in place to do this called Coast 2050. Unfortunately, according to experienced enviros, it’s not clear wetlands can be restored to anything like their former condition. And why were they allowed to erode in the first place? At this point, Katrina turns into a local story, one of allowing oil and gas companies and timber interests to work their will by cutting hundreds of canals through the wetlands and not requiring them to fix the damage. That’s a state matter, but not one even on the radar screen of current Louisiana politics. Instead, Louisiana politicians want to use a better share of oil revenue to pay for the restoration of damage properly attributed to oil companies. But no one wants to talk about the responsibility of private interests for what has happened or the complicity of state government. That would indict just about everyone.

One thing you can say for democracy – when things go bad, it’s usually everyone’s fault.
Posted 11:11 PM by Anonymous [link]