Hurricane Preparedness For New Orleans - Levee Preparations and Funding Issues

Levee Preparations and Funding Issues

Southeast Louisiana Project funding:

2004:

• Corps of Engineers' request: $11 million
• Bush request: $3 million
• Approved by Congress: $5.5 million

2005:

• Corps of Engineers' request: $22.5 million
• Bush request: $3.9 million
• Approved by Congress: $5.7 million

2006:

• Bush request: $2.9 million

While no detailed proposals had yet been made to augment the New Orleans levee system to be capable of withstanding a category 4 or greater hurricane, in October 2004, the Corps of Engineers submitted a proposal to Congress requesting US$4 Million 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. A senior Corps official made an off-hand estimate that this project would require approximately $1 Billion dollars and would take 20 years, stating "It's possible to protect New Orleans from a Category 5 hurricane... we've got to start. To do nothing is tantamount to negligence." 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.

Starting in 2003, federal spending on the Southeast Louisiana Project was substantially reduced. 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, "the 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."

From 2001 through 2005, the Bush administration battled with Congress to cut a total of approximately 67% from the budgetary requests from the Corps of Engineers for levee augmentation projects in the New Orleans area, but ultimately settled with Congress on a 50% cut in these budgetary requests. 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 US$5 Million. And we're going to have to pay them interest."

Even as the Bush administration was cutting the 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.

Just after Hurricane Katrina hit, there was some concern expressed that government officials had placed an overemphasis on disaster recovery, while neglecting the process of pre-planning and preparation.

In the 17 months following Katrina, five investigations were carried out. The only federally ordered study was conducted by the American Society of Civil Engineers and paid for by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Two major independent studies were done by the University of California at Berkeley and the Louisiana State University. Two minor studies were done by FEMA and the insurance industry. All five studies basically agree on the engineering mechanisms of failure.

The failure mechanisms included overtopping of levees and floodwalls by the storm surge, consequential undermining of flood wall foundations or other weakening by water of the wall foundations, and the storm surge pressures exceeding the strength of the floodwalls. In June 2006, a contrite Lt. Gen Carl Strock took responsibility for the failure of metro New Orleans flood protection, calling the system "a system in name only."

As of August 2006, the Corps of Engineers planned to spend $6 billion to make sure that by 2010, the city would probably be flooded only once every 100 years. But this would not equal the best levee system in the world, which is in The Netherlands. That system is designed to protect populated areas against anything but a 1-in-10,000-years flood. If the Corps built a 1-in-500-year levee system in New Orleans, Ivan van Heerden, deputy director of Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center, says, it would cost $30 billion.

According to a study by the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council, levees and floodwalls surrounding New Orleans—no matter how large or sturdy—cannot provide absolute protection against overtopping or failure in extreme events. Levees and floodwalls should be viewed as a way to reduce risks from hurricanes and storm surges, not as measures that completely eliminate risk. For structures in hazardous areas and residents who do not relocate, the committee recommended major floodproofing measures such as elevating the first floor of buildings to at least the 100-year flood level.