The Cost of Gustav

I know I'm sick of paying taxes to rebuild a city that will get destroyed again. Obviously people who call New Orleans home has a very different view, but at what point is it not worth the resources?

After all the misuse of Katrina funds, hopefully people learned their lesson this time and disaster relief can make its way into the right hands.

That being said, I don't think there should be any federal help in rebuilding.

You know how the old saying goes... Fool me once... (or maybe you don't)

I will agree with a lot of what you say. The federal responsibility should be limited to help get the river navigable (the port is too valuable to all of us), the federal highways passable, and making sure law and order prevail during the actual disaster (if the state cannot do so and asks for it).

Anyone living in New Orleans should be paying their own way with insurance, etc. If that cost is too prohibitive, then you move, or live with the knowledge that everything you have will probably be lost with a good rain. Those refineries and other businesses needing human resources should shoulder the costs of keeping folks near by(those costs can be passed to all consumers using their products anyway.)

This is from someone who loves New Orleans, and would hate to see it washed away, but economics must rule. However, there are plans to help the marshland reestablish itself by diverting silt laden water from the river. But, while I hope it will work, havent read enough to know how feasible it is.

Im sure many people disagree with the way Katrina was handled, both financially in the way we blindly surrendered funds and fundamentally in the way we addressed re-building the city. Here we are several years later and the only existing aid that I know of will be used to close the MRGO. 22 million dollars or more will be spent by the federal government to create a rock barrier. Additional state funds coming from the tax payers of New Orleans will be used to dredge the Industrial Canal Way and gain a new route to the inner harbor.

If you want to battle economics, how will the US do without access to the largest refineries in the nation? If we stopped dredging the MRGO would silt deposits do a better job mitigating wetlands than a 22 million dollar rock dam? How will fluvial deposits enter the MRGO if the waterway is cut-off?

We have an issue with a very important coastal port. The city just lost millions of dollars to a tropical storm that did very little damage. If aid is involved maybe we should re-evaluate where it is being spent. Stop dredging the MRGO and the river will clean itself. Would another location be less susceptible to flooding and damage from storm surges? Is now the time to relocate? In debate, Gustav may have done more damage than can be seen physically. Who's ready for the next storm?

how will the US do without access to the largest refineries in the nation?

We call them pipes not ports they are way cheaper.

Did you notice how the shelves of stores were suddenly missing products after Katrnia?

The New Orleans Ports brings in so much tonnage the USA depends on as well as exporting.

The Insurance Company told those who had flood insurance the wind did it, while telling those without flood insurance the flloding did it. With laws passed the allow insurance companies to denie any policy for any reason why would they even buy insurance? Build a block house and secure it from flooding with pumps to get out the rain water. Wood houses there make no sense.

Wind drives water!!!!!

Actually preserving law and order during a disaster and immediate repsonse to a disaster are State responsibilities. However, States should have a disaster plan in-place and be able to realize when they are so corrupt and inable to address probelms that arise from even relatively common natural events, and be ready to ask for federal response. They must have prepared this ahead of time as the Federal governments primary responsibility is not to act as first responder, but rather that is the States responsibility. You must make the federal government at least aware thet you would plan to seek their immediate assistanc ein such scenarios. No one, i do not care who you are, wants to be told by others to leave them alone they will habdle it, and then after the fact get a sudden call for immediate assistance when you are not prepared to provide such. Highways are manitained and handled also by states, the funding is just subsized by the Federal government through the State DOTs. The truth is that most disaster response is the responsibility of a State, and the Federal Government typical porvides funding programs and aid after the fact in support of the States, if the state request it.

Also, I am not sure you can really have a natural disaster if the recurrence frequency is only once every 10 years or so. such natural occurences should be well covered under the planning and building codes as they are a typical occurence. This is equivalent to claiming a 4.1 earthquake in Hollister, California is a natural Disaster. If there is massive destruction occurring from common events, this should indicate there is something severely wrong with the building and planning codes, policies and enforcement. Land developers who build cheap housing in areas with a high risk to the future property owners should be held liable in part, along with the planning department directors who allow such building (probably for a small donation to their future vacation fund). Where i do think the Feds should step in, is in enforcing corruption prosecutions in States like Louisiana before it gets to this condition, rather than there current policy of stepping in after the fact when they receive bad press because the State messed up and the Feds are getting blamed (BTW corruption prosecutions of Louisiana public representatives is way up since Katrina, like 300%).

You sir need a lesson in government. States are to large of an operation to be able to attend to the interactions needed in smaller communities. This direct action falls to the local municipalities such as; County, Parrish, City, Town, Village and Hamlet.

This is where the immediate needs of the communities and people in these communities are planned for. These plans are brought to larger, and larger municipalities until it reaches federal levels.

As an example. The league of cities meet and invite the Representatives of the smaller villages and hamlets to attend. At this meeting they decide that the beach has been eroded by strong storms over the last 5 years, and in now very small in some areas. This will cut down on turist money, as well as serving as a buffer against strong wave action. To repair the beach they need to dredge the water off shore of sand, and pump it back on the beach. Now they need the money to do this. The next step is to go to the county commission meeting, and request the money. The county decides that the counties on either side of them would also need to have their beaches repaired,. They meet with surrounding counties to decide how to proceed. The three counties go to the state for any money they can. If the state has funding available they are done. If not they go to the federal government to apply for a fed grant. the likely solution goes like this all the interested parties on both sides of the money decide how bad the need is , who will be affected by the repair or lack of repair. Based on the decisions made at this series of meetings a plan to pay for the repair is devised. A typical plan may go like this The feds pay 40%, the state pays 30%, the county pays 10% the cities share 5% based on the footage each city has of beach-front, And the county turist development agency springs for the last 15%. The two other counties may share the same deal, or work out their own deal.

Beaches repairs are not an emergency situation, and primarily a business interest relating to local tourism businesses. Direct action for immediate services does fall on local authorities, the national guard for emergencies falls under the governor of the State. States set minimum standards, communities, are suposed to enforce those standards for building codes, planning codes, health and safety and so forth at least to the level set by the State. The federal government does not set any of these standards. Having some experience working for a few agencies including FEMA in Central Florida during the Hurricanes a few in 2004, EPA projects, DOE, and DOD, I have some idea of what the limits are on the federal agencies and what they expect the States to take care of. Now the States can defer some of that responsibility down to the more locl agencies like municipalities, California actually does this in a lot of situations, or take more diorect control. However, they will still expect the local authorities to meet or exceed the State regulations and standards. Thus the Federal Government expects the State to be responsible, and the State expects some of the burden of that responsibility to fall on the local authorities, how much varies from State to State. As far as funding goes, well that is different, the Feds typically expect to function primarily for providing loans and funding to asist the States in these situations. unnatural Beach preservation repairs again not really an emergency function, so the funding process can be negotiated over time. If however, you have observed that the State is allowing local authorities to circumvent State regulations and set their own lower standards, that could be a issue of corruption in enforcement, and maybe someone should be investigating your states government.

The strongest wind resistant building codes in the United States are the South Florida Building Codes. The surrounding counties have copied these tough regulations learned from the hurricanes of the past. Why are they not state regulations? What part of Florida do you think does not need this protection on houses that will be built next year. Not retrofitting. New construction. What about Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia or the Carolinas? Don't try that "states know it all" bull with me. I have 33 years of public service. I don't need that fertilizer. After all the lessons learned from Andrew, Why do you think no state has adopted even 1/2 of the regulations set by Dade county? And they have changed roofing regulations twice again this year alone.

After Andrew there were no landmarks left in communities. Who do you think went block to block, door to door looking for people those first days? Do you think the State troopers from Daytona could tell 64 Ave from 68 Ave? Do you think the national guard could find Opa-Locka blvd? The local law enforcement agencies and fire departments had to get every can of spray paint they could find to paint a name on every road. Even when outside help showed up, there had to be one local person to work with the outside crew. There was just no way to know where, or how to go anywhere. Why don't you try going into a strange city with named streets and find an address. Now try it without GPS, we did not have GPS when Andrew visited.

Again the States set the minimum standards, not the maximum, local authorities are fully allowed to exceed State standards. As far as wind codes I am sure that Florida has specified strict wind codes. Many States in the West do not have to specify codes for wind since the seismic codes end up requiring stricter structural reinforcement against wind loads than most wind codes. By the way I saw the damage from Hurricane in 2004, and the structural support in the damaged buildings in Brevard, Volusia and Lake Counties. Coming from California where a substantial amount of steel strapping and tie-downs are required to tie the roof to the walls and walls into the concrete foundations, I was shocked to see what the relatively new construction looked like in those areas. Florida is a good example of where the State has set much lower standards than the wealthier communities are willing to accept. I have a number of friends who were in Lousiana and Alabama following katrina and they have indicated the standards set in those areas are even worse, about like those seen in the west in the 1970's.

I am all for more local involvement in the process. However, I think that when there is State Monies involved the standards should be sufficient to make sure it is really a reasonably unanticipatable disaster, not an annual recurrence. If federal monies are involved there should be a minimum Federal standard to makesure that structures are resistant enough to protect against these disasters recurring every 5 years or less. Claiming hurricane disasters ever 5 years or so is rediculous. Don't get me wrong, I feel the same way about all the Southern California Wild fire disasters. If you have a Disaster every 5 years or less, it is just poor planning or unacceptably low building standards. They should use the same kind of recurrence standard as used to develop seismic codes.

Very true - an annual catastrophic failure becomes, pretty much by definition, the normal condition.

When it comes to emergency planning, the first level of responsibility is the Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) which may be city-wide, or where there are no large cities, county-wide. The next level is the State Emergency Response Commission (SERC) which functions across the entire state, but only that state. LEPC's and SERC's do not function in a vaccum, they do communicate across artificial boundaries that natural disasters will not recognize. After that comes FEMA, CoE, etc.

Emergency response starts with the first-responder level in the community - Fire and Police Departments, Hospitals and ambulance services (if separate). Then the National Guard as a State-level operation, along with Highway Patrol or equivalent functions. Then the Coast Guard, etc. at the Federal level. Once again, they do not work in a vacuum and have mutual assistance agreements between jurisdictions that spell out who covers what when things get out of hand.

I've never heard any of these levels of agencies claim they were under-utilized or over-funded.

Thank you.

Of course how many public entities and personnel ever really complain about being over-funded. Some technical staff may complain about under-utilization of their skills, but also outside of them it is pretty uncommon for labor, admin, or management to complain about under-utilization in public agencies, except when management wants to get rid of a position.

i am from Holland and we have a long history of having large cities under sea-level.

Katrina could have been avoided, but the local government ignored the warning signs and the recommendations of the engineers.

But when was the last time a city in Holland endured a hurricane? Big difference here in what nature can dish out to the under sea level cities.

Possibly more dynamic than the weather patterns alone, The Big Easy also has to deal with the tenth largest river in the world, The Big Muddy River and its tributaries. With an average discharge of 16,200 cubic meter per second it is capabale of washing away an entire city.

And much of the newer developments in New Orleans were built on unstable muck soils and fills, which used to underlying the aggradational sections of the River Delta system. The best planned portions of that City were the oldest portions, when they were building for themselves, not to sell to the poorer residence who are seeking housing.

The storms in the North sea have increased over the last few years so the delta works had to close their gates more often. We have also problems that the rivers are overflowing due to the increase of stormy weather.

Seems like after all these years the Corps of Engineers would have some type of system to force all the silt and topsoil that washes down the Mississippi into one area and have a crane there with a bucket constantly pulling up that materail and loading it on trucks to build, maintain and extend the sea walls of New Orleans.

It is obvious they want to keep the land there, but at the same time the actual land along the road ways going to the different island is disaapearing and being washed out as the water levels rise.

It seems some 4 to 6 ft high buttress along the bottom of the Mississippi set at a steep angle would allow the force of the water to drive this excess material washed down from up stream to be colleted but also keep it out of the Gulf where they have dead zones from the chemicals and other polluation that comes with that silt and top soil.

From what I have read there so much silt and top soil ot amounts to moving a small mountian each years 500 miles.

"...after all these years the Corps of Engineers would have some type of system..."

Well, they do, but I wouldn't recommend relying on the Corps - their solutions are those of military engineers, after all. I don't deny they have a certain level of expertise, but I have yet to see a lot of success come out of it.

While the Corp maintains them, they did not build many the underlying levees themselves. The foundation levees on which the existing structure were raised, were built almost 200 years ago to reclaim land for farming, not to place permanent housing structure behind (different level of importance against flooding). Also, somehow I suspect that with the numerous other huge ports and refineries in this country, we could survive quite well without the need for those in New Orleans (Maybe the ports of Long Beach, New York, Oakland, Stockton, Portland, Seattle, Baltimore, etc. would just have to pick up a little slack). The ports and refineries are not located in New Orleans because they can only provide sufficient service from there or othe locations can not provide service, but rather they lean that location because enforcement is much more lax, there are fewer people to bribe, the bribes are cheaper, and there has historically been less federal oversight. Afterall, all the imports from East Asia could more easily port on the West coast, transport out of those ports (as much already does) and not have all the issues of trying to cross through the panama canal, which limits their size. Maybe the product cost increases a little bit more to cover the cost of more shipments being refused.

I had an idea that I thought had merit. I will post it here for all to comment on.

When Katrina hit the shoreline of the gulf area, the amount of destruction was endless. Instead of the insurance companies paying to rebuild vulnerable beach front property, let the federal government pay off the property owners to the extent of their coverage, and own the property. Turn the beach front property into a long park and beach areas. There would never be any residential buildings to be destroyed again in this area.

The insurance companies that carried the polices on these areas would have to reimburse the federal government for the buyouts. That would allow the federal government to rebuild other things. With all of the previous land owners now without land, they would drive the prices of the remaining land higher. The new home building would help start the economy of the area. I welcome your comments.

I concur that it sounds like a good plan, but I don't see how we'd ever implement it (at least under the current administration).

The time to implement it was when Katrina had flattened the area. Now that it is rebuilt the land accusation would be that much harder.

Now I'm not from New Orleans, but I do believe the coastal areas were left less damaged than were the flood plains of the Mississippi River. Also, the area just doesn't seem worthy of a national beach or seashore when viewing pictures like the one posted above. I think the suggestion to mitigate the wetlands and let fresh water marshes propagate seems like a more of a feasible plan.

The issue at hand is special interest groups could care less about the slums of New Orleans. Fresh water marshes come into play only because they dampen the storm surge and help protect the valuable port and industrial sector of New Orleans. I don't see any selfless aid going into New Orleans, there always seems to be a hidden agenda.

How true. I haven't been in that area for a loooong while, but all the reports I've heard tell me there's little if any actual "riverbank" left on the lower Mississppi. It's all refineries, ship docks, and warehouses.

There is marsh, swamps and wetlands. There is really no "beach" - land just fades into sea. For years the Cajuns and others lived here making a living off the area (fish, shrimp, etc). The real problems began when the Corp began to make levees to "protect" the area; before that the River kept everything supplied with silt with its flooding.

Hurricanes have been hitting for years and we've all heard for years that the levees would one day break, but no one really thought it would happen "this time". So we built and built, without any real regard for what the consequences would be.

Maybe having less government interference is the answer. You can live there, you can buy your own insurance or get flooded out. The taxpayers do not need to bail out everything. Build levees to protect the port, but do so in a way that will let the river continue to feed the wetlands. I agree that will not be easy, but can probably be done.

There is a real cost to everything; circumventing reality is disastrous even if everything seems to be working for a while.

Without intervention the marshes would regain silt deposits and thrive until the stream gradient was diminished. Then water would be forced down the man made waterways where dredging becomes more of a burden year after year.

Geologist have forecasted that without any human intervention the main branch of the mighty Mississippi would flow through the Atchafalaya River. There the stream gradient is greater and there are no excessive delta deposits to deal with. Maybe we should increase the volume of water flowing through the Atchafalaya and rebuild our port there.

"Maybe having less government interference is the answer."

MAYBE?!? Why the qualifier? Puts me in mind of that song Randy Newman did - "Six Feet of Water in the Streets of Evangeline" from Louisiana 1927.

What has happened down here is the wind has changed
Clouds rolled in from the north and it started to rain
Rained real hard and rained for a real long time
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline.

The river rose all day
The river rose all night
Some people got lost in the flood
Some people got away all right
The river have busted through clear down to Plaquemines
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline.

President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand
The president say, "Little fat man, isn't it a shame
What the river has done to this poor cracker's land."