Levees Create Achilles' Heel

The post title comes from the print version of The Advocate in Baton Rouge. I prefer it to the headline in the online version. It's punchier.

I find it odd that the Times-Picayune out of New Orleans did not run with this piece from the Associated Press. I searched online, and it's not there. Fox News has the story. Let's hope that folks from New Orleans get the word.

The government’s repairs to New Orleans’ hurricane-damaged levees may put the French Quarter in greater danger than it was before Hurricane Katrina — a weakness planners said couldn’t be helped, at least for now.


Some experts say the stronger levees and flood walls could funnel storm water into the cul-de-sac of the Industrial Canal, only 2 miles from Bourbon Street, and overwhelm the waterway’s 12-foot-high concrete flood walls that shield some of the city’s most cherished neighborhoods.

Separating Creole bungalows and St. Louis Cathedral from a hurricane’s storm surge are those barriers, similar to the walls that broke during Katrina.

I wonder about the "couldn't be helped". Was it "couldn't", or like much that has to to with post-Katrina and post-flood New Orleans, "wouldn't"?

Officials from the Army Corps of Engineers knew the levee repairs would heighten the risk to the French Quarter. One commander even called it the system’s “Achilles’ heel.”

To curb the danger, the corps reinforced the existing barriers. But engineers didn’t have enough time or money to entirely replace the flood walls with higher, stronger ones.

Bea and other experts say those steps were insufficient.

Nearly everything that the US Corps of Engineers has done before and after the catastrophe has been insufficient. The Corps has a long history of not doing right by New Orleans, and they have not changed their ways.

The possibility of a heightened risk came as a surprise to many residents of the French Quarter and districts such as New Marigny, where jazz great Jelly Roll Morton once lived.

“Is that what they’re saying? Oh, boy, that’s not good,” said Nathan Chapman, president of Vieux Carre Property Owners, Residents and Associates Inc., an advocacy group that defends the quality of life in the French Quarter. “It’s not on enough people’s radar.”

....

The city’s oldest neighborhoods were settled long ago because they were the only dry ground in a wilderness of swamp. When Katrina struck, flooding only reached the outer limit of the French Quarter, creeping into places such as St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, the site of voodoo priestess Marie Laveau’s tomb.

With their open-air markets, flamboyant artists, baroque churches and carefree lifestyle, the neighborhoods next to the Industrial Canal are some of the city’s most prized real estate and give New Orleans its old-world soul.

Who will restore New Orleans' old-world soul, when the best of the city is gone?

I weep for my home town.

UPDATE: PJ, in the comments, has linked to a wonderful story in the New York Times about the courage and determination of citizens of New Orleans to return to their homes, who have repaired them on their own, with the government coming in quite late, or not at all, with help. The gentleman in the picture reminds of the man who lived next door to the house we gutted in Gentilly. His house was well on its way to being habitable, and he was grateful to have us work on the eyesore next door.