Hurricane Katrina and Its Aftermath
by J. Burton LeBlanc
January, 2006
When someone receives a great shock the true impact of the shock may not be felt for some time. This has been the case with Katrina. Only now, when one may witnesses the extent of the devastation it caused, does the reality sink home. The reality is that a rather large and one of the most important cities in the United States has been effectively destroyed.
In understanding any catastrophe it behooves one to delve into historical background. Although DeSoto was probably the first European to see and explore the banks of the Mississippi River, where he died, the Spanish did little additional exploration, only making a few sorties, west of the Mississippi.
After LaSalle declared most of the area drained by the Mississippi to be under the hegemony of France, the French began a spasmodic effort at developing part of it. Iberville realized the importance of establishing a port on the Mississippi, as near its mouth as practicable. He chose the present site of New Orleans which was the first fairly elevated ground upriver from the mouth.
One of the attractions of this location was the fact that while facing the Mississippi River at a good spot along its south and west, it was bounded on the north by Lake Ponchartrain, which was also connected to the Gulf of Mexico. This ironically led to its undoing. It remained for Iberville’s brother, Bienville, to execute the plan. In founding the city Bienville had buildings constructed on that portion of the area which had been elevated by deposits from the Mississippi, which is called an alluvial levee. During Katrina this original part of the City suffered little damage.
Now, to revert to the bigger picture. Iberville and Bienville had encouraged settlers to locate along the “River” as it was called by the colonists who built homes along its very fertile banks. Now, of course, there was a rise each spring in the height of the waters borne by the Mississippi, as the snows in the northern areas melted and headed for the Gulf of Mexico.
Since, in the early period, there were no levees along the tributaries, and their waters freely flowed into lakes and swamps surrounding them, the rise in height of the Mississippi was very modest. In later years these tributaries were leveed, increasing the flow in the Mississippi in speed and quantity. Then, as towns and cities arose along these tributaries, and on the upper Mississippi, the speed up in quantity and flow of waters from atop concrete streets and through concrete aqueducts became a substantial factor. These causes, along with the loss of protective lands in Louisiana along the Gulf of Mexico at mind numbing rates, estimated by Dunne, at thirty thousand acres per year, all contributed to worsening of the effects of the spring rise.
Now we will get into levee construction. Since the Mississippi drains a great part of the United States it should have been obvious that floods along it were a national problem. However, historically it was not treated as such. Laws sometimes trail events significantly. There are stark examples in our national history. One of them is the failure to deal with the problems posed by the Mississippi River.
The importance of the Port of New Orleans was recognized by Jefferson. Lincoln knew that control of the Mississippi was the key to victory in the Civil War. No one seemed to recognize the importance of protecting the lands alongside the Mississippi River. The persons who settled along the Mississippi and became the owners of rather large tracts of land along it were called “planters”. They became an important economic and political class. They had historically maintained the levees in front of their properties. Of course, for the reasons outlined, the levees did not have to reach significant heights.
In the late eighteen hundreds the Federal government had still assumed no responsibility for levees. If any government was involved it was considered a State function. So, the federal government enacted legislation to convey to the States, particularly Louisiana, rather large tracts of land. This was called the Swamp Land Grants act. The State of Louisiana was expected to sell the land and use the funds for levee purposes.
The State formed some sixteen”Levee Boards”. They were created as separate entities, apart from the State, and took title to the Swamp Lands, some of which they sold, and began the construction of levees. Even after the State had taken over, the planter’s exerted considerable influence over control of the levees, for it was their land that was being protected. My grandfather, Simon LeBlanc, who was an important sugar cane and rice planter, was much involved with levee protection.
During one High Water he had taken some of his employees to Baton Rouge, where a difficult situation had arisen. He had also assembled many Baton Rougeans. They were attempting to raise the levee in the south part of the town which was of low elevation.
The Governor sent a message to him that he wanted to see him. My grandfather said to the messenger, “Tell the Governor, I’m busy, and that if he wants to see me, come down here.” Upon another occasion my grandfather received a gold handled cane from the citizens of Iberville, the parish in which St. Gabriel, where he lived, was located, inscribed, “For Services Rendered during the High Water of 1892.”
Then came the disastrous flood of 1927, which the inhabitants of the area referred to as “the Big High Water”, because after all it did not flood everywhere, only creating devastation in such areas as the surroundings of Greenville, Mississippi. The ravages of this High Water are vividly described in “Rising Tide”.
I remember, as a lad, living in the threatened community of St. Gabriel, the wholesale turn out of the male residents who relentlessly worked around the clock while chilling rain swept down upon them, to raise the levees foot by foot. The convicts from the nearby prison farm were called upon and contributed mightily to the effort. Armed citizens patrolled the levee to prevent any inhabitant of the other side of the River from blowing a hole in our side which would have provided relief to themselves. The River water, generated by stormy winds, would lash against the sandbags hauled by the workers to the levee tops. The height of the water reached unto inches from the top of the sandbags before it began to recede.
The entire community was in a state of shock, and reacted with frenzy. The women were equally involved and supplied warm food to the workers and such support as could be provided. It was a touch and go period and left everyone with its lasting impact.
Following the High Water of 1927, the Federal government finally marched in. The U.S. Corps of Engineers took charge of levee construction and created a special division to study the Mississippi River and build protective levees. A section of the Corps was dedicated to this task. It was headquartered in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where the Corps constructed a model of the Mississippi River and its drainage basin.
Herbert Hoover became actively involved and his efforts in the aftermath of the 1927 event probably resulted in his subsequent election to the Presidency. The Corps was composed of the brightest graduates from the Army Academy. They were good engineers and supervised the construction of some fine levees.
After the High Water of 1927, the Corps, backed by Congressional funding, embarked upon a program of levee reconstruction. It was a mammoth project. Not only were the levees straightened and enlarged, but since nearly everyone lived along the River fronting the River Road, for many miles, whole sections of the levee would be set back, on an average of about a quarter of a mile.
My father formed a construction company and obtained many of the contracts to move the houses back. The houses were placed on wooden rollers. These rollers rested on planks beneath them. A chain was placed around the house, its end placed into a giant pulley, from which a connection led to either a set of mules or a tractor which pulled the house forward. As the house or building inched forward, the planks that were left behind it were retrieved by laborers, who would rush forward and place the planks in front of the approaching building. My father, who would always be well dressed, would walk alongside the moving house and talk to the women of the house who might be busily engaged in cooking as the house moved. It was said that the LeBlanc Brothers, which he had named the company, moved more houses than anyone or company in history.
A turning point in this history included a personal experience. I was good friends with DeLesseps ‘Chep” Morrison, then Mayor of New Orleans, who told me how he had gone to Brazil to meet with Henry Kaiser, who was contemplating construction of two aluminum reductions plants. He was planning to locate them in Washington or Oregon on the Columbia River, in order to use their water power in the production of the necessary energy required, since aluminum reduction plants require a large amount of energy in the process of reducing the aluminum ore to usable aluminum. Then he related that he had talked Kaiser into building them on the banks of the Mississippi River and using Louisiana natural gas as a source of energy. Now, if an aluminum reduction plant is flooded it has to be rebuilt. Flooding completely eliminates it.
When Chep told me this I realized that a new day had opened in Louisiana since heretofore industries had built only on land that was elevated above any flood stage, such as at Baton Rouge. This resulted in my, not only selling the family plantation at St. Gabriel to an important industry, but acquiring and selling many industrial sites which I purchased along the River from planters and their families. The point of this is that the move by Kaiser signaled that industry had attained confidence in the U.S. Corps of Engineers and their dedication to the task.
Now, the Corps, though qualified made several mistakes, perhaps based on the fact that engineers sometimes don’t see the big picture, concentrating as they do, on calculating the details of a project. The first was the opening of the Bonnet Carre’ Spillway, upriver from New Orleans, and designed to protect it. It turned out that this was unnecessary and the result was the contamination of Lake Ponchartrain which changed the formerly bluish waters of the Lake to a muddy color.
The second mistake was the decision to cutoff natural outlets of the Mississippi such as Bayou Plaquemine and Bayou Lafourche and eliminating part of the natural reduction in flow that had existed.
The third error the Corps made was in the construction of the Mississippi Gulf Outlet. The history of the Outlet is provided by an article in the January 8, 2006 issue of the New Orleans Times Picayune. It relates how Lester Alexander, a well-meaning former Port Commissioner and business man came up with the concept and finally obtained legislation signed by Eisenhower providing for its construction.
It was intended to obviate the difficulties arising from the silting up at the Mississippi River’s mouth and to provide a shorter route for ships coming from the Gulf of Mexico into New Orleans. Cost of maintenance skyrocketed and deep draft vessels reverted to the River. The Outlet silted up as much as the River had, eroded thousands of acres of protective marsh lands, and provided a freeway for hurricane backed waters into the City.
In defense of the Corps, the political backing assembled for the project was quite large. After the Corps took charge confidence was bred in the inhabitants of the Region. This accounts for the fact that many New Orleanians decided to wait Katrina out. They had confidence in the levee system.
Now, the levee system was designed primarily to combat the ravages of High Waters of the Mississippi. Hurricane protection was of lesser importance. After all, there had not been a major hurricane to strike New Orleans in modern memory. That powerful storm Audrey which swept across the nation, contrary to the pronouncement made when I was in the Navy that hurricanes would only penetrate one hundred miles inland, and when at Norfolk we only flew our planes that far inland when hurricanes approached, missed New Orleans. And although that was a hundred year storm, the following year Betsy, which was almost as strong, went upstream along the Mississippi, sweeping whole herds of cattle from the east bank levees to the west bank levees, had done no significant damage in New Orleans.
The ultimate cause of the New Orleans catastrophe was the failure to control the flow of water from Lake Ponchartrain into the Industrial and Seventeenth Street Canals. These canals penetrated into the heart of the city. The Corps did recommend that gates be installed but the Congress did not provide the funding. The Orleans Levee Board, which still had its hand in the situation, recommended higher levees, which its turns out, were inadequately constructed.
With respect to flood protection, the canal entrances from Lake Ponchartrain, should be thoughtfully designed and constructed. Dutch engineers should be consulted. [The last sentence was written prior to learning that a team, largely from Louisiana, will indeed visit the Netherlands and pick some of the Dutch brains. After all we are in similar situations and there should be mutual communication of ideas.] With respect to the canal levees, I know how more substantial canal levees could be constructed at, I believe, not unreasonable cost. Some portion of the population of New Orleans could be diverted to the flood free land north of Lake Ponchartrain.
The question arises of what shall be done now.
1. The first objective must be the cleaning up of the City. The first and immediate problem is the mountainous mud and debris located in the heavily flooded areas of the Seventeenth Street region, Lakeview and New Orleans East. The problem is so massive that it probably should be done by National Guards, or brigades of the United States Army assigned to the task. Again it is emphasized that this is a national problem.
The problem of what to do with this mud and debris is itself staggering. My suggestion is that a part of New Orleans East should be abandoned and it moved there. At least the suggestion should be investigated. It would seem that burning would be out of the question for no one would know what fumes might be generated. However there can be no significant progress made until the city is cleaned up.
Thereafter certain very low lying areas should be declared non-buildable, planted with trees and converted into parks. Isolated areas could then be selected and housing and shopping areas designated and rebuilding centered around these areas. In other words, we would start with islands and build around them.
The original higher parts of New Orleans, such as the Vieux Carre and Magazine Street could be revitalized. The importance of New Orleans as a port should be stressed and every effort made to increase its functionability.
In that regard a major problem that had developed with respect to the New Orleans port could be eliminated. That problem was the difficulty of access to the docks of the port, due to the fact that the streets leading to them were so narrow that the large trucks which primarily supply the port with transportable goods are too massive to easily make the transit through these streets. Many of the access streets could be redesigned to facilitate these modes of transporting cargo.
2. The second thing that should be tackled is the construction of a map of the City showing the height to which the waters rose in Katrina.
3. Then a safe level should be determined of the height of the bottom of the first floor in that area should be.
4. Certain areas should be declared non-buildable.
In a discussion in one publication it was declared that some areas should be allowed to revert to marsh land. Now marsh land differs drastically from swamp land. Marsh lands are areas that are invaded by the Gulf. Their waters are saline and trees do not grow there, only marsh grasses. Swamps are fresh water havens in which trees abound as well as fresh water fish. If some portion of New Orleans were allowed to revert to primitive conditions, maybe, except for eastern portions of New Orleans, they would revert to swamplands. But that prognostication displays a lack of understanding of life along the Rivers of South Louisiana. My father used to tell me of this woman at St. Gabriel, who was a leading member of the community. She lived in a nice house which was behind the levee. The house was elevated. She had a boat and when the spring waters rose, she simply rowed it to the levee. She lived a comfortable life. Of course, that would no longer be permitted. But the point is that all houses in the area, built prior to the transforming High Water of 1927, were built elevated. So all land was considered floodable. After the Corps improved the levees, then River folks would often build at ground level. The houses in the Ninth Ward area, in New Orleans East, and even in Lakeview were built after the benign area had commenced.
In the areas declared to non-buildable because of the excessive depth of the water encountered, there is no reason that they could not be converted into park areas with resplendent trees. The non-buildable areas should be determined by water levels. What ever level is chosen as the benchmark, say five feet of water during Katrina, no building would be allowed in any area which had five feet or more water.
In an area that had three feet of water building would be allowed, but the house would have to be erected on three or four feet pilasters or columns, so that its first floor would have to be above water level. This would result in some cluster building, but there is nothing wrong with that. Cluster areas would be selected where building may commence and sewerage, water and electricity provided to those areas and construction would expand in a circle around them.
The finest cities of the world among which are Washington, Paris and St. Petersburg were all planned cities. Even the finest part of New Orleans was planned first by the French and then by the Spanish government. There is no reason why the truly Nouveaux Orleans cannot be reconstructed in a manner that would realize the dreams of Iberville and Bienville.
There are two books that should be given to every United States Representative and United States Senator with the inducement to read them. They are “Rising Tide” by John M. Barry and “America’s Wetland”, by Mike Dunne.
As it was belatedly recognized after the High Water of 1927, floodwater control of the lower Mississippi was not simply a local matter, but a national one, so reconstruction of New Orleans, is a national priority. The ports along the Mississippi in Louisiana constitute one of the greatest port systems in the world. It is an integral part of the commerce of the United States.
When the possibility of finding oil in the Gulf of Mexico offshore from Louisiana became a reality, the question of who would own the oil to be found arose. Eisenhower was running for President. He assured the Louisiana Governor that he would support conceding one fourth of the production to Louisiana. Leander Perez persuaded the Governor that we would probably win a decision in the United States Supreme Court declaring Louisiana the owner of all the oil. This was a ridiculous prognostication, considering the fact that the nine members of the Court were from other States and had no particular affinity to Louisiana. The result was that Louisiana received none of the proceeds beyond the three mile limit and yet had to bear the burdens associated with it, including considerable damage to its coastline and educating the children of the employees. Meanwhile, Texas obtained a much larger ownership of the oil and gas found off its shores under a very questionable legal assertion. Most of the other States, including Florida have been able to prevent any offshore development.
Now, that the loss to Louisiana has been in effect a national loss, there is no reason that Louisiana’s share of the oil and gas produced off its shores should not be increased. Putting into effect the promise of Eisenhower would be a reasonable solution. Louisiana produces a large share of the nation’s oil and gas consumed and yet must bear the burdens of producing it without any reimbursement for the environmental and other costs associated with it.