Onward and Upward for the Crescent City

Is it obvious to everyone yet?

Because if it’s not clear by now, surely it soon will be: evacuating New Orleans in the face of killer hurricanes simply isn’t a viable response strategy. In fact, New Orleans’ miserable experience during and after hurricane Katrina suggests that mandatory or forced evacuation may not be a satisfactory response for larger cities facing other disasters as well; there’s simply too many citizens in too many life situations requiring too much specialized assistance on too short of a notice.

When hurricanes hit a populated area, they impose massive costs in three main areas: damage to property, damage to infrastructure, and damage to people. Evacuation, as a response strategy, only addresses one of these cost areas, that of damage to people. After Katrina’s effects on New Orleans are paid for, to the long-term tune of perhaps a quarter trillion dollars or more, the question will answer itself as to whether or not it is cost-effective or otherwise sufficient or desirable to evacuate people from the city and then just take the hit to property and infrastructure. And as the current drama unfolds further, and more bureaucratic decisions which look great on paper become disasters when implemented on the ground, nearly all will be able to agree that forced evacuation is a cure that proves more deadly than the disease.

There is only one option that truly addresses all of the costs encountered when a killer storm strikes: the time has come to turn the tables on nature and hurricane-proof New Orleans. An anti-flood system, designed to withstand the rains and storm surge produced by a “beyond category” hurricane, would include a surge wall in front of Lake Ponchartrain’s earthen levees and similar fortifications along the Mississippi river; multiple storm gates along the city’s canals and internal waterways; a hardened storm water removal system of elevated pumps, storm water towers, and a switchable drain system that would allow storm water to be directed to whichever spillway had the most capacity. By also hardening communications and electrical infrastructure within the city itself, New Orleans can mitigate or eliminate virtually all losses and most dangers posed by these deadly storms.

Would such a system be expensive? Sure—but not as expensive as Katrina. And we’re not talking about some huge high-tech monster project like the Big Dig in Boston, or even jacking up every building and backfilling the city as was done in Galveston a century ago. Would such a system work? We must accept that we can't know for sure, at least until the first hurricane tests it. About the only thing we do know for sure is that someday New Orleans is going to be hit by another storm. Do we want to risk a repeat of the mayhem and despair of Katrina, or should we try for something better?

The benefits of such a system have many implications, most importantly that it would prevent New Orleans from ever having to evacuate its population outside of the city limits again. The city’s property and infrastructure would be protected to such a degree that New Orleans could even be transformed from the city most vulnerable to gulf hurricanes into an advanced hurricane forward response center, capable of responding within hours by air and sea to storms from Miami to Brownsville, as well as serving as a nearby evacuation center for the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf coasts. Thus reborn, a new New Orleans could respond to all future hurricanes with what she does best; when the rain stops, the winds fade, the clouds break and the sun peeks out, New Orleans can call out a second line and roll a parade.