New Orleans Told Levees May Not Hold

Announcement Comes As Ernesto Builds Strength, Moves Toward Gulf

(CBS/AP)  As Gulf Coast residents prepared to mark the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, they were hit with the news that Tropical Storm Ernesto is headed toward the Gulf of Mexico and could become the first hurricane of the 2006 season.

Then New Orleans residents were told Saturday that the partially repaired levee system may not hold up in a strong storm.

Many residents – who lived through Katrina – are already preparing to evacuate the city if Ernesto heads toward Louisiana.

Bari Landry, who lives in a New Orleans neighborhood that was heavily flooded by Katrina, said that after seeing Ernesto's possible storm tracks she decided to reserve a hotel room in Houston for Thursday through Saturday.

Lisa Alphonso was already packing her family's belongings for a potential evacuation.

"Just in case," Alphonso told CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers. "When they say go, we're gone."

Just a few miles south of New Orleans, St. Bernard parish took a direct hit from Katrina. One year later, few of houses are habitable, and as many as 14,000 people are still in government trailers — trailers that won't withstand any real wind.

"It would be almost a death sentence if they decide to stay in those locations with the approach of a Category 2 or 3 storm," Jack Stephens, St. Bernard parish's sheriff told Bowers.

Despite aggressive efforts to repair the system following the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, the head of the Army Corps of Engineers conceded Saturday that it isn't clear yet whether it could withstand a hurricane with a heavy storm surge this year.

Lt. Gen. Carl Strock said the agency was carefully tracking Tropical Storm Ernesto, which was in the Caribbean and projected to reach hurricane strength Tuesday. It was on track to enter the Gulf of Mexico, but it too early to tell whether it would strike the southern United States.

Strock was confident the Corps had done all it could to repair and reinforce 220 miles of levee walls, but he said many variables would determine whether the levees could withstand a major hurricane striking near New Orleans, as Katrina did Aug. 29, 2005.
"To pinpoint it to one thing and say 'yes' or 'no' is very difficult," said Strock.

Much would depend on where the hurricane made landfall, wind speed, rainfall and other factors, he said. The biggest concern would be water levels so high that they could cascade over the levee walls, weakening them to the point of breaching.

There's also concern in New Orleans that a new system of pumps installed in the city could make things worse, instead of better, reports CBS News correspondent Joie Chen.

Just days after Katrina hit, engineers launched an all-out effort to protect the city — an impressive flood-gate and pump- system built in a matter of months.

But it could actually make things worse for some homeowners, said Army Corps of Engineers' Col. Jeff Bedey.

The floodgates, set up at the mouths of three canals, are designed to keep Lake Pontchartrain from surging into the city. While the lake will be contained, new rainwater won't have anywhere to go.

A Corps of Engineers study said if the floodgates are used, up to five feet of water could overwhelm some neighborhoods.

Even worse, tests this week showed the pumps may not be working properly.

Homeowners like Matt McBride didn't know any of this when they began trying to put their homes — and lives — back together.

"I'm constantly questioning my decision to come back," McBride said. "I should have taken the insurance money and ran."

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said state officials were keeping an eye on Ernesto.

"It's critical we make the right call for the right reason," she said, cautioning that they want to ward off the chance of unnecessary evacuations.

Officials of the state, city and 14 parishes planned to talk by conference call, New Orleans Homeland Security chief Terry Ebbert said.

Mandatory evacuation in the parishes below New Orleans would kick in when the storm was 50 hours from the coast, Ebbert said. New Orleans would begin mandatory evacuation at the 40-hour mark.

New Orleans already has buses and trains under contract to evacuate people without the means to leave, he said.

Strock appeared with Blanco and Donald Powell, chairman of President Bush's Gulf Coast rebuilding office, on Saturday at a news conference to show off new protections since Katrina.

However, some of the most substantial work planned on the levee system won't be done for the next couple of years.

Col. Richard Wagenaar, who oversees the New Orleans district of the Corps, said the flood control system, which was breached in three places after Katrina, was equal to or better than it was when Katrina struck, but he said he and his staff had already begun making preparations for Ernesto.

Wagenaar said he would have to weigh all the risks in any decision to close the flood gates. When they are closed, it takes longer to pump rain water out of the city's low-lying areas, creating risks of rain flooding.

Blanco said that although she is not happy with the current strength of the levee system, she believes as much work as possible has been done in the year since Katrina.

"I will feel better when they are fully functional and complete, but it will take time," Blanco said. "We've gotten as far as we could get in one year."

[lyfizgood]

Who knows yet what will become of the storm? However, what has been revealed due to the storm by the Corp of Engineers is that they know they have built an inadequate levee, and that the flood gate and pump system is poorly planned. Great job!
I would not rely on the evac buses for my life, nor the 40hr warning system to get out of Dodge either.
Mr. McBride, I do not know why anyone would re-build a home where they know it can be continually destroyed. Yes, you should have taken the money and ran.

[alphaa10-2009]

Approximately one year prior to Katrina, Bush had all but stopped funding for basic levee repairs and renovation around New Orleans. The Industrial Canal breach happened at a spot where no further renovation was planned. A yearly fiscal appropriation for a long-term flood control project for which the US Army Corps of Engineers had requested $62.5m was pared to only $10.5 million.

In a tug-of-war between the LA congressional delegation, local champions of pork-barrel projects and Bush's own Iraq-driven priorities, needed maintenance and expansion of the levee system was simply neglected. Some Corps funding specifically targeted elsewhere was used to pay contractors not yet paid for previous work, reflecting an almost ad hoc system of assigning time and dollars.

The money was needed elsewhere, the Army Corps of Engineers was told whenever it complained about the fact the New Orleans levees were built for a category 3 storm-- far short of Katrina and storms sure to come. The Assistant Secretary of the Army for civil works, Michael Parker, was forced to resign after he protested too vehemently to Washington.

And now, we wait breathlessly for a sequel to Katrina that, itself, never should have happened.

[ronniehm]

Everyone knows the levee would have held when Clinton was in office. Stupid Bush. Stupid Republican hurricane.

[sparkeee35]

I know there are many GOOD & DECENT people living in NO & the LA area. I have family still living there. Living in NO has its advantages AND disadvantages. The people that have lived there for YEARS know this. But the ones who are crying they want the federal government to do something...are the ones who DON'T work...who have NEVER worked...are government assisted family after family GENERATIONS of people...who are now living all over the US...expecting the same thing where ever they relocated to. LOOK AT HOUSTON..
I have friends who live in the MS area...they were MORE devasted than NO...YET...the people from MS are rolling up their sleeves & TRYING to MOVE FORWARD...NOT whinning that they need the federal government to come in & fix it for them. My heart goes out to ALL the people of the South who was touched one way or another by this tragedy...WORKING TOGETHER is more important in moving FORWARD...than slinging racisism to try to get help. HELPING ONE ANOTHER is what this country was built on...NOT waiting on the government to do it for you. Any other time...NO one would want the Government to step in. They would be accused of overstepping their boundaries. May God richly bless the people of the South...in their endeavors to pick up their lives and move FORWARD.

[alphaa10-2009]

RonnieHM-- Actually, you are not completely correct with the "stupid" part. Hurricanes are agnostic, and swamp any pol indifferent enough to ignore them. (Katrina drenched a bi-partisan busload of pols.) Stupidity is only part of the problem-- incompetence is more serious, born of indifference to domestic concerns of vital importance which must be readdressed, later, in (literal) spades. The money spent to "rebuild" New Orleans is making Halliburton and subsidiaries richer, but the city and its people remain seriously wounded, and are not making the recovery they should. The billions spent merely to patch New Orleans could have done so much more for the city, spent PROactively in the years before Katrina struck, as it should have been.

Bush spent slightly more, all told, than Clinton. The problem, as I am sure you realize, is where the money went. Misspending twice the money is simply twice the waste, not twice the progress. And no progress can be made by simply maintaining levees known to be inadequate for serious storms-- like Katrina.

This is what made Parker (a Republican) extremely livid as he harangued higher-ups about it. Bush sat on this information for five years, letting porkfights divide the spoils, as usual, down in swampy LA. Bush was focused elsewhere. In fact, the day Katrina hit, Bush decided to fly west on a political junket to speak to seniors about his plan to privatize Medicare. Meanwhile, in New Orleans, seniors were dying of neglect.

[alphaa10-2009]

sparkeee35-- You appear to have finished a GOP tract on "self-reliance", a well-published exercise in hypocrisy equivalent to Marie Antoinette ("The people have no bread? Why, let them eat cake!"). The poor, struggling people of New Orleans and the rest of America have no cake to spare for this exercise. Perhaps we should call it "A Thousand Points of Blight?"

Meanwhile, as your GOP friends hand out more tax breaks and subsidies to corporate America than ever (where is *their* self-reliance?), the average American's take-home pay is going nowhere as the cost of living rises, and medical care is simply out of reach. Are you prepared to tell poverty-level and lower-middle Americans they can do without opportunity, so Halliburton and KBR and Exxon can have their tax breaks and Bush can have his splendid adventure in Iraq?

We Americans want our government to do one simple thing-- get off its well-lobbied bottom and do what we tell it to do. Unfortunately, congress is indebted for all kinds of money (see Abramoff, Delay scandals, etc.) to fatcat corporations on the very government dole you condemn. Congress under the GOP has no interest in the average American and upward mobility. Meanwhile, we have Bush, who actually said (2005), "The Constitution is just a GD#*&#! piece of paper!"

[msjasco]

Sparkee hits the nail on the head. Why are we rebuilding an area that is a disaster waiting to happen again! Wasn't it in the 1800's engineers said it was a stupid place to build a city? Too bad if there isnt a French Qtr, big deal. Build on the high ground! The generational leeches will have to get out & work! What a concept!
Posted by mrsjasco

[alphaa10-2009]

msjasco-- The "generational leeches" which so upset you infest Washington, not New Orleans. The cost of keeping a senior in Medicare, however wretched that may make you feel, pales compared to the order-of-magnitude subsidy federal government gives corporate America in tax breaks and other privileged routes to further profit-- all at the expense of us taxpayers.

And while Iraq burns, Bush wants to make these subsidies (called "tax breaks") permanent! Give us all a break!

[ronniehm]

Alphaa, I think you should consider the number of social programs available 50 years ago (not too many) and the work ethic of 50 years ago (a whole lot better). It's pretty hard to argue that more social programs would result in a decreased need for those social programs, when we've only found the opposite to be true. In particular, cities like New Orleans, led by Democrats for decades, are shining examples of what doesn't work. Are there any "blue state cities" you'd hold up as an example of Democratic success?

[sparkeee35]

ALPHAA...I am a single mother...I WORK a REAL job to raise my child. I do NOT ask the GOVERNMENT to raise my son for me.I don't have child after child & EXPECT the GOVERNMENT to support us. I PRACTISE "self reliance" EVERYDAY. Its kinda hard to say NICE things about folks that EXPECT something for NOTHING...OR people like Nagin who uses the race card to TRY to provoke people to his way of thinking. New Orleans has ALWAYS been a CRIME INFESTED/SLEAZY/ FILTHY city. Brought MORE into light since Katrina-being run by a RACIST who HATES white people. YET the people who ARE rebuilding his "chocolate city" are from ALL nationalities. I applaud the people of NO that HAVE tried & the ones who get up every day TRYING to get their lives back together.