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Hurricane Katrina

New Orleans more vulnerable than ever

By Times wire
Published August 29, 2005

NEW ORLEANS - When Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans today, it could turn one of America's most charming cities into a cesspool tainted with toxic chemicals, human waste and even coffins released by floodwaters from the city's legendary cemeteries.

Nearly 300 years ago, Jean Baptiste le Moy settled along a strip of land between the Mississippi River and marshes south of Lake Pontchartrain. The location proved ideal for commerce but left the city vulnerable: The Louisiana coast resembles a bowl placed in a sink full of water. Push it down, or just tip it slightly, and water rushes in.

Experts have warned for years that the levees and pumps that usually keep New Orleans dry have no chance against a direct hit by a Category 5 storm. With Katrina projected to have the power to lift sea level by as much as 28 feet, the storm threatened an environmental disaster of biblical proportions, one that could leave more than 1-million people homeless.

"All indications are that this is absolutely worst-case scenario," Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, said Sunday.

The center's latest computer simulations indicate that by Tuesday, vast swaths of New Orleans could be under water up to 30 feet deep. In the French Quarter, the water could reach 20 feet, easily submerging the district's iconic cast-iron balconies and bars.

Estimates predict 60 percent to 80 percent of the city's houses will be destroyed by wind. With the flood damage, most of the people who live in and around New Orleans could be homeless. "We're talking about in essence having - in the continental United States - having a refugee camp of a million people," van Heerden said.

Experts have warned about New Orleans' vulnerability for years, chiefly because Louisiana has lost more than a million acres of coastal wetlands in the past seven decades. The vast patchwork of swamps and bayous south of the city serves as a buffer, partially absorbing the surge of water that a hurricane pushes ashore.

Billions of dollars worth of levees, sea walls, pumping systems and satellite hurricane tracking provide a comforting safety margin that has saved thousands of lives.

But modern technology masks an alarming fact: South Louisiana has been growing more vulnerable to hurricanes, not less.

Sinking land and chronic coastal erosion - partly the unintended byproducts of flood-protection efforts - have opened dangerous new avenues for even relatively weak hurricanes and tropical storms to assault areas well inland.

"There's no doubt about it," said Windell Curole, general manager of the South Lafourche Levee District who maintains a hurricane levee that encircles Bayou Lafourche from Larose to the southern tip of Golden Meadow. "The biggest factor in hurricane risk is land loss. The Gulf of Mexico is, in effect, probably 20 miles closer to us than it was in 1965 when Hurricane Betsy hit."

So south Louisiana faces a triple threat:

--The combination of sinking land and rising seas has put the Mississippi River delta as much as 3 feet lower relative to sea level than it was a century ago. Flooding penetrates to places where it rarely occurred before.

--Coastal erosion has shaved barrier islands to slivers and turned marshland to open water, opening the way for hurricane winds and flooding to move inland.

--Though protected by levees designed to withstand the most common storms, New Orleans is well below sea level at many points. A flood from a powerful hurricane could get trapped for weeks inside the levee system.

--Information from the Times-Picayune and Associated Press was used in this report.

[Last modified August 29, 2005, 05:00:41]