20 Years After Katrina, New Levees Sinking, Oceans Rising And Corps/FEMA Funding Already Being Eliminated

It has been 20 years since New Orleans’ faulty levee system failed during Hurricane Katrina, causing a flood that claimed almost 1,400 lives and inflicted more than $150 billion in economic damage. The catastrophe was so bad that some doubted the city could continue to exist at all — the U.S. House speaker at the time declared that rebuilding New Orleans “doesn’t make sense” and that much of it “could be bulldozed.” Rather than just patch up the damage, which would have left one of the country’s most iconic cities exposed to every future storm, the federal government doubled down on flood protection, building a new $14.4 billion levee system that ranks as one of the most sophisticated anywhere in the world.

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The sea levels around the city are rising by about half an inch every year as climate change warms the oceans and melts glaciers. The city itself is sinking even faster than that, with some sections of the levee system settling by almost 2 inches each year — faster than the rate of change that the Corps projected when it built the system. This elevation change makes the new levee system less effective with each year, requiring constant repairs and expansions. Even landmark structures like the Lake Borgne barrier may lose a few feet off their protection capacity by the middle of the century. That would put them within a hair’s breadth of being topped by storms such as Hurricane Michael, which delivered almost 20 feet of surge to Florida in 2018.

“Since 2005, several storms have made landfall on the Gulf Coast that far exceed the stated design capacity of the new ‘risk reduction system,’” said Andy Horowitz, a historian at the University of Connecticut and the author of a book on Hurricane Katrina. “It’s just chance, or luck, that one of them didn’t hit New Orleans. One day, inevitably, one will.” The Corps maintains that the system is working as designed, but federal and state cuts could jeopardize the system’s resilience even further. The Trump administration has already eliminated funding for the Corps and the Federal Emergency Management Agency for key resilience projects and levee inspections. Republican-controlled Louisiana is following suit. Protecting New Orleans through the end of the century, against climate-fueled hurricanes, will require the exact whole-of-government effort that the Trump administration is trying to end.

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Ed. - But wait! There's more!!

Though now in local hands, the authority still relies on the Corps for levee-inspection funding. The Trump administration has already cut its budget, with Republicans in Congress proposing even further reductions. The Corps said it doesn’t have the money to inspect New Orleans’ levees this year or next. Much of the system’s maintenance funding also comes from local governments, some of which have chafed at the cost of keeping the levees at the Corps’ standards after Katrina. Louisiana’s new Republican governor, Jeff Landry, has also attempted to take control of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority this year, giving himself more influence over what had been an independent board and slashing funding for line items like cutting levee grass. His moves to undo post-Katrina governance reforms caused three members to resign in March. Landry has selected a new board chair, fired that chair, and installed a new chair through what critics say may be illegal means.

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https://grist.org/extreme-weather/katrina-levees-new-orleans-army-corps-trump-landry/