Beyond Katrina

New Orleans Pumping station requires repairs

Officials will begin temporary repairs to one of the city’s drainage        pumping stations Wednesday.     The station, which is listed as Drainage Pumping Station No. 7, is located on Orleans Avenue and helps protect the Mid-City and City Park areas. Continue>>>

La. residents near levee lose fight to keep trees

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Carol Byram sees paradise every time she gazes at the dogwood, hackberry and cherry laurel trees in the backyard of her New Orleans home. The federal government sees the seeds of another disaster for a city still recovering from Hurricane Katrina. Continue>>>

Expert: Louisiana levees worsened Katrina in Miss.

Associated Press - November 30, 2007 8:54 AM ET

LONG BEACH, Miss. (AP) - A hurricane expert says Louisiana's levee system was partly to blame for the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina's storm surge in Mississippi. Continue here.

Biloxi: Two Tales of a City

Peter Whoriskey of WaPo (who has really stayed with it re Katrina recovery reportage) has penned a telling article about the mixed recovery bag in Biloxi, Mississippi. On the one hand Casinos are thriving and real estate development is flourishing while "working class neighborhoods"  (more than 10,000 displaced families in FEMA trailers) still haven't rebounded. Now there is a proposal "to divert $600 million in federal housing aid to fund an expansion plan at the Port of Gulfport". For a deeper look into the situation see this article at WashingtonPost.com.

Future of levee project rests, literally, on clay

A shortage of Louisiana clay may delay post-Katrina levee rebuilding. See this article at USA Today.

Army Corps Flip-Flops on N.O. Flood Risk

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — You're safer. Whoops, you're not. Oh wait, you really are.That summarizes the roller coaster of flood-risk assessments the Army Corps of Engineers has given in the past week to residents of one of the New Orleans communities worst hit by Hurricane Katrina. By Monday, the last thing the people of Lakeview felt was safer. Continue

The Picayune Has Friends, Indeed

The Friends of the Times-Picayune fund-raiser last night at the Time-Life Building on Avenue of the Americas was quite a success—and a taste of home, with dee-licious hors d’oeuvres and music by Henry Butler (classic in his purple suit) and Davell Crawford. Mr. John Huey of Time Inc. welcomed everyone and pledged that Time will keep the spotlight on New Orleans and vicinity. (See Aug. 13 cover story below, “A Timely Special Report.”) Other hosts were Environmental Defense, the National Press Foundation, Citi, and Goldman, Sachs. With the colorful neon lights of Radio City Music Hall shining just across the street, Henry Butler played some fine piano as a projector showed slides of the flooded homes of T-P staffers and the office’s temporary relocation in Baton Rouge. (Mark Schleifstein’s home in Lakeview, for example, took in 12 feet of water.)

Organizers Susan Feeney, Bridget O’Brian, Wendi Schneider, and Nan Powers Varoga were all Times-Picayune staffers in the 1980s, and after the storm they committed themselves to organizing financial support for the families of their beloved former colleagues. Representing the Times-Picayune were features editor James O’Byrne,  Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Mark Schleifstein, and columnist Chris Rose, who signed copies of 1 Dead in Attic (proceeds went to the Friends fund, courtesy of Simon & Schuster). Among those attending the event were New York Times editor Richard Berke, the Wall Street Journal’s Alex Martin (a Bywater native), and other media heavies. A certain discreet “star allure” was lent to the evening by the lovely Karenna Gore Schiff (above), eldest daughter of the former vice president and author of Lighting the Way: Nine Women Who Changed Modern America.

Again, we encourage our readers to contribute to the relief effort at Friends of the Times- Picayune. Please also see the list of Relief and Recovery Organizations on our How to Help page.

Allstate, Nationwide Show Support For NFIP Expansion

WASHINGTON—Allstate and Nationwide are bucking a large insurance industry segment by throwing their support behind some form of expansion of the National Flood Insurance Program to include windstorm coverage. And Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., a member of the Senate Republican leadership, is also voicing measured support for the concept involved in the legislation—H.R. 920, the Multiple Peril Insurance Act. Continue at National Underwriter

Preparing a Veterinary Practice for a Hurricane

I have seen very graphic photos of  dead farm animal carcasses strewn about a barn and trapped in stalls from Katrina's storm surge  --- and undoubtedly those images are some of the few that I'll never, ever forget re Katrina's aftermath. To wit:

Careful planning can help a veterinary practice, its patients, and the area equestrian community to ride through and recover from a hurricane. Dana N. Zimmel, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM, Dipl. ABVP, clinical assistant professor in the University of Florida's College of Veterinary Medicine, described steps for veterinarians in hurricane-prone areas to take long before a storm hits...Before a storm is even forecast, evaluate your location. Consider what wind speed any buildings at your practice can sustain, as well as their proximity to water in case of a storm surge...Continue here.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Releases Hurricane Protection Decision Chronology

        By: United States Army Corps of Engineers
        Published: Jul 11, 2007 at 08:36

                  

          The United States Army Corps of Engineers today released the draft Hurricane Protection Decision Chronology (HPDC) for the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project (LP&VHPP) in the Greater New Orleans area. The report is being released for a 30-day public comment period during which time the report's authors are soliciting any additional relevant documentation that was not available to them while compiling the draft.

The HPDC is an exhaustive examination of the complex 50-year record of LP&VHPP decision-making and project implementation involving the Corps, local sponsors, government at all levels, and the courts.

The Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, John Paul Woodley, Jr., and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Director of Civil Works, Major General Don Riley, commissioned the HPDC shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the United States on August 29, 2005.

Woodley said, "The Hurricane Protection Decision Chronology, while important because of what it tells us about the past, will be of even greater value as a national resource for planners and decision-makers to make better future decisions about the nation's critical public works infrastructure.

"This is an opportunity to learn from the past to inform the future."

The report was to provide an explanation, as opposed to an evaluation, of how Corps policies and organization, legislation, and financial and other factors influenced the decisions that led to the LP&VHPP that was in place when Katrina struck.

The HPDC is a separate, but complementary, report to the Corps- commissioned Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force study that analyzed the performance of the LP&VHPP during hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The HPDC seeks to answer the "why" and "how" of the hurricane protection system that was in place when Hurricane Katrina made landfall by documenting the record of decisions, planning and design that led to that system. The IPET report is a "what happened" record of the system's performance during the hurricanes.

Donald Powell, Chairman of the Gulf Coast Rebuilding Office, said, "I commend the Army Corps of Engineers on commissioning this independent study. Such a thorough analysis is an important step toward greater transparency and accountability in the decision-making and budgeting process.

"This report speaks to the commitment of the Corps and its leadership to communicating risk and providing quality engineering services to the nation."

The Corps Institute for Water Resources commissioned an independent study team of Drs. Douglas Woolley and Leonard Shabman, water resources planning and policy experts, to conduct the HPDC inquiry and prepare the report. The draft HPDC is based on all known available records related to the LP&VHPP in the custody of the Corps and of limited records volunteered by the state and local governments.

The HPDC was reviewed by the Corps to help identify missing documents and errors of logic, and externally reviewed by the National Association of Flood and Stormwater Management Agencies.

Maj. Gen. Don T. Riley, Director of Civil Works for the Corps, said, "Both the chronology and the IPET studies have contributed in meaningful ways to the ongoing hurricane damage reduction work we are doing around New Orleans and to the Corps' new initiatives.

"The Chronology in particular serves to emphasize the importance of using systems approaches in our public works infrastructure; adaptive management over the life of projects; and the critical importance of understanding risk management and effectively communicating that risk to the public and decision makers," said Riley.

The Hurricane Protection Decision Chronology is available on the internet at http://www.iwr.usace.army.mil/inside/products/pub/hpdc/hpdc.cfm. The public comment period to submit relevant additional documentation runs though August 10, 2007.