Phoenix in the Swamp
Despite the obstacles, there's no shortage of rebuilding plans
One way or another, New Orleans will be rebuilt--at great cost and with full knowledge that another Katrina could strike at any time. The geographic, economic, and environmental obstacles are daunting, but the technology exists--and detailed plans have languished, unfunded, for years--to overcome past mistakes and make the entire region a much safer place. "We always said it would take a tragedy to get the attention of the nation," says Len Bahr, a longtime adviser to Louisiana's governors on coastal protection. "Hopefully, now the national dismay will add up to the national will to restore and protect as much as we can."
The first step, of course, is to reclaim the city from the floodwaters and re-establish the infrastructure on which all else will depend. In theory, New Orleans's drainage system has prodigious capacity--some 40,000 cubic feet of water per second, or about twice the flow over Niagara's American Falls. But Greg Breerwood, deputy district engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in New Orleans, estimated last week that the pump network was working at just 10 percent of capacity. Some pumps were still under water or waiting for power, while others had to be shut down when their intakes clogged. The intakes are fitted with "trash racks," says Jim Peterson of pump manufacturer ITT Industries, but the motorized screens, which snare and remove debris, "aren't really designed to handle a car or a house."
Even before the city is drained--which could take as long as 80 days--the staggering task of restoring the city's infrastructure will begin in earnest. One of the biggest challenges will be providing a clean water supply. Unlike in earthquake or war zones, most of the sewage and water pipes will still be in place and functioning. But extensive flooding causes serious problems for drinking water systems, says Edward Bouwer, an environmental engineer at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "The distribution system is usually under pressure, which keeps contaminants from leaking in," Bouwer explains. That pressure is gone now, and the pipes will have spent weeks or months soaking up contaminated muck before clean water starts flowing again. The entire system will have to be flushed out, Bouwer says, and carefully brought back on line section by section. "It's doable," he says, "but it has to be managed carefully."
Radical solutions. What is not doable, experts agree, is to make the rebuilt New Orleans 100 percent safe from hurricanes and floods. But civil engineers, hydrologists, and city planners say that there are many ways to make it a lot safer, including a range of solutions laid out in a 1998 coastal-protection plan called Coast 2050. At the time, the proposal's $14 billion price tag seemed prohibitive, but the economic havoc wrought by Katrina could change the cost-benefit calculus considerably. Whatever plans emerge will almost certainly include beefed-up levees and, quite possibly, a set of floodgates at the mouth of Lake Pontchartrain to keep storm surges from rushing in. Other, more radical suggestions may also get serious consideration. They include a controversial proposal to construct a "community haven" in central New Orleans. Developed by Joseph Suhayda, an engineering professor now retired from Louisiana State University, the idea is to surround key historical and business districts with a curtain of flood walls and floodgates robust enough to withstand even the worst storms. Much of the city would still be lost--protecting it all would be too expensive--but the cultural and commercial core of the city would be preserved, and the area could serve as a secure refuge for residents who wouldn't be able to evacuate in time.
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