City Adrift

New Orleans Before and After Katrina

Center for Public Integrity

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN: 9780807147771
• eBook ISBN: 9780807147764
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environmental Science
• Index: Biological Sciences

Hurricane Katrina was a stunning example of complete civic breakdown. Beginning on August 29, 2005, the world watched in horror as—despite all the warnings and studies—every system that might have protected New Orleans failed. Levees and canals buckled, pouring more than 100 billion gallons of floodwater into the city. Botched communications crippled rescue operations. Buses that might have evacuated thousands never came. Hospitals lost power, and patients lay suffering in darkness and stifling heat. At least 1, 400 Louisianans died in Hurricane Katrina, more than half of them from New Orleans, and hundreds of thousands more were displaced, many still wondering if they will ever be able to return. How could all of this have happened in twenty-first-century America? And could it all happen again? To answer these questions, the Center for Public Integrity commissioned seven seasoned journalists to travel to New Orleans and investigate the storm's aftermath. In City Adrift: New Orleans Before and After Katrina, they present their findings. The stellar roster of contributors includes Pulitzer Prize-winner John McQuaid, whose earlier work predicted the failure of the levees and the impending disaster; longtime Boston Globe newsman Curtis Wilkie, a French Quarter resident for nearly fifteen years; and Katy Reckdahl, an award-winning freelance journalist who gave birth to her son in a New Orleans hospital the day before Katrina hit.They and the rest of the investigative team interviewed homeowners and health officials, first responders and politicians, and evacuees and other ordinary citizens to explore the storm from numerous angles, including health care, social services, housing and insurance, and emergency preparedness. They also identify the political, social, geographical, and technological factors that compounded the tragedy. Comprehensive and balanced, City Adrift provides not only an assessment of what went wrong in the Big Easy during and following Hurricane Katrina, but also, more importantly, a road map of what must be done to ensure that such a devastating tragedy is never repeated.

Notes

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ONE: THE STORM

1. Interviews with Pearl Ellis, May 3 and May 10, 2006.

2. New Orleans Times-Picayune, “Wise Suggestion” and “Single Commander Need, La. Guard Adj. Gen. Holds,” September 21, 1965.

3. James H. Gillis, “Flood Barrier, M’Keithen Aim,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, September 15, 1965.

4. National Hurricane Center, Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Katrina, 23–30 August 2005, December 20, 2005 (updated August 10, 2006), p. 9, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/TCR-AL122005_Katrina.pdf.

5. Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, “Hurricane Katrina: Reports of Missing and Deceased,” August 2, 2006, http://www.dhh.louisiana.gov/offices/page.asp?ID=192&Detail=5248.

6. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research, Current Housing Unit Damage Estimates, February 12, 2006 (revised April 7, 2006), p. 23.

7. Louisiana Recovery Authority, “LRA Releases Estimates of Hurricane Impact,” news release, January 12, 2006; Tropical Cyclone Report, p. 12; and Insurance Information Institute, “The Ten Most Costly World Insurance Losses, 1970–2005,” http://www.iii.org/media/facts/statsbyissue/catastrophes.

8. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, Hurricane Research Division, Atlantic Hurricane Database Re-Analysis Project, “Hurricane Andrew’s Upgrade,” October 2002, http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/andrew.html.

9. Tropical Cyclone Report, p. 8; National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center, “Converting Knots to MPH,” http://www.spc.noaa.gov/misc/tables/kt2mph.htm.

10. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in Louisiana, Environmental Assessment, EA #433, April 17, 2006, p. EA-4.

11. U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared, May 2006, p. 1-1, http://hsgac.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Links.Katrina.

12. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “The Galveston Storm of 1900 — The Deadliest Disaster in American History,” http://www.noaa.gov/galveston1900.

13. U.S. House Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina, A Failure of Initiative: The Final Report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina, 109th Cong., 2nd sess., February 15, 2006, p. xi, http://katrina.house.gov/full_katrina_report.htm.

14. Comptroller General of the United States, Report to the Congress: Cost, Schedule, and Performance Problems of the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity, Louisiana, Hurricane Protection Project, PSAD-76-161, August 31, 1976, p. 1.

15. U.S. General Accounting Office, Report to the Secretary of the Army: Improved Planning Needed by the Corps of Engineers to Resolve Environmental, Technical, and Financial Issues on the Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Protection Project, GAO/MASAD-82-39, August 17, 1982, p.

16. Minutes of the Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes Advisory Board meeting, September 15, 2003, pp. 21–23.

17. A Failure of Initiative, pp. 81–83.

18. A Nation Still Unprepared, p. 1-1.

TWO: THE ENVIRONMENT

1. Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, Office of Coastal Restoration and Management, “Louisiana Coastal Facts,” http://dnr.louisiana.gov/crm/coastalfacts.asp.

2. U.S. Geological Survey, National Wetlands Research Center, “Without Restoration, Coastal Land Loss to Continue,” news release, May 21, 2003, http://www.nwrc.usgs.gov/releases/pr03_004.htm.

3. Ibid.

4. Interview with Greg Miller, April 24, 2006.

5. Interview with John Lopez, director, Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, Coastal Sustainability Program, May 10, 2006.

6. Interview with Roy Dokka, May 5, 2006.

7. America’s WETLAND, “America’s Wetland in a Nutshell–FAQ’s,” http://www.americaswetlandresources.com/background_facts/basicfacts/FAQs.html.

8. Interview with Kerry St. Pé, April 27, 2006.

9. Interview with Paul Kemp, associate professor, research/special programs, Louisiana State University, School of the Coast and the Environment, May 11, 2006.

10. U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared, May 2006, p. 9-1, http://hsgac.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Links.Katrina.

11. Ibid., p. 9-2.

12. Ibid.

13. Interview with Al Naomi, May 9, 2006.

14. Dokka interview, May 5, 2006.

15. Louisiana Coastal Wetlands Conservation and Restoration Task Force and the Wet-lands Conservation and Restoration Authority, Coast 2050: Toward a Sustainable Coastal Louisiana (Baton Rouge: Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, 1998), p. 31.

16. Kemp interview, May 11, 2006.

17. Louisiana Coastal Wetlands Conservation and Restoration Task Force, Coastal Wet-lands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act: A Response to Louisiana’s Land Loss, April 10, 2006, p. 8.

18. Interview with Denise Reed, April 26, 2006.

19. Louisiana Coastal Area Study, “LCA Frequently Asked Questions,” July 2004, http://www.lca.gov/nearterm/Q_A_6July%2004.pdf.

20. National Research Council, Committee on the Restoration and Protection of Coastal Louisiana, Drawing Louisiana’s New Map: Addressing Land Loss in Coastal Louisiana (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2006), p. 11, http://books.nap.edu/catalog/11476.html.

21. Ibid., p. 3.

22. Matthew Brown, “Katrina May Mean MR-GO Has to Go; Channel Made Storm Surge Worse, Critics Say,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, October 24, 2005.

23. Lopez interview, May 10, 2006.

24. Environmental Defense, Taxpayers for Common Sense, National Wildlife Federation and National Taxpayers Union, Katrina’s Costly Wake: How America’s Most Destructive Hurricane Exposed a Dysfunctional, Politicized Flood-Control Process, p. 2.

25. John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein, “Washing Away,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• ONE: The Storm
• TWO: The Environment
• THREE: The Levees
• FOUR: Emergency Preparedness
• FIVE: Social Services
• SIX: Health Care
• SEVEN: Politics
• EIGHT: Housing and Insurance
• Epilogue
• Notes
• About the Authors
• About the Center for Public Integrity
• Index