Fascinating stuff and amazing how little man can really deal with nature. I like New Orleans and hope the gods turn the monster storm at the last minute or, at least, the worst doesn't happen.
Much is just poor, by-passed Southern city but some, mostly serviced by that streetcar named Desire is beautiful and historic and fun and has a spirit not found in other cities.
Better there than here; but better no where where there are masses of people and beautiful buildings.

Great piece, DrPat -- it's amazing and horrifying to grapple with the true and very real forces of nature. Thankfully, I can do it from the safety of California (where we all pray The Big One never comes...).

Well done DrPat.

I've always wondered about the artificial barriers created down that way, I saw a wonderful doc. on PBS years ago about the flood, and that's what first got me thinking about it.

North America is full of places where we have redirected the natural flow of water to suit our needs. We seem to forget that Nature doesn't really give a damn about us. Eventually all that we have wrought will one day be reclaimed.

What's truely unfortunate is all the people whose lives will be affected by the hubris of governments and engineers who thought that nature was something they could control.

I've written about McPhee's The Control of Nature before, prompted by mudslides in Southern California. "Atchafalaya" was an eye-opener for me, coming from an engineering background, where the "Can Do" attitude is not an approach to a solution, it's a Gospel.

The waters of the Mississippi will run through the Atchafalaya Basin one day. The laws of physics and entropy both demand it. Old River Control is just a last-gasp appeal from this verdict.

Comment 3 wrote: Snip . . . "What's truely unfortunate is all the people whose lives will be affected by the hubris of governments and engineers who thought that nature was something they could control."

Whoa, Whoa, WHOA! That is bass ackwards! People move where they shouldn't, because it's cheap, or pretty, or otherwise desirable, then expect their representatives to protect them from their own stupidity. I'll not defend, but don't blame the Government for this one.

Let's see, I'll move to a swamp, then complain it's too wet. Then I'll ask the Gov't. to ditch and drain it, then complain when the dried soil starts self-compacting and sinking. Then I'll demand the Gov't. spend millions to protect me from the river, lake, ocean that surround me. Oh, and by the way, did I mention the threat of hurricanes? I'll now demand even bigger levees to protect me from those! What do you mean, I can only have Category 3 protection? Cat 5 is on the way! Dear Gov't, how DARE you leave me to weather this Mother-of-all-Storms by myself?!?

Now, this edges onto a sore subject with me: to what point is the government (that is, the rest of us) responsible for 'rescuing' & setting back on their feet people who persist in living in areas with unstable or recurrent dangerous conditions? I can see helping out those subjected to once in 50-year fluke conditions, but what about those idiots who insist on building homes in California canyons that have a documented history of mudslides every 3-4 years, or the halfwits who insist on setting up in an area where hurricanes (or at least severe storms & flooding) come thru at least annually? There surely is a limit to how much willful stupidity should be encouraged & subsidized?

Larry - The purpose of assigning such designations as "40-year events" is to determine how much preparation is appropriate, and how much is ridiculous over-expenditure (per Pareto's principle, the "Law of 80-20").

So the Army Corps of Engineers was given the brief to reduce the loss of lives and property due to the periodic floods on the Mississippi. When people first began levee controls for river flows (ancient Egypt, I believe), they were simply extending and heightening the naturally-occuring stopbanks which a river builds during decades of normal flow.

As I just posted on another thread, it's dropped to a cat. 2 once it hit land. Some flooding, but nowhere near what was predicted, ditto wind damages, & no one washed out to sea. Watching the weather channel, I get the distinct impression the media are rather disappointed; they seem to have been hoping for a repeat of 1900 Galveston.

DrPat,

Excellent article. It appears to me that in addition to the danger of which you speak, the disaster striking New Orleans is miniscule compared to what might well happen in the next couple of days or weeks!

As you point out, the major threat now facing Gulf Coast area is that the heavy rainfall from Katrina in the incredible large Mississippi River watershed which is right where what is now tropical storm Katrina is dropping a huge amount of water.

However, it seems to me that the potential disaster of equivalent magnitude, and similar shape, to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. One can learn a little bit about that disaster in the Wikipedia encyclopedia which one can find by searching on "Great Mississippi Flood of 1927" with google. One correction to that article; 246 is a ridiculously small number for the number of people killed by that disaster. That may be the number of reported deaths; a characteristic of that disaster was that there was almost no recording of the extant of the disaster. It was a case of "the dead don't talk." Based on other information in the Wikipedia article, I would guess that over a million people died. Others more expert than myself (like you) might have better guesses.

If there river does begin to rise, the Bonnie Carrie spillway may well protect New Orleans from leaks below the spillway, but, taking a lesson from the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, that is not where most of the damage will occur.

Most historians agree that the "Great Mississippi Flood of 1927" was the greatest natural disaster to strike the U.S. in the last 80 years. You will find claims that the great flood of 1993 was the worst disaster to strike the U.S. in "recent history," but, that is simply weasel-wording - the implicit assumption in such claims is that anything whic h happened for than 70 years ago is not "recent history." The Wikipedia artilce does a good job of explaining all that.

So why is the press not talkiing about it? Well, historically, government press releases have downplayed potential dangers to our country. So one can speculate, but, that's all it is. In my opinion, though, the more people who are aware of immeninent danger, danger which makes 9/11 look like child's play, the better. That's why I am writing this letter.

Yours,

John Aiken, PhD, New Orleans native.

Great reading, DrPat. I've addressed part of this issue in another thread. I'm looking at this entire disaster as an opportunity and not a loss. We need American hubris now more than ever. Let's just utilize it with a mission that really can be accomplished!

Two Footnotes to my Earlier Post (just two above this one)

1) The possibity of repeat of the "Great Mississippi Flood of 1927" was discussed a few days ago in the "The Quaker Economist" number 130,

link.

The issue is well worth reading.

2) On further reflection it seems unlikely that the levees will be broken. This is based on

a) the N.O. flood stage is 17 feet, 20 is the danger level. Hence there is 3 feet of headroom. That's a lot.

b) Katrina's rain only covers about 25% of the Mississippi floodplain.

c) The Ohio river would carry a lot of Katrina's rain to the Mississippi, so one would expect at least some flooking in Ohio if there would be enough water to break the levees. The TV says that there has not been enough rain to make flooding likely in Ohio.

d) Although three to five inches from Katrina over a four day period is a lot of water, it's not that unusual to have three to five inches of rain, and the fourth day will be in Penn., at the very tip top of the Mississippi River water shed.

In summary, although the possibility of the Mississippi River levees breaking just north of N.O. is still a real possibility, it is not as likely as I previously thought.

John Aiken, PhD, New Orleans Native.

WAS a New orleans native.

Good point Jay. Was. My family is devastated and we have little hope that things will ever be the same.

Thanks very much, Dr Pat. I had just got out our copy of The Control of Nature to try to fit this week's news into that context.

Larry, how about the Outer Banks (a very large sand bar) which is drifting north along the Atlantic Coast, leaving a lot of pricey homes and condos perched on their pylons (if I have the right word)? And where people even now are pressuring government to spend money to "stabilize" the dunes?

You have to admire Colorado, which doesn't allow developers to build condos on the avalanche runs, no matter how much money they're willing to pay, how breathtaking the view, or how many self-deluding buyers they are sure to be able to palm them off on.

Here in Kentucky, banks will loan money to build McMansions in flood plain, but not for a young farm couple to buy arable ridge land with an old house on it. A developer could buy the same land, level and pave it in the name of economic development, and thereby contribute his mite to the Mississipppi drainage problem.

Well, after clinging to our ridge through yet another July-August drought, all that an old farm couple can say is, "Thanks for the rain, Kat!" If that sounds heartless, here is what we are doing (have done and will continue to do) to assist the devastated flood region: our sustainable woodlot management, pasture maintenance and cultivation of hay (oh, and gravel driveways) have allowed our 100 acres to absorb all but a tiny fraction of that 6 inches of rain. So whatever consequences people are suffering from their own choices, ours aren't adding to them.

Well, obviously whoever was updating the news I was listening to was not very savvy & not paying attention. This is horrendous. My vol. dept. has already sent off our ultra-heavy (duty, that is) rescue squad, an EMT/paramedic team, a trailer of supplies, & the inflatable w/the river rescue & diving teams. So...where are the offers of assistance from other countries, or at least the sympathy cards?

The Army Corps of Engineers (which is not all deployed to Iraq) is scrambling to repair broken levees and boost the strength of the levee system throughout the lower reaches of the Big Muddy. This effort is not funded out of disaster assistance, but is part of the emergency plan of the Corps, separately funded.

The worry about "stream capture" and its subsequent financial havoc, is ON TOP OF the damage being wreaked by the immediate effects of Katrina. Flooding on the Ohio is not a prerequisite for overwhelming Old River Control -- but the extensive damage to the lower Mississippi's levee system is.

Old River Control and much of the current levee system did not exist at the time of the devastating flood of 1927. That diaster (which you correctly point out, John, was not completely documented, and, grievous as it was, may have been underestimated) was the strongest argument the government had for controlling the floods along the river.

Subsidence of the basin around New Orleans has been going on forever. When the river can choose its own channel, and braid freely across the basin, soil deposition keeps up with subsidence -- but that means other basins, like the Atchafalya, gradually become inviting lower than the current riverbed (as is the case today). So we have doubled our trouble, because a) we're not letting the river deposit soil to rebuild the current Mississippi basin and b) we need to build higher and higher walls to keep the flow out of the Atchafalaya Basin.

So, Dr Pat, according to your last sentence in Comment 18, wouldn't everything the Corps is doing per Comment 16 be just more "doubling trouble?" In other words, the more they scramble to keep the existing channel from flooding, the more likely capture by the Atchfalaya will become?

Incidentally, while the Ohio Basin (which has gotten most of Katrina's rain) is only one-third of the Mississippi drainage system, it's the most heavily graded and paved.

Yes, HerbLady, that's the Catch-22 of controlling the big river. Everything we do to constrain the water to a given channel (keeping it out of fields, cities, off highways, and under bridges) serves to make the river stronger.

At this point, the Corps needs to keep on with the battle to meet the assignment they have to control flooding. They can't simply decide to let the capture happen, or the waters overrun the levees.

Can you spell "liability"?

What about the Mississippi River Delta; the eye first made landfall there as a category five eyewall; it went right through the center of the Delta; is the Delta still there?

Of course it's still there.

Though it may be largely under water right now...

Waiting for satellite pictures; no doubt the coastline of Louisiana looks a bit different now. We're gonna need new maps.

Readers of Mark Twain and residents of the affected states all know that the big river changes all the time. You're right, though, that the Louisiana coast may have been altered sufficiently for the effects to be seen from orbit...

Nature is cruel! Unfortunately the ground beneath us is constantly moving and shifting or errupting.

I encourage everyone to volunteer for or donate to a hurricane relief fund like UNICEF or the Salvation Army (make sure it is reputable)!

All and especially DrPat,

Does anybody know of any reports of Katrina causing any damage to the Mississippi River levees; that is, other than the usual walk towards catastrophy which heavy rain always causes on the Mississippi?

I have looked hard on the web and have perused the newspapers and the TV and I have not seen any reports one way or the other.

I ask because DrPat's Comment 17 referenced "extensive damage to the lower Mississippi's levee system" in the context of Katrina dangers, but it was not clear if the the damage of which he spoke was caused by Katrina, and, if so, if it had already been reported to have occured or simply something which might occur in the future.

Yours,

John Aiken

At ~5 AM, Katrina made landfall. At 11:15, a "Levee Breached At Industrial Canal" according to New Orleans station WDSU.

There's been a levee breach at an industrial canal in the Ninth Ward in St. Bernard Parish. When this occurs, water rises rapidly, so residents should be extra alert to the threat of rising water. There are reports of 8 feet of water spilled out because of the breach.

Reference: Dr Pat's original post and Comments 9, 11, 16, 17, 18, 26, and 27.

Dr. Pat,

Thanks for your reply [27] to my question [26].

I guess you are saying that "as far as I know, no Katrina damage to the lower Mississippi River levee system has been reported." Do I interpert your reply correctly?

Of course, the breaks of which you speak are breaks in the Pontrachain levee system and are much less serious (though still very serious) compared to damage to the lower Mississippi River levee system. For the purpose of sensationalism the media often tries to make it sound like it is all the same thing.

To delve further, it seems to me that damage to the Mississippi River levee system below the Bonnie Carrie spillway would be much less serios than damage above the Bonnie Carrie spillway. Would you agree?

I'm still trying to get a handle on just how likely a break in the next couple of weeks is as a result of Katrina's action. The tone of your reply [16 & 17] to my Comment 11 seemed to indicated that you think that it is likely to occurr in the next couple of weeks. Am I interperting your Comments 16 and 17 correctly?

The only fact I know which argues in favor of damage to the lower Mississippi River levee system is that they were built to withstand Cat 3 hurricanes and they got a Cat 4. But, not only is that indirect evidence of damage very weak, it would imply damage below the Bonnie Carrie spillway which seems to me would be not so serious.

Finaly, Dr. Pat, thank you for all of your very informative posts. To me, they show that you really care about the victims of the current disaster; you are at least giving some serious thought to what might happen next. Diagnosis is the first step to prevention, and prevention is better than after-the-fact knee-jerk responses.

Yours,

Dr. John, PhD, New Orleans native (ex)

P.S.

By way of explanation to other readers and posters: the reason I stress "lower" is to specifically refer to two possible catastrophic events: 1) a "stream change" as mentioned in Comments 16 and 17 or 2) a "1927 repeat" as in Comment 9.

In other words, the use of the word "lower" is meant to exclude a "1993 repeat" which is also described in Comment 9 and seems to me to be less serious (though still very serious) than a stream change or a 1927 repeat. Not that a 1993 repeat would not be horrible, but, it's better to take one problem at a time (a 1927 repeat for me, a "stream change" for Dr. Pat, but those two problems are very closely related as explained in excellent The Quaker Exconomist (TQE) article referenced in Comment 16.)

Dr Pat:

I can say "liability," but my first thought is "folly."

In light of the past 24 hours, particularly 2 major breaches in the Pontchartrain levees and the total evacuation of the city, what comment do you have now about the Corp's mission?
Could some of that good old American hubris for once take the long view? It couldn't possibly cost any more to relocate the entire city, than it's going to cost now to rebuild it in place AND "ensure its safety."
In fact, isn't this largely a man-made disaster, in the sense that allowing people to rely on the alleged "Control of Nature" simply exacerbates our vulnerability? Thank you so much for the benefit of your thinking.

HerbLady, it isn't the displaced people in the flooded Mississippi basin who are the major financial problem. As we've all seen in the last few hours, the area is home to industries that are critical to the whole US economy.

Even placing the historical value of the city aside (and it may need to be placed very far aside as we attempt to deal with the disaster), the physical infrastructure of a city the size of New Orleans cannot simply be moved from one basin to another.

This has been the argument for continuing to bolster the existing levee system for decades. And since we ARE spending all that money on the current system, and we ARE protecting the status quo, there has been little incentive to begin building a similar system on the Atchafalaya.

I'll go futher: there has been a major DISincentive to build such a system: the bayous and wetlands of the Atchafalaya Basin. We're riding the tiger with these river controls, people - and once you've straddled the cat, you can't simply dismount...

Dr. Pat,

A new question (new to me, anyway).

Does the existence of the "Old River Control" make a repeat of the 1927 disaster very unlikely?

In other words, if the levees which protect the state of Mississippi and adjoining states from a repeat of the 1927 disaster were endangered, is it likely that the Corps of Engineers would simply divert more of the Mississippi River into the Atchafalaya and thereby avoid a repeat of the 1927 disaster?

Yours,

John

Dr. Pat,

I was fascinated to find your post, as I just finished reading The Control of Nature last month and it has been much on mind these last few days. I keep hearing government officials say that no one could have predicted this cataclysmic event, as yet it is so clear that science has known it would happen. The talking heads on TV keep saying "natural disaster". I keep thinking "totally predictable man-made catastrophe".

Finally tonight I did hear CNN broadcast a piece on a New Orleans Times-Picayune article from 2-3 years ago that discussed this in detail and accurately predicted exactly what would happen.

Good point about the historical and industrial value of New Orleans...but now that it has happened, a good part of the historical side may have been washed away...as for industry perhaps we can now see that a concentration of the industries (fuel, etc) in this one place leaves us too vulnerable. I would argue for relocation of some as a hedge against localized disasters in the future.

These discussions arise again every time a levee breaks along the lower system. It doesn't help; the whole plan, top-to-bottom, for protecting the lower Mississippi Basin from the disaster that would follow river capture by the Atchafalaya is geared to "keeping on keeping on."

So we have people incensed that the Corps didn't rebuild the levees after the floods of 1993 to a higher level. We have folks complaining that funds for the Corps were shifted to an ecology agency for the purpose of enhancing the coastal wetlands. (Some of the same folks who castigated authorities for "not caring" about the wetlands in dryer years.)

People and their choices, however ill-thought-out and ominous of effect, are part of the social ecology in which the choices on where to spend money are made. All of which means, I believe we will rebuild the levees and remake New Orleans. People will move back into the city. And over time, we will forget. This was a hundred-year-event. Plenty of time to forget, there.

Unless Old River Control fails, in which case, the decision will be taken out of our hands.

These are, of course, levees, not dams. Building them up to a higher level isn't really an option.

Dave

Building them up to a higher level is necessary for levees in the Mississippi Delta, because they're sinking at the same time -- that's why I liken relying on a levee system to riding a tiger; you can't simply step off and walk away.

The river levees, especially -- because the riverbed is rising, and that means the head (kinetic power potential) of the water when it does escape is increasing all the time.

Dave, read the Chicago Tribune article I linked on the "I Won't Contribute" thread. The Army engineers and administrators in charge of the levees all agree that had they had more funding, they could have built the levees higher, finished incomplete levees, and probably saved more lives.

Don't comment so authoritatively on things you're not expert in.

That is all.

Ah, good point, DrPat. With the sinking factor they do need to be built up periodically. But just building them higher to have them be higher won't actually help.

Babs, I don't argue with that. But even their ultimate dream plan for the levees would not have averted this disaster. The nature of levees is such that they could not possibly stop a storm of this magnitude.

Dave

They couldn't have prevented it altogether, but that article says they could have been higher and prevented some of the breaches in critical parts of the city and thus saved probably hundreds of lives and millions of dollars in property.

That is all.

My other point, Babs - is that this levee improvement is part of an ongoing problem that dates back literally hundreds of years. No one has ever been willing to do what's really necessary which is move the damned city. Yes, better levees might have helped in some small way, but nothing would change the fact that NO has always been a disaster waiting to happen.

Dave

Excuse me, BAB, the people who wanted more money to spend on these projects complained that administrations since the early 90s (Clinton's as well as George W's) have reduced funding for levee-building.

This has more to do with getting money for new projects than it does with maintainance of the existing system -- when funds were reduced, the Corps and local agencies ALL decided to spread the funds around to pet projects.

In any case, the focus of this particular article is not the levee system, flawed though it is, but the river "valve" at Old River Control. As with the levees, hindsight is always 20-20.

Of course, it's a geographical nightmare. It's still no excuse for not doing the things that were proposed the last few years that could have saved lives and at least salvaged some of the city.

It's not OK to throw up our hands and say "Oh well, what can you do?" when the engineerings and project leaders who weren't taken seriously or funded adequately are telling you their hands were tied when they wanted to do more.

And we had SPECIFIC, DETAILED critical warnings from scientists and the press of the danger of a hurricane hitting New Orleans in the last few years that hadn't been brought to our attention before.

It's disturbing that they weren't listened to, at all. New Orleans has always been a potential disaster area, but the potential for that disaster got markedly higher the last few years, and more importantly, we knew MUCH more about the risk and possible consequences without acting on it.

That is all.

Dr. Pat, read that article before you comment.

This isn't a Clinton vs. Bush thing. What everyone does acknowledge, regardless of their partisan blame game, is that A) we knew MUCH more and had many more warnings from scientists in recent years than we had under Clinton, including scientists under federal employment and B) the deterioration of wetlands and the decline in funding for projects to study Category 5 hurricanes on the Gulf Coast and to build the levees higher made us more defenseless than we should have been. Of course, people would have still died, but a river valve is no excuse for inadequate foresight and preparation.

You're not an engineer -- I'll take the word of the engineers and administrators that know the logistics best.

That is all.

Oh, but BAB, I AM an engineer. I read the reports and budget requests from the Corps of Engineers for a reason. Been reading them long before the latest round of hindsight and finger-pointing.

And the original citation on THIS thread was John McPhee's book, published in 1990 -- just before the disastrous floods in 1993 that spurred the blame-game THEN.

Do you begin to understand that flooding on the Mississippi is a problem that the Corps has been fighting -- with mixed results -- for decades?

Existing problem going way back -- yes, Pat, we all know.

And as an engineer (albeit one without inside knowledge of the specific logistics of the situation there), you should really expect more resources and emphasis given to the good engineers who should have been allowed to do more to save lives.

Funding levels were higher for the projects during the Clinton administration, as you undoubtedly know from reading budget reports.

That is all.

Excuse me, BAB, the people who wanted more money to spend on these projects complained that administrations since the early 90s (Clinton's as well as George W's) have reduced funding for levee-building.

So, DrPat, do you think now would be the time to check out where all the pork barrel spending went for the last 15 years? I'm sure it's going to come out that the pork barrel rewards went to the same handful of reps and states over the last decade. Every penny of that money which went into frivolous projects is blood money in my book. Alaska alone got millions in pork. Talk about's Seward's folly. This is America's blunder.

You have a talent, BAB, for siezing on the least important detail in a response, and spinning it 180 degrees.

Let me lay this out more obviously for you:

1. Building levees higher means loading them with more weight, which makes them sink faster. This simple fact affects the engineering-economics decision whether or not to "build them higher" (as opposed to maintaining them at current height with relation to the riverbed).
2. When accusations of "reducing the budget" for maintenance of the levee system are made, you must acknowledge that a) more than just the current administration has reduced that budget, and b) the Corps then made the decision as to where to spend the budget they had.
3. Local maintenance of the levee system is handled in some areas by other agencies than the Corps of Engineers. However, cities and states, facing their own budgetary constraints, chose in some cases to leave it all in the Corps' laps.
4. Levees don't stop overbank floods -- it's not what they're designed to do. They do help move the majority of the water downstream within the river's banks.
5. Levees are not designed to withstand damage from boats, barges and other immense debris crashing into them.
6. The water that came into the city from Lake Pontchartrain ought to have been held back by something other than a dirt bank. Earthen dams have caused problems in other places -- but call it a levee, and it passes muster in New Orleans. Until a 100-year event occurs.

Dr. Pat,
I remembered the story about the near failure of the Old River Control diversionary dam and that if it failed it would have destoryed New Orleans. By "destroyed" does this mean flooded or "econonically destroyed"? Would flood waters have entered New Orleans from the west or missed the city completely?
EMB

The economic disaster that would come from the capture of the Mississippi by the Atchafalaya following the failure of Old River Control would be due primarily to the lack of water flowing in the existing channel.

Right now, the area doesn't need more water, but in normal times, almost all of the commercial activity that draws businesses and people to New Orleans is supported by the river flow. New Orleans without the Big Muddy would be just a dying town on a vast mudflat.

Kind of like now, only for hundreds and hundreds of years to come...

Guys, guys!

Statements like this:
It's disturbing that they weren't listened to,... we knew MUCH more about the risk and possible consequences without acting on it.

...do nothing to solve a problem. Just as the jackals of the press are cashing in on the sick appetites of the disaster junkies, the political opportunists are looting for propaganda. Meanhwhile, you have to scan hundreds of stories of floating corpses and missing relatives, to find one or two about geological effects and engineering proposals for the future, which should be the real story for all of us.

BAB, the Corps has been acting on the risks all the time, as Dr Pat says, with mixed results. Not the least of the reasons for the mixed results is the curious mix of economic, political, social and geological pressures they were working under.

My whole point is, this disaster should be seen as an opportunity to triage amongst these pressures for a change. You can be sure politico-emotional pressures will be brought to bear to allow survivors to "rebuild their lives" right back in harm's way."

If it makes the most economic sense to ensure that the refineries can keep operating, that should be done at the expense of more sentimental considerations. Whether it will or not depends largely on politics.

In the interest of keeping the dialogue rational, blame should be kept out of it.

Dr Pat, in the event that Old River Control should fail, despite the best efforts at reconciling the conflicting interests, is there a long-term what-if plan for the Delta? Where can it be accessed? Thanks! HL

There's the Corps' report on the Atchafalaya Basin Project, which is more PR-level than engineering, but useful for gaining an overview of what their focus is in the basin.

The New Orleans District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, operates four locks to keep the Atchafalaya River and basin channels open for commercial barges and small boats. There are 449 miles of federal levees, 14 pumping stations and 15 drainage structures in the basin to channel and remove flood waters.

The Mississippi River & Tributaries Project (MR&T) was established by Congress after the disastrous 1927 flood. Congress directed the Corps of Engineers to develop and implement the MR&T project, building levees, floodways and channel and basin improvements to safely pass a major flood of up to three million cubic feet of water per second (cfs) to the Gulf of Mexico. The Atchafalaya Basin Floodway is designed to pass one half of this major flood, or 1.5 million cfs, to the gulf. The Atchafalaya receives the Red River and a portion of the Mississippi River that is diverted through the Old River Control Structure near Simmesport... Today, the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW), which connects the basin's waterways to the Mississippi River's deep-draft channel, also provides a main route to the many feeder channels that lead to the Gulf of Mexico. These feeder channels serve the energy needs of the nation by allowing the shipping of crude petroleum, fuel oil, gasoline and petrochemicals from coastal Louisiana. The area is one of the nation's most important sources of salt, sand, shell and timber. The GIWW is also the lifeline for shrimping, fishing and oyster industries in the Atchafalaya, with large and small craft alike using the waterways to reach the channels to the gulf.

The Corps DOES have a long-term plan for the Basin, but it is apparently not yet fleshed out with data. Last year, the Corps commenced a study for the Atchafalaya Basin, expected to be complete in four years:

The Corps of Engineers, operating under Congressional authority to investigate the feasibility of providing flood damage reduction measures for the Mississippi River and its Tributaries (of which the Atchafalaya River Basin included) is currently conducting two flood control studies that compass the study area. In the Lower Atchafalaya and Morganza to the Gulf studies, comprehensive alternative plans, that would reduce flood damages from riverine, tidal and stormwater sources, will be evaluated. General Investigation Studies requires local cost sharing (50%). The State of Louisiana, Department of Transportation and Development, is the local sponsor for effective and environmentally sound, may qualify for federal participation. Currently, qualified projects can receive up to 75% federal funding. The parishes in the study area could receive significant benefits from these projects. The lower Atchafalaya and Morganza to the Gulf studies will be completed in four years with subsequent project construction occurring 5 to 10 years thereafter.

Some 4-5 years ago I watched a very detailed televised documentary about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, battle with the Mississippi River, and Atchafalaya River related to flood control and flooding. Does anyone know what that piece was and how to find it again?

The History Channel had a Modern Marvels program about the Army Corps Of Engineers. It wasn't focused on the river control, though. The write-up says, "Ironically, the Corps' trademark blend of military perseverance and technical skill will undoubtedly provide the experience necessary to restore that which it has worked so hard to control -- the natural environment."

Other than that, I'm not finding this...

Dr. Pat,
yr thoughts in comment 46 would be news to everyone I knew in Monroe, Louisiana, where I lived (directly across from a levee in the north side of town) in 1973. A great flood was pending, and Monroe was a town scared to death of a breach in the levee system. Should the levee break, the water would have flowed through the entire town, and, like NO this week, nothing but near equilibrium in the water levels between the river and the area behind the levees would have even admitted repair work. It is understood, however wrongly, that the levees protect the city.

While technically, the intent of levees may be to hasten and control downstream flow, the practical effect is to protect & encourage development behind the levees. This is certainly the understanding of all those without very specialized understanding of such arcane issues of water flows, geology, &tc. It is implicit in any development that the levees hold back the waters.
I think we should think hard before trying to fix NO. The longer-term inevitibility of nature taking over this situation is simply impossible to refute, despite out investments to the contrary. The policy question will be brought into sharp focus, once the rescue is more complete. And the cost in lives (and national treasure) of another serious hurricane, flood, or terrorist attack on the levee system is just too horrible to contemplate. The luck finally ran out in NO, and that is the sad, hard truth of this week's events.

Mark, what happens when you overfill the river between the levees is exactly what happens when you let the water run in your washbasin. Overbank flow, while unwanted, is not the reason the levee is there.

As we see when the levee breaks -- that's when the flow of the river leaves the riverbed and enters town.

McPhee pointed out a harsh reality of life when Mother Nature goes extreme. People who have made lives, homes and businesses in the path of the escaped river are no worse off than those who build in the path of the cyclical mudflows in California, or live beside a volcano in Iceland.

The idea that we can always fully control Nature is false. We can partially control it, sometimes -- that's the purpose of the levee.

Estimates are that New Orleans will be unlivable for perhaps 15 years. Maybe now is the time to spend our efforts creating a new system on the Atchafalaya, and then let Old River Control go.

Dr. Pat,

From a practical viewpoint, if the river changed its course and came down the Acthafalaya instead of the New Orleans river bed, would it not be most likely for the ports in the state of Texas to pick up the shipping business New Orleans enjoyed before Katrina?

Yours,

John

Dr Pat, you Rock for both your article and for your opening in comment #46.

Thanks, Ski! John, the Texas Gulf ports are already gearing up to take on the demand:

A dredging project on the Houston Ship Channel, which had been on the back burner, is now expected to be completed later this week, enabling the Port of Houston to handle the traffic expected due to damage at other Gulf Coast ports... Before Katrina hit, it was common for some vessels to go to the Port of New Orleans, drop off cargo, then head to Houston. Now, the vessels coming here will also be carrying cargo that would have been delivered to New Orleans, meaning heavier ships sitting lower in the water traveling up and down the Ship Channel.
--Houston Chronicle, Sept. 6, 2005.

New Orleans had SEVEN MONTHS warning, according to this article from Natural Hazards Observer, when Hurrican Ivan (a Cat4 storm) headed toward the city.

In the wake of that event, the city and state governments both set up emergency prepardedness plans for evacuating all who could get themselves out of the city, housing those who truly could not get out (in the Superdome), and then evacuating them after the storm had passed.

These plans were not followed in the teeth of Hurrican Katrina. Supplies were not available in the Superdome, some people who could get out of the city chose not to, then swarmed the Superdome (and were sent to the convention center as a stopgap), and city personnel who were supposed to be part of the plan evacuated themselves instead of remaining behind to work.

Seven months is long enough to arrange practices so everyone is on the same page. Seven months is long enough to replace all the supplies that are supposed to be in the emergency shelters. Seven months is certainly long enough to change what didn't work this time, and get the amended plan to FEMA so they don't ignore a whole building full of flood victims.

I don't expect the blame-somebody crowd to care. But you ought to know that this nearly happened last winter, right at the end of hurricane season. New Orleans caught a break them, and like the gambler with a win on the table, decided the city was on a lucky streak.

Katrina blew on the dice, and their luck ran out.

So the question becomes -- will there be sensible debate about the course of action to take? Rebuild New Orleans or restore the enviornment and allow the River to change it's bed as it has every 1000 years. Is there a middle ground? No small decision, but it has always been known that we would come to this point sooner rather than later.

I would also like to know, what are the other inevitabilities and what is being done to protect from them. San Francisco is a given, but other than earthquaking proofing, what can be done? We would most likely have to tell people to move from the Marina district, built on landfill fron earthquake 1 (you can't evacuate in an earthquake), and please excuse me while I laugh for an hour. What else do we need to prepare for, hurricane in NY? Volcanoes in Washington (I wish DC).

It seems an impossible task to prepare, too many variables. but what can WE, as concerned citizens, do to assure that instead of a highway to nowhere is built in AK, how about we reappropriate funds to shore up necessary infrastrucuture and maybe an emergency/disaster kitty fund? Is there any way to stop this pork after it's already been approved. I wish I could do something to spend OUR money in a more responsible manner. (excuse the violins)

Does anyone else think that that Bush admin is eerily reminescent of the characters on the show Reno 911?

For years -- no, decades -- money to build up the levee system to keep pace with subsidence in the Mississippi Basin has been considered one of those "pork projects." Restoring the Gulf Coast wetlands: pork. Studying the effects of letting more water flow down the Atchafalaya: pork.

Using the plans you've developed (and the sense God gave you): priceless.

...By the way, if you live in San Francisco and don't know what you plan to do when the Big One hits, you too could be one of those wights signaling to helicopters to "Rescue Me."

In my opinion, rebuilding New Orleans would be a mistake. I say that as one who deeply regrets never having been there. (Family plans to go next summer will now forever be set aside.)

It's time to let the river go where physics and the flow of the water take it.

I don't for a moment believe, however, that the politics of the situation will allow it. We will rebuild the city, though it doesn't make sense, and it won't be easy, and it won't ever be the Big Easy again. This decision won't be made by engineers or city planners.

It will come from the emotions and survivor-guilt we all feel for not having been in the city when it died.

Dr Pat,

How feasable is it to let the Mississippi change course? In doing so we would be flooding Morgan City under 10 feet of water. After the disater to strike New Orleans, the state would not allow this to happen to another city. While I agree with your assessment of the Atchafalaya Basin, the power that be over in Baton Rouge would be reluctant to agree on a plan where the Mighty Mississippi would bypass their city.

Flooding Morgan City like New Orleans? Bypassing Baton Rouge?

This channel-switch doesn't have to happen at Old River Control. That's simply the most likely place, considering the effort the Corps of Engineers needs to expend right now to keep the flow mostly going down the existing channel.

With the current system on the present-day Mississippi channel (and the lack of it on the Atchafalaya), letting the flow run at Old River Control, or losing control there, would result in flooding for Morgan City.

That's why I suggested that some of the billions of dollars currently being earmarked for rescue and recovery in New Orleans should be used instead to prepare in the Atchafalaya Basin for the inevitable channel-switch.

Read: It's gonna happen, folks! Do we want a repeat of New Orleans 2005 when it does?

But I doubt it will happen. And sometime in the future, when this disaster does finally stike, there will be a lot of finger-pointing and assigning of blame because we could have prepared for it.

Write it again: we could have prepared to withstand this economic (and potentially fatal) disaster, too -- but didn't.

This is a wonderful blog. Thank you, Dr. Pat. A couple of years ago, I saw something on the Dscovery Channel or maybe elsewhere about the city of Amsterdam. Also under sea level and subject to severe North Sea storms, Amsterdam adopted, I think, a highly innovative approach to their problem. They accepted the fact of future major storms and flooding. They then created a series of pathways for floodwaters to be guided to agricultural land way outside of the city. It looks like the discussion of the natural course of the merging of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya should include some kind of alternative such as this.

Perhaps New Orleans could be filled with trillions of yards of soil to raise it to above sea level, but would that be better, now that an historic opportunity has been presented to us, to look at a solution for the next thousand years.

Think of Houston to Gulfport as a massive opportunity to redesign according to nature's dictates rather than fighting them. Of course this is a trillion dollar problem and needs to be thought about over several administrations, but it could create employment on the scale of the WPA or CCC and provide meaningful employment for hundreds of thousands who love and want to reclaim their beloved coast while building a business base to exceed what was there before.

Steve, at issue is not only the flooding, but also the twin demons of subsidence and river capture.

In its position below sea-level in the path of storms, New Orleans is like Amsterdam. However, in its position on the delta at the terminus of a sub-continent-draining river, New Orleans faces a problem Amsterdammers never imagined.

Yes, if we had the engineering capacity to load the delta with 15 feet of dirt and build on top of that, the immediate problem of the "bowl between the levees" would go away. Such a load, however, would simply cause faster subsidence, squishing unconsolidated sediments out from the side of the load like mud coming up through your toes as you step.

In addition, the problem of river capture is exacerbated by the difference in altitude between the river bed where it is (constrained in the Mississippi Channel by the constant maintainance by the Army Corp of Engineers), and where it wants to be, down the Atchafalaya River and out to the Gulf, forming a new delta.

River sediments in a "natural" river spill over the bank and deposit into the basin on either side. On the lower reaches of the Mississippi, one can assume, this almost, but not quite, matched the subsidence rate. (We know it is "not quite" because the river has switched channels before.)

In the constrained river, these sediments build the riverbed even higher. Along with subsidence, the "rising river" effect creates a made-to-order problem when you're trying to keep the river in check.

It seems inevitable that, due to the emotions and finger-pointing, we will opt to rebuild New Orleans. In that case, the city planners could do worse than to take a page from Amsterdam's design, and get ready for the next flood.

Great site, DrPat. If the Old River Control blows out, would it be at all possible to rechannel the flow back to the previous channel? I am quite familiar with the Mississippi as my wife is from Natchez, which is slowly getting eaten. But this would be a major disater and you can move a lot of dirt with several billion dollars. So what would be the main impossibility of moving the channel back?

There's a little thing that stands in the way of putting the river back into its orginal channel, once it escapes: The Second Law of Thermodynamics.

"If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations, then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. And if your theory contradicts the facts, well, sometimes these experimentalists make mistakes. But if your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics, I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation"---Arthur Eddington

The secret fountains to follow up, waters withdrawn to restore to the mouth,
And gather the floods as in a cup, and pour them again at a city's drouth.

Regarding the flood control and land reclamation in the Netherlands: The Dutch have a wonderful museum in Lelystad the Nieuw Land Polder Museum that explains the history and demonstrates the their methods. �The people of the Netherlands are known for their struggle against the sea. The way in which people fended for themselves, in spite of floods and disasters, how they slowly wrested the land from the sea, that can be seen, heard and experienced in the Nieuw Land Polder Museum.�
link
What struck me the most on my visit, was that the Dutch debated and deliberated for more than one hundred years before starting their project.

Reading resources: link

We must have a national debate about how our national resources will be used to make all our lives better, safer, and our economy stronger. Do we restore and preserve the Old French Quarter as a living museum only? Do we start thinking of the waters of the Mississippi as a natural resource and not only a mode of transportation?

Love your comment in #66 S.Kessler "... but it could create employment on the scale of the WPA or CCC and provide meaningful employment for hundreds of thousands who love and want to reclaim their beloved coast"

I don't believe repopulating the fish bowl of New Orleans is a smart use of resources for our children and the new age. We all have a stake in the decision because we all will be paying for it therefore we should have a say in what happens next.

Dr. Pat,

Thank you so much for your answer (Comment 58) to my question about th epossibility of the Texas ports picking up the business (Comment 56).

So, more than just a possibility, it is already, at least to come small extent, already happening. hanks for the info and for the link.

Yours,

John

All,

I love your comments. Very informative with a lot of good ideas.

On rebuilding New Orleans, there was a similar situation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Hurricane Camile, which really did major damage to the Gulf Coast economy.

What happened next was that the casino business was allowed to flourish. Totally changed the culture of the place, and, not for the better from the point of view of the local residents. I believe that the crime rate went up, the whole "nine yards" usually associated with the gambling lifesytle was there to stay.

A casino business man was on Fox news a couple of nights ago. His comment was

"Of course, we should rebuild it. We should turn it into another Las Vagas. New Orleans is known for its debauchery and for being a fun city [being a native, I took offense at that remark]. We have been trying to get casinos into New Orelans for years, but, the city governemnt has stopped us. Now they might not have a choice."

From my point of view, it is possible that this business man's remark might be "sad but true."

Yours,

John

Although casinos are off-topic, John, they're not far off. Harrah's web site, for example, notes that "Harrah's New Orleans, Grand Casino Biloxi and Grand Casino Gulfport are closed indefinitely.", but

Our casinos in Bossier City, Lake Charles and Tunica have joined forces to provide emergency shelter and other relief services to the affected communities...

Harrah's Entertainment Inc. (HET.N: Quote, Profile, Research) won't decide whether to rebuild its Mississippi Gulf Coast casinos until the state decides whether or not to allow land-based construction, Chief Financial Officer Chuck Atwood said on Monday.

Harrah's, the world's largest gambling company, also said its Grand Casino Biloxi and Grand Casino Gulfport were "significantly damaged" by Hurricane Katrina, and it cannot provide estimated reopening dates for the properties....

Does anyone know of a map that shows what will flood if the River Control Structure fails?

Thank you,
Linda

DrPat, my understanding is that when it was founded, NO was about 8 ft above sea level; it's now about 8 ft below sea level, due to settling, which in turn is due to drainage of water & oil etc. from deep sublayers; it's presumably going to continue to settle, which means that even if they do divert the river, it's still going to be below sea level. Additionally, whether due to global warming or witchcraft, seasonal storms & hurricanes are predicted to occur in future more frequently & violently than in the past. I would say this would make diverting the river sort of irrelevant to say the least, wouldn't it? They're STILL going to get flooded every time it rains, no matter where the river goes, as long as they're subsealevel. Comment?

Nancy, the sublayer expansion as water comes into the basin and the river above it is only part of the subsidence-flooding issue. Another contribution to this problem comes from the lack of overbank sedimentation -- we constrain the river in its banks, for the most part, all the time, and so its sediment load is funneled out to sea.

It's also not a case of diverting the river; Old River Control is the Corps' effort to prevent the water from taking its natural course. If anything, we've been diverting the river for almost 60 years.

Finally, only some of the water that currently floods New Orleans came from the storm-dump into the immediate basin -- much of it was already there (Lake Pntchartrain) or delivered from upstream by the Mississippi. As I pointed out in the original article, this is a river that drains a sub-continent.

Ironically, if the Big Muddy had managed its desired diversion decades ago, the charming city on its (current) delta might still be pretty much intact in physical terms post-Katrina.

Linda, I was not able to find a map, but the following comes from an Army Corps of Engineers report on their reevaluation of the Atchafalaya Basin to the 1994 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill (PL 103-126), dated October 28, 1993:

The Committee is aware of the flooding, navigation, and environmental concerns that exist during high river flows in and adjacent to the lower Atchafalaya River, and recognizes that changes to that system may impact both the lower river and adjacent areas. These areas are: Morgan City and other parts of St. Mary Parish, Terrebonne, St. Martin, Ascension, Assumption, and Lafourche Parishes, LA. Because of these inter-relationships, the Committee directs the Secretary of the Army to investigate current conditions at Wax Lake Outlet, Bayou Black as well as all other features and recommend any modifications thereto which may be desirable in the interest of flood control, navigation, and the environment using available MR&T funds. [Emphasis mine.]

I finished the first section of the book The Control of Nature. What a great book, very well written and told from the viewpoints of all those affected. One interesting section was talking about the lone tugboat which acted as a picket to protect the control structure from runaway barges. Apparently if one of those barges gets caught against the inlets of the structure, it could stay there awhile until the water gets low enough that they can pull it out. Well that got me thinking - could a terrorist sabotage the Old River Control by hijacking a tugboat carrying a full load (15 or 20) barges during the spring high levels and running them against the inlets of the control structure? Sort of a 9-11 except with barges instead of airplanes. If they could get enough of them stuck, it sounds like the differential between the Mississippi and the Atchafalaya could go way above the 25 foot "safety point" and there would be a good chance the structure would fail. They would probably have plenty of time to evacuate Morgan City and everything else downstream, but the economic toll would be catastrophic. With Baton Rouge and New Orleans high and dry, Louisiana would be devastated economically. Hopefully there are some smart people in Homeland defense who have prepared for some kind of plan like this. Maybe they have more defenses now than a lone picket tug. Also, could they save the Old River Control by opening up the new Auxilliary Control all the way to keep the differential lower? One thing that is clear and somewhat comforting is that even if 99% of the public has never even heard of it, the Old River Control is probably the biggest single focus of the Army Corps of Engineers.

No one in the national media talks about or airs anything about Old River Control. Dr.Pat, your#67 says a lot. All media focus is on rebuilding NO and making the levees "stronger". One mention was made about rebuilding the barrier islands. One mention was made about subsidence from Houston to the Gulf. No one talks about the river delta, sediment deposits, and the sub-continent-draining river as an ecosystem. At least not in the national media. No one in the national media is informing the American Public about the river changing it's course -- WHY NOT???

Luschen: Yes, Old River Control is vulnerable to terrorism. However, I doubt a terrorist would target it, simply because it is an occluded system. There's no glamor in doing what Nature can do so much more effectively (as in Katrina's devastation).

And terrorists are all about drama, after all...

Lew: I suspect the Corps of Engineers has so much invested in Old River Control that they simply cannot acknowledge that they could lose their 60-year battle with the river.

They're also about to get a massive infusion of capital, based on the faulty premise that New Orleans drowned because Corps funds were cut. (They weren't cut so much as diverted.)

So this is a non-issue for the media. There's no drama in river diversion, not when there are pictures of floating corpses and refugee crowds to air. (And I apologize for the juxtaposition of "no drama" for terrorists and the media, it just arose spontaneously from the dialogue.)

When the river wins, of course, the diversion and subsequent devastation will be a big story, and there'll be lots of finger-pointing. But right now, it's a non-story.

I am wondering what the status from the rita storm is of Bayou Sorrell and Bayou Pigeon near the Atchafalaya Basin. If any one knows please blog back to me. Thanks!!

I haven't seen anything specific for the coastal waterways or for Rita impact on the Atchafalaya Basin.

Re: The "Industrial Canal" and flooding of the Ninth Ward. Is the Industrial Canal necessary for flood control or as the name implies is it a convenient shortcut to the river? Does it create an additional and/or unnecessary risk to the Ninth Ward? Everyone seems hell bent on restoration to the status quo ready for the next inevitable disister.

Lew, the Corps of Engineers calls the Industrial Canal "a vital link in the nation's inland waterway navigation system." The canal is not just a "short-cut" -- it is part of a network that connects the Mississippi, the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, and Lake Pontchartrain.

However, we all should understand that just because the Industrial Canal failed this time, it doesn't mean that the problem doesn't extend to other levee-restricted waterways in the Mississippi Basin. These canals and rivers are all elevated, constrained artificially within their banks, and present a danger of future flooding to low-lying parts of New Orleans like the Ninth Ward.

Thank you Dr.Pat. Stellar responses always! Is there any "group" getting together to plan the rebuilding and restoration that will have a comprehensive approach. One that will be inclusive of the ecology needs of the river and hurricane/flood risk mitigation. I am reasonably sure there are few organizations with the expertise of the river possessed by the US Army Corps of Engineers. They must however have political direction and funding. The question is what will that direction be? What will we leave to our children?

well written article

Well...! CNN is claiming that the decision has been made to rebuild the Ninth Ward. Does anyone believe that is a good idea? Do insurance companies want to take a bath again? Will taxpayers stand for this? Where is the big picture here and what is that picture? I apologize if I am out of line here but I see no serious national debate going on about these issues -- Nothing in the mainstream media!

There is commom sense out there...!

Time for a Tough Question: Why Rebuild? By Klaus Jacob
Tuesday, September 6, 2005; Page A25 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501034.html

Don't Refloat - The case against rebuilding the sunken city of New Orleans. By Jack Shafer http://slate.msn.com/id/2125810/

Would it not make sense to fund the project the move the massive mississippi and use the water to irrigate the dry lannds of texas and New Mexico. This way the wanter flow is in control and would help increase the water table of state of texas. This will also help with agri and recreational activites and help state of new mexico.

This article, and the comments that follow make for fantastic reading. It follows a disaster as it happens, after an intelligent analysis of the problems facing a city as the disaster threatens. New Orleans is a city that is beneath the level of the river that gave it life - the river that appears have taken that life away.

Great Websit to learn lots, you could get rid of some of the imformation up above though, say you could have maybe 10 or 12 something like that but definetly not 50 or however many you have!

many thanks
louise matthews