"No one could have anticipated"

Posted by R. Neal

In July of 2004, FEMA conducted an exercise called "Hurricane Pam". You may have heard of it. It predicted the disastrous effects of a hypothetical Category 3 hurricane striking New Orleans, and was used as a model for planning FEMA's response.

Interestingly, one of the press release bullet points was "The search and rescue group developed a transportation plan for getting stranded residents out of harm's way." Another was "State resources are adequate to operate shelters for the first 3-5 days. The group planned how federal and other resources will replenish supplies at shelters."

We all know how that turned out.

The Mrs. was recently perusing the October, 2004 issue of National Geographic magazine and came across this article which predicted an even more catastrophic event, and explained some of the environmental causes:

Those inside .. watched TV "storm teams" warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.

But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however-the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.

The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level-more than eight feet below in places-so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn't-yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.

"The killer for Louisiana is a Category Three storm at 72 hours before landfall that becomes a Category Four at 48 hours and a Category Five at 24 hours-coming from the worst direction," says Joe Suhayda, a retired coastal engineer at Louisiana State University who has spent 30 years studying the coast.

The accuracy is stunning, and terrifying. The article did not, however, predict the miserable failure of FEMA's response. Thankfully, casualties were far lower than anticipated, although that's no consolation to the families of the dead. This article and the FEMA exercise also belie President Bush's assertion that no one could have anticipated the breaching of the levees.

The rest of the article explains how erosion of the Louisiana marshes and barrier islands, mostly at the hand of man, weakened New Orleans' defenses against a catastrophic hurricane. It talks about what could have been done, and what needs to be done to prevent a recurrence of the tragedy. A highly recommended read.