[StBernard] 'Deadly funnel' of MRGO aided in parish flooding

[Westley Annis]

Last year I gave a presentation at a meeting of the St. Bernard Parish 
Council entitled "Flooding Through the Neck of the Funnel". It was 
broadcast live on the parish government channel and replayed for two 
weeks.

Ed Doody and I put the Power Point presentation together using the NOAA 
storm surge model data, complete with maps and graphics showing how 
water would pile up in the neck of the funnel formed by the hurricane 
protection levee north of the MRGO which protected St. Bernard and the 
lower Ninth Ward of N.O., and the levee south of the intracoastal 
waterway protecting N.O. East. We showed how the levees formed the 
funnel and how storm surge water would pile up at the neck of the 
funnel and then over-top the levees. We also called attention to the 
fact that these same levees had a design height of 18 feet east of the 
I-510/Paris road bridge, but only 14 feet west of the bridge. It was 
easy to understand how water would pile up at the neck of the funnel 
and then flow through the neck into the MRGO/Intracoastal channel which 
leads to the industrial canal. It was easy to understand how the storm 
surge would over-top the 14 foot levees north of Arabi and the lower 
Ninth Ward, as well as over-topping the levees south of N.O. East. The 
potential for flooding of New Orleans and St. Bernard through the 
funnel and over-topping of levees throughout the metro area had been 
well documented by the scientific community, governmental agencies, 
private agencies, academia, etc., etc.  This article is nothing new. 
It's a repeat of what has been predicted for years.

Our presentation before the council was acknowledged by our politicians 
as a problem and a concern, but that's as far as it went. WE never 
heard from anything from any  of the  residents of St. Bernard about 
the presentation or concern about the problem. I can best describe the 
lack of response as gross indifference.

Yes, I think St. Bernard, Plaquemine, and New Orleans East would have 
flooded in Katrina not just because of the loss of wetlands caused by 
the MRGO, and not just because the MRGO served to accelerate the 
buildup of tides and storm surge against the levees, but because our 
levee system was totally inadequate to protect us against even a strong 
Cat.3 storm, much less a Cat. 4.

The truth is that for many decades our congressional delegation and the 
State of Louisiana have chosen to spend Federal and State dollars to 
develop the Port of New Orleans' infrastructure on the inner harbor, 
and to dredge and maintain the MRGO so an ever decreasing number of 
deep draft ships could get to the inner harbor, instead of spending our 
tax dollars to raise and strengthen the levee system that protected our 
homes and businesses and lives. They put the Port of N.O. and the 
shipping interests ahead of our safety. There is no other way to say 
it. And on top of that "we the people" when confronted with the truth 
and the reality of what was happening with our tax dollars, and what 
could happen if a Katrina storm hit us, did nothing to stop our elected 
representatives from doing it to us. We have no one to blame but 
ourselves. Don't blame the Corps of Engineers, they just do what 
congress tells them to do. Don't blame the Port of N.O. and the 
shipping interests, they are just doing what they need to do to stay in 
business. Blame yourself and the people we have elected for decades to 
protect us.

At Senator David Vitter's town hall meeting this spring in the St. 
Bernard Parish Council Chambers, I raised my hand and asked Vitter why 
the Corps could get money to dredge the MRGO every year but they 
couldn't get money to strengthen our deteriorated levee system. His 
answer to me was that whenever he could get the MRGO closed he would 
then have the Corps redirect the money to work on our levee system. I 
guess that was a better answer than Senator Mary Landrieu's. She said 
publically after a tour of the MRGO put on for her by St. Bernard 
Parish government, that the MRGO could not be closed until the new 
Industrial Canal lock was built 20 or 30 years from now. You see where 
our safety, and the protection of our homes and businesses, and the 
protection of our wetlands stand relative to the Port of N.O. and the 
shipping interests.

My prediction now is that dredging of the MRGO to reopen it to deep 
draft navigation will begin far in advance of the rebuilding of our 
hurricane protection levee system. That's the way it has always 
happened in the past. They miracalously get millions of dollars of our 
tax money to redredge the MRGO as soon as a hurricane has silted it in. 
But they never seemed to get money to strengthen our levee system.

But it's our fault for continuing to elect representatives that don't 
really represent us.

John P. Laguens