[StBernard] Charles 'Pete' Savoye, 83, an early, vocal opponent of MR-GO, has died

[Westley Annis]

Charles 'Pete' Savoye, 83, an early, vocal opponent of MR-GO, has died
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on December 30, 2013 at 5:33 PM, updated December 30, 2013 at 5:36 PM


When Hurricane Katrina struck on Aug. 29, 2005, and the levees failed, Mr.
Savoye's prediction came true: Water rushed into the shortcut to the Gulf of
Mexico and inundated St. Bernard Parish, including the home Mr. Savoye had
occupied for 52 years.

He moved to Covington, where he lived until his death. The waterway,
commonly known as MR-GO, was closed in 2009.

On March 28, 2009, when that process began, Mr. Savoye was in a group that
took a boat ride into the outlet to toss rocks into the water, marking the
symbolic start of a process that would lead to bigger rocks being dumped to
close the waterway.

Mr. Savoye spoke tirelessly for years to all sorts of organizations,
including the Army Corps of Engineers and the St. Bernard Parish Council,
about the potential peril that became reality in August 2005.

Because of the waterway, the chances of flooding increased tenfold, Mr.
Savoye said in a letter to the editor of The Times-Picayune in 1997: "In
1965, when Hurricane Betsy hit, it was because of the MR-GO that the 9th
Ward and parts of St. Bernard flooded," he wrote. "Before the MR-GO, we had
8,000 acres of land that was a buffer zone to help protect us from a
hurricane surge. Today, we have about 70 billion gallons of water waiting to
be pushed into our parishes that we never had before."

When Mr. Savoye made his presentations, he brought along a homemade model to
show the potential harm the MR-GO could cause. It is now part of the Katrina
exhibit in the Louisiana State Museum on New Orleans' Jackson Square.

Mr. Savoye grew up in the Lower 9th Ward, and graduated from Francis T.
Nicholls High School. He moved to Chalmette in 1953 and was a carpenter at
the Kaiser Aluminum Plant there for 29 years.

An avid outdoorsman, he was president of the St. Bernard Sportsmen's League
for 18 years and a member of the advisory committee for coastal zone
management for 16 years.

Survivors include his wife, Janice Blue Savoye; a son, Steve Savoye; three
daughters, Kathy Rougelot, Sandra Dartus-Horwitz and Shelly DiMaggio; a
sister, Marguerite "Buddie" Perkins; 10 grandchildren; and 18
great-grandchildren.

A funeral will be held Saturday (Jan. 4) at noon at St. Bernard Memorial
Funeral Home, 701 W. Virtue St., Chalmette. Visitation will start at 9 a.m.
Burial will be in St. Bernard Memorial Gardens.